Milk Blood Heat is a powerful and exquisitely written short story collection exploring themes of loss, family, and connectivity. I love that each of these stories, while unique, has a common thread in both the setting and mood of the story. The glimpses into suburban Florida life and the Black experience will leave you wanting more in the best possible way.
The characters are all raw, unfiltered, messy, and compelling and the looks into their lives will give you plenty to think about. Moniz is definitely an author to watch.
Many thanks to Grove Press and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I am not traditionally a fan of short stories, however this collection was amazing. I became quickly attached to the characters and eager to see where their journey would take them. These stories left me with all the feels, particularly some of the more uncomfortable ones.

Trigger Warning: rape, sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, suicide, mental health.

Milk Blood Heat
Dantiel Moniz
Publication date 2/2/21

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a collection of short stories... some tugged very deeply at my heart strings. These stories deal with death, love, loss, forgiveness in a very intimate fashion. Some of the stories were not easy to read- at times I put the book down and came back later. I liked that they had different themes and were easily relatable and compelling. I will be looking forward to see what comes next for Dantiel!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an early edition of Milk Blood Heat for my honest review.

Review posted on my Instagram blog and Goodreads.

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4.5*

Now let me caution you all, I normally hate short story collections. I usually despise them because they’re all over the place / covering too many different themes. But this book? Oh no, it is an exception! Moniz covers consistent themes of grief, loss, love, and growing up. All of the stories feel very interconnected, and I adored how easy it was to flow from story to story.

This short story collection is a breath of fresh air. Moniz’s commentary on childhood (girlhood specifically) and parenthood (motherhood specifically) is exceptional and feels real. I did not grow up in Florida, but Moniz paints the picture of what it is like to grow up in the midst of Floridian life that I found myself lost in the stories.

I was captivated the entire time, wanting to turn from page to page without stopping. A lot of these stories are very dark and gruesome but I found myself entranced with the writing style, metaphors, and with the life like characters themselves.

Notable stories: Milk Blood Heat, The Hearts of Our Enemies, Necessary Bodies, and An Almanac of Bones

I also want to note that one of the best aspects of this collection is that we get a Black narrative without it being centered around race relations. We get to see the inner workings of what it looks like to grow up Black without any shadow of whiteness (which is just how literature should be). Not that I don’t love the discussion of racism in literature etc; but it’s just very nice to just have a Black story be a Black story without it having to educate.

* thank you to NetGalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

I feel like I need to read more short stories, cause this was a great read, albeit very dark.
This book opens with a bang, basically literally, and it shocked me.
All these stories did really.
It’s poetic and lyrical and somehow manages to make a lot of darkness seem beautiful.
This is a very intimate portrait into the lives of people that are questioning life and what it means, what it gives, what it takes, what is truly valuable.
We meet them when their lives are shifting in some way.
They pack a punch in a short time.
One thing I usually don’t like about short stories is I’m left wanting so much more. I was left wanting more from these people and wanting to get even deeper into their minds, but for reason, that was a big part of my enjoyment. That I didn’t get everything and they didn’t have neat endings tied with a bow.
I also didn’t realize this was a debut! Very promising!

I received a copy of the book from Netgalley to review. Thank you for the opportunity.
A raw and evocative collection of stories. No details are spared and the writing delves deep below the surface. The author doesn't shy away from dark topics.
Some of the stories were too dark for me and I didn't enjoy them as much as being morbidly fascinated and drawn in by them.
On the whole, an interesting book but not for the faint hearted.

📖 A beautiful collection of short stories set in the incredibly literary state of florida. A loving tribute to grief, love, and life in such a weird place.
💬 “that this was how it all felt—like someone else had made a wish and sunk a penny down into the deep of her.”
👍I’m going to go ahead and call it, this will probably make my top 10 of the year. The prose is so beautiful I really don’t even have the words to describe it. The first story grabbed me and I read that one alone three times before continuing with the rest of the collection. I really can’t understate the poetry in Moniz’s writing. I would honestly be surprised if I didn’t have at least one highlight on every other page of my kindle copy. The characters feel so wonderfully real and their stories are breath taking.
👎It’s hard to find any criticism of a book I was so enraptured by. There is one story, Exotics, that didn’t seem to fit in with the rest. But even then, it was a fascinating story and it was great to see Moniz play around with a different style.
——————
THE VERDICT
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📚For fans of Florida by Lauren Groff, Lot by Bryan Washington, and Look How Happy I’m Making You by Polly Rosenwaike

Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I predict that this short story collection is going to be all over when it publishes. While short, Milk Blood Heat packs a punch in its examination of femininity against the backdrop of sultry Florida. As with many short story collections, some of the stories felt stronger than others. One of my particular favorites was the title story, in which two teenage girls make a blood pact and bond over the darkness that haunts them both. "Feast," chronicling a woman's pain as she recovers from a miscarriage broke my heart every which way, and was one of those stories that I think will haunt me for a while. In "The Hearts of Our Enemies," a mother finds a note that leads her to piece together the inappropriate attention her daughter is receiving and find a way to protect her.

In addition to women and the relationships that bind them, many of these stories explore what it means to be a woman of color. "Thicker Than Water," finds a woman grappling with the complicated memory of her father, as well as her brother's new white girlfriend, as they all drive to spread the father's ashes in the Southwest. The very short "Exotics," shows the class differences between the BIPOC waitstaff and the white, wealthy members at a private club focused on eating (very) strange meats.

This is a strong debut collection and I look forward to seeing what else Moniz writes in the future. She is definitely one to watch.

TW: miscarriage; almost-drowing; child abuse; cannibalism (?); drug and alcohol use; child abandonment; in

An extremely raw group of stories that helped me enjoy reading short stories more than usual. The author crafted some of the most exquisite stories that I have ever read. The highlights for me are in the beginning of the collection. As with any group of stories, there are some that resonate deeply while others do not in the same way. I look forward to returning to this collection in the future and discovering more from this author. Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for the opportunity to read and review this captivating group of stories.

This collection of short stories was exquisite. Each story was captivating in its own way. The characters feel real with real-life problems that will be relatable to any reader. I couldn't put this book down, before I knew it, I had finished it in one sitting. I would certainly recommend this book to others.

In her new short story collection, “Milk Blood Heat,” author Dantiel W. Moniz takes digs into themes readers can relate to: friendship, angsty teens, grief, intimacy, betrayal, faith, rebellion, and more. Each story offers different takes on The common denominator is that each character experiences the light and dark, but do so by living in the heat of the Sunshine State.

Moniz is a wonderful storyteller. I was particularly drawn to the first coming-of-age story about two young teens who become blood sisters, and have an odd fascination with death. The essay ends fairly abruptly, but I actually found that exciting. (Sometimes brevity is our friend!) And speaking of, I loved how Moniz structures her sentences. I found her writing exquisite.

I read the ebook while listening to the audiobook, narrated by the lovely Machelle Williams.

Special thanks to both Grove Atlantic and HighBridge Audio for an advanced reader’s ebook and audiobook of “Milk Blood Heat,” via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

"Milk Blood Heat" is a series of short stories by Dantiel W. Moniz. The themes of the story range from parenting and terminal illness to being an adolescent in complicated relationships and questionable marriages. I really liked how the composition of the characters changed in each story and how well the author wrote from the perspective of this range of characters. I sometimes find that with short stories that the endings are abrupt and leave me feeling dissatisfied, but the endings of each of these stories left me in deep thought about what I just read and did not make me feel like the stories were incomplete. This is a really solid fiction read.

MILK BLOOD HEAT is an exciting debut from Dantiel W. Moniz. It is a collection of short stories taking place in Florida. Many of them focus on the relationships within families, especially between mothers and daughters. Themes covered include infidelity, pregnancy, complicated grief, and death. I particularly enjoyed the story about the relationship between a mother and her daughter after the mother is caught having an affair and the daughter having an attachment to a teacher, and the resolution. One of the final stories about two siblings traveling with their father's ashes across country was particularly moving as they try to deal with their own estranged relationship and their father's role in their lives. As with any short story collection, there are some that are more engaging than others, but overall, an interesting debut collection and I will be on the lookout for future work of Moniz.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with an advance reader copy for review.

I love this collection of essays. It covers a wide range of topics all fascinating. The prose is almost lyrical. I highly recommend this collection.

Dantiel W. Moniz has entered the building!  This collection of short stories is a mind blowing debut.  I was sent a proof copy from Grove Press via NetGalley and I'm so grateful because I devoured it.

