This is a ghost story.
This is a vampire tale.
It's all of that, none of that.
This isn't a helpful review.
If you're a Hailey Piper reader, you know you're getting brutality between the pages, albeit one infused with a poetic beauty that makes one think, the world is a shit place, but maybe not all the time. All the Hearts You Eat is no exception. Piper's longest work yet, the story is divided into five acts, each of which feel meticulously plotted and measured, designed to unravel and pull back the shadows of Cape Morning.
There is loss, acceptance, buckets of blood, and some of the most visceral, stomach-churning scenes the author has put to page to date. If you're a Piper fan, you're going to want this on day one. If not, this is a great place to start.

Dark and subversive All The Hearts You Eat is a creeping suspense outing with brilliant prose and excellent characters

All the Hearts You Eat is a horror novel about life and death and the bonds that tie people together, as dead trans girl Cabrina appears to loner Ivory and to her best friends in life Xi and Rex. Cabrina Brite washes up dead in Cape Morning, and Ivory finds her death poem lying nearby. Ivory didn't know the girl, but she seems to be haunted by her now. Meanwhile Cabrina's best friends are also dealing with the realisation that Cabrina's presence is still around, in this small town that held no space for her.

I didn't know anything about this book going in, so it was a very welcome surprise to discover that it is, if you really want to boil it down, a trans vampire book. All of the main characters are trans and the book explores who you can choose to be and who you can't, using the gothic horror of a town haunted by vampiric creatures and a mysterious island. One of the great things about this book is the complexity and messiness of the main characters, especially the complex relationships between the three teenage characters who are just reaching adulthood. The ending really highlights how this isn't a simple 'trans characters versus the world' book, but a horror novel with the space to explore different ideas about who someone is and how they might act when treated badly.

I found the book took me a while to get into, with the writing style quite obtuse at first so I couldn't quite work out what was going on. Once I settled into the book it became much more enjoyable, though still occasionally a bit confusing. As everything else about this book was so up my street, it was a shame that I found it so hard to get into at first. However, this didn't stop me really appreciating this book, from its depiction of the messiness of feelings between trans teenagers to its exploration of what it means to feel like a outsider and how that might cause you to react to promises from supernatural creatures. Piper uses horror to tackle a lot of interesting things about growing up trans in a small town, but doesn't forget to include gory and dramatic moments along the way.

Cabrina's young and deceased body is washed up ashore. She is found with a death note, but as you'd expect, the contents are quite cryptic. Folk legends abound in this book- the ocean giveth and it taketh away, it desires to be fed its certain allowance of human souls etc. Ivory, the girl who finds Cabrina and the note, finds they have more in common than suspected. They become so entwined, in fact, the spectral form of Cabrina eventually shows itself to Ivory- despite her denial that it is only happening inside of her mind, and her eyes are deceiving her. Her closest friends both experience the same apparition, and all three band together to track down the truth of Cabrina's untimely death. What makes Cape Morning so full of and fond of ghosts? That is the main question explored in this book, and it accomplishes its goal of describing spectral spirits and a lovely ocean front town.

I have no complaints, except for the fact that I wasn't quite ready to take all this on. The story, the plot, the people, the town, the spook factor- was all there. To me, though, some of the prose was too stilted and try hard. More so in the vein of King or Tolkien's wandering and meandering world building. This is not a negative, and obviously this doesn't take away from the beauty and intention of this author's attempt at a genuinely spooky novel. In that aspect, Piper no doubt delivered. Thank you so much and forever to the author and publisher for the eArc.

This one started really strong for me and then just progressively lost me the further I read until I found myself skimming whole paragraphs. I DNF’d at 47%

I thought the prose was absolutely beautiful but I wasn’t drawn in by the characters or the plot.

Hailey Piper, one of my all-time favourite authors, has come out with a new release, "All the Hearts You Eat," which has been accumulating well-deserved pre-release buzz and good reviews, which is great to see. The story starts with Ivory Sloan and a sea that wants blood. She finds death at the shores of Cape Morning. Set in New England, she’s relishing a morning ritual of getting to a stretch of beach before the intense daylight phase gets all the tourists down there and she has to retreat to a cafe until evening. Someone has died and Ivory knows she better get out of dodge before the guy who is on the shore, possibly a detective, spots her or wants to bring her in for questioning.

The next chapter goes into the point of view of the person who has been found dead, with a diary entry from a few years ago.

Ivory has a tenuous relationship with a man named Wolf, and the reader hopes it will go in a good direction while worrying about what the outcome will be.

Piper’s story has a slow build as the reader witnesses the anatomy of a life, told in bits here and there, through discovering more about Cabrina, who has turned up dead.

The novel builds with suspense as the chapters go on, with the palpable sense of dread mounting for Ivory who is trying to unravel the mystery.

A must-read for fans of Piper.

I think this book will be wonderful for people that are into the twist that occurs halfway through - but I wasn't. It wasn't a bad twist, just not my thing in books.

All the Hearts You Eat by Hailey Piper is a beautifully grotesque horror novel that expertly blends atmospheric dread with deeply emotional storytelling. Set on the eerie shores of Cape Morning, the book introduces Ivory Sloan, a trans woman whose peaceful morning swim is interrupted by the discovery of a dead body and a chilling death poem. From there, the novel spirals into a gripping tale of ghostly visitations, murder investigations, and supernatural mysteries linked to the ominous Ghost Cat Island.

The writing is decent, and the plot is interesting, but I can't get over these naming conventions. Random name generators made from data pulled from r/tragedeigh

This book was a bit confusing at times but overall a good dark gothic horror novel. There was some trans representation and a bit of spice, which I enjoyed. Some of the book could've definitely been trimmed down a bit- I felt it was too wordy at times.

