Delicious

 By: Liselle Sambury  

Location: FIC SAM

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Paranormal

The Haunting of Hill House meets Sadie in this evocative and mind-bending psychological thriller following two teen girls navigating the treacherous past of a mysterious mansion ten years apart.

Daisy sees dead people—something impossible to forget in bustling, ghost-packed Toronto. She usually manages to deal with her unwanted ability, but she’s completely unprepared to be dumped by her boyfriend. So when her mother inherits a secluded mansion in northern Ontario where she spent her childhood summers, Daisy jumps at the chance to escape. But the house is nothing like Daisy expects, and she begins to realize that her experience with the supernatural might be no match for her mother’s secrets, nor what lurks within these walls…

A decade later, Brittney is desperate to get out from under the thumb of her abusive mother, a bestselling author who claims her stay at “Miracle Mansion” allowed her to see the error of her ways. But Brittney knows that’s nothing but a sham. She decides the new season of her popular Haunted web series will uncover what happened to a young Black girl in the mansion ten years prior and finally expose her mother’s lies. But as she gets more wrapped up in the investigation, she’ll have to decide: if she can only bring one story to light, which one matters most—Daisy’s or her own?

As Brittney investigates the mansion in the present, Daisy’s story runs parallel in the past, both timelines propelling the girls to face the most dangerous monsters of all: those that hide in plain sight.

Here are the content warnings directly from the author: childhood sexual assault (off page, some details discussed), childhood physical abuse (corporal punishment, off page, described), childhood physical abuse (confinement punishment), childhood neglect, gaslighting, grooming, suicide (off page, mention), killing of a goat (off page, described), discussions of fatphobia, body horror/gore, violence, death

Review by Britanny

Omg this book is SO GOOD! A haunted house with a dark past, a forgotten Black girl, toxic parents, dark secrets, cycles of trauma, and a girl who sees the dead blend together in Delicious Monsters.

Listen, I'm internet friends with the author and I'm sure I went in with added goodwill, so feel free to take my review with a grain of salt. But I'm genuinely floored at how smart, well-crafted, and creepy this upper-YA horror novel is. Liselle goes hard with the body horror, and weaves together a narrative with so many layers to unpack. This is easily the best thing I've read this month.

Daisy can see the dead and is getting out of a toxic relationship. She moves with her controlling mom to a mysterious estate in rural Canada with a dark past and a dangerous present. 10 years later, Brittany is trying to succeed apart from her abusive mother, creating a show about haunted houses. This season, she's investigating a forgotten Black girl connected to the very same house and is determined to uncover the truth of what happened there.

I think having Brittany's story as a framing device is very effective and what she's going through dovetails with some of the themes present in Daisy's narrative. Delicious Monsters does my favorite thing in the horror genre- using supernatural horror elements as a way of talking about real life horror. And this is not a light book by any means. It tackles abuse, neglect, racism, sexual assault, grooming, PTSD, gaslighting, and how cycles of abuse are perpetuated. It can be intense to read at times, but it's handled thoughtfully and isn't gratuitous in depicting certain kinds of violence. (though there is graphic body horror!) And what's so great is that while a character might not always see abuse for what it is, the reader can. And the character will eventually get there too.

One note I want to make about the narrative choices here: I suspect some reviewers will say that a certain"twist" is too obvious and use that as a reason to be negative. I would argue that thing actually isn't intended to be a twist at all and is supposed to be very clear to the reader from early on, even if it isn't to the characters. While there ARE twists in the book that I think are really well done, this particular thing (if you've read it, you should know what I mean) is instead creating tension, hanging ominously over the entire narrative. And if a character takes awhile to put it together, I think it's because they are still in denial about their OWN trauma and are unable to see things for what they are until they are willing to confront the truth. I think that was such a smart way to execute a story like this and focus on character growth without using trauma for cheap shock value. I have a lot of respect for how this book was crafted.

So clearly I'm a fan. The creepy vibes and atmosphere are on point, the character work is excellent, and the narrative structure works. Highly recommend, though this obviously comes with plenty of content warnings. I'll add to the things mentioned above violence to animals (off page), bugs, and carnivorous birds. I received a copy of this book for review as part of a unpaid book tour, all opinions are my own.