These stories cover so many themes, relationships, death, race, feminism, religion, love, grief, mental health and so much more beyond.  All captured using the most beautiful language. 

I'm a lover of short stories, I love how they give a snapshot in time, a brief moment in someones life.  These stories did so much more though, while remaining short they contained so much depth, it was easy to imagine more of the characters lives and create stories of your own.  Despite some of the difficult topics covered there was a real tenderness to them all.

I enjoyed this so much I will be ordering a physical copy when it is released here in the UK, I'm excited to follow Dantiel's career as an author.

TW - depression, child suicide, babyloss, PTSD, Violence, abandonment, terminal illness, teacher/pupil relationships, drowning, drug use.

Here I am...once again...reading another new collection of stories. There’s blood drinking, snail stealing, strangers pouring holy water on each other in bathrooms. Complicated relationships both new and old are expressed so clearly and beautifully in so few words - basically, they’re great short stories! I thought the stories about growing up were especially good (“Milk Blood Heat,” “Tongues,” “Outside the Raft,” and “An Almanac of Bones”), but my number one story was "The Loss of Heaven," which I think I'll be thinking about for quite a while.

This is a lovely collection of 11 short stories focusing on young women in Florida. Moniz is able to capture emotion in a sentence- so much so that one of the stories is but a few pages long. The themes of love, loss, forgiveness, and forgetting are universal but here are used at the crossroads in the lives of the characters. This is one to put on the night table to dip in and out of. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A wonderful debut that short story fans should grab up.

4.25 stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed this debut short story collection! On a sentence-by-sentence level, Dantiel Moniz has a lot of sheer talent and I often found myself in awe of the visceral imagery presented here. I also found Moniz has a great grasp of the short story form and its limitations for storytelling, as the stories here felt fully realized, yet temporary in their scope. I would say most of the stories here worked well for me, but my true favorites were "Necessary Bodies," in which a young woman contemplates the greater meaning of being a mother upon learning she is pregnant (one of the best short stories I have read in quite a while, perhaps even on par with my all-time fave, "A Temporary Matter" by Jhumpa Lahiri); "The Hearts of Our Enemies," in which a mother learns of a developing fraught relationship her teenage daughter has with a much older man, and "Feast," in which a woman grapples with the deep depression she is experiencing upon having a miscarriage. As you can see from my favorites, I found the ways woman's bodies, menstruation, and reproduction got discussed in these stories to be particularly gripping, although I think Moniz captures intimate relationships (sexual or not) also quite well. All in all, if short stories are your thing, I would definitely recommend checking this collection out!

Thank you to the author and Grove Atlantic for providing me with a free e-copy of this work through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Milk Blood Heat is out on February 2.

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Minoz was a gritty, raw, literary look into the lives of various characters enriched by the atmosphere of Florida. The opening short story of the collection followed the relationship between two young girls who take a blood oath and culminates in a tragedy. This story was very difficult for me to read, but I praise Moniz’s writing as sharp and fresh.

MILK BLOOD HEAT by Dantiel Moniz

Full disclosure: normally I’m not a big fan of story collections. But once I read praise for MILK BLOOD HEAT from the likes of Lauren Groff combined with the fact that all the stories were set in my home state of Florida (many, in fact where I live in Jacksonville), I was sold.

And I’m so glad I was, because no matter where the setting of this book it is GORGEOUS.

In this debut from writer Dantiel Moniz, the reader is dropped into lives of characters in the story as they are in the middle of important moments. Each story feels a little like literally falling from the sky and being a fly on the wall as each character faces things like depression, tragedy, family dysfunction, religion, reckoning and more. It’s so intimate that sometimes it feels like we almost shouldn’t be there, witnessing their pain, their discovery, their very personal moments.

The stories are raw, real, uplifting, redeeming and fascinating. The writing is exquisite.

The stories range from a friendship between two 13-year-olds, one white and one black that takes a turn with unexpected tragedy; a woman reeling between reality/hallucination following a miscarriage; a young girl questions her family’s faith and maybe my favorite story - two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face past issues.

The common link between the stories is Florida, which to me almost serves as a background character. Maybe I’m biased but one of the best parts of the book for me were the very accurate portrayals of the Sunshine State, in all its beauty and quirkiness.

Thank so much to #NetGalley for the privilege of reading a preview of this beautiful book.