A gothic horror. A vampire tell te like no other. Then behind that vampire tale is a story of heartache and love through the eyes of translation men and women.

All The Hearts You Eat
Hailey Piper
October 15, 2024

5 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Combining the picturesque with the grotesque, Hailey Piper delivers one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking horror novels I've read in a very, very long time. Atmospheric, captivating, creepy and so viscerally written ... A strong sense of dread

** Little ole' critical me (according to BookSirens, Lol) couldn't find ANYTHING to critique about this horror masterpiece. **

My only real gripe is that I wish I'd written it. 😆 The concepts, the writing, the gruesome body horror, the pacing, the way it's all formatted and put together ... I'm jealous of the raw talent that is All The Hearts You Can Eat; scary, sad, surreal, and - above all else - so SMART.

(Maybe a tad long-winded in sporadic spots, but when you're as talented a writer as Hailey, that's not necessarily a negative. This is perfection on paper.

I can't wait to recommend this book to my friends, my family, and my AgoraphoBookClub members ... as well as my mother's Barnes and Nobel bookclub - 'Hippies, Homos, and Horror Hounds'.

I'm genuinely eager for others to read and hopefully njoy it as much as I did. And I'm betting high that they will.

Bravo, Hailey. What an important voice to have in the horror-sphere.

Thanks to Netgalley, Titan, and Hailey Piper for this ARC in exchange for an optional review and my honest thoughts.
Honestly, it's my favorite book of 2024, hands down ... Not the SCARIEST, but the one that got under my skin most effectively ... and the one that I'm most eager to purchase, pass around, and read again.

Horror lovers ... don't sleep on this one. October 15th.
You won't regret it.

On the shores of Cape Morning, Ivory Sloan is out for her morning swim in the ocean when a dead body washes up and with it, Ivory finds a death poem. What makes for an already unsettling experience is exacerbated when Ivory is repeatedly visited by the woman's ghost. Ivory, along with the woman's friends, begins to dig deeper in to what really happened and how to local, mysterious island of Ghost Cat played a role.

Wow, this story is amazing. It's Hailey Piper so, of course, there is wonderful trans representation through our MC, Ivory, as well as many other characters throughout. Each character adds something special to the greater picture.

The angst is THERE right from page one with eerie, atmospheric descriptions and foreboding passages of Ivory's inner mind. There is dread and monsters and body horror and everything you could really want in a horror novel. At times, long-winded but overall a winner from Piper.

Thank you Titan Books and NetGalley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review! Available 10/15/2024.

I really enjoy horror and thriller and this did not disappoint. I enjoyed the story and the character development. I was engaged from the very beginning. The mystery and intrigue was there and I found myself staying up late to finish chapters. Thank you netgalley for the ARC of the book.

Content Warnings: Gore, Body Horror, Transphobia (Deadnaming, Denying gender affirming care, Physical assault), Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Body dysmorphia,

For the sex averse, there are several sexual encounters / mentions of sexual encounters which are mildly graphic in sexual detail but sometimes highly graphic in gory detail. They are not always telegraphed and usually not skippable, but they are skimmable.

Hailey Piper is an author whose name I have read frequently but whose work I, sadly, had never had a chance to read prior to this novel. I had no real expectations; I was still blown away. All the Hearts You Eat is pretty much everything I love about horror. It's simultaneously beautiful and ugly, heart-wrenching and affirming, sensuously inviting and repellent. I loved its take on vampires and vampirism and how it remixed and reimagined some of the defining vampiric traits. I loved how it captured small-town-folklore-spooky vibes alongside larger-societal horrors.

The core of this book, though, is its trans cast. I can say with no hesitation that I loved them all, for different reasons. Cabrina, who comes to us physically after death but also mentally and spiritually through her diary, is the driving force for everyone else, and she stands up to that throughout the book. Ivory, who like us readers travels down the mystery of Cabina's death and the supernatural mysteries that occur alongside it, is the perfect foil / mirror-narrative. Xi and Rex, Cabrina's best friends, take readers back and forth between the two, and their stories are equally compelling. Having a majority trans cast and allowing each of them to be unique, though connected, and seeing how each reacted to the events of the story was great.

My rating of 4 stars is due to some personal tastes. For me, there were sections of the novel that could have been trimmed out due to improve the pacing. Some build up scenes felt repetitive, even if the prose itself or the scenes themselves were okay individually. I also always dislike when romantic / sexual love is given more weight than any other form of love/intimacy (self, familial, friend), but that's a personal peeve as an aroace, not really a problem with the book itself.

All that said, this is a fantastic book that I enjoyed tremendously. I will definitely be recommending it to all my horror loving buddies. Though this is my introduction to Piper's work, I can't wait to read more of her writing.

This was not for me.

I appreciated the representation but it was too long and wordy. At times it was confusing.

This is Hailey Piper at her best. Fans of her work will recognize this as the culmination of the skills displayed in her previous works. There’s body horror, incredible monsters, and so much emotion on every page. I love how she writes. (This is devolving into a pro-Hailey rant. Oops.) This one has some mystery, lots of fantasy and lore, skillful use of a diary and multiple POVs, and a conversation with great literature; and it all feels so unique and so full of both rage and love. It instantly became one of my favorite books. Wouldn’t be surprised if this won the Stoker.

I so wanted to love this book. It's a big one, coming in at 447 pages and at times it felt way too long to me. This book has a lot going on between the pages and the central mystery is what really happened to Cabrina Brite.

I found this book to be raw, dark, intense, and deep. This book explores identity, the trans experience, love, friendship, secrets, family, acceptance, things that haunt you, pain, and vampires.

As this is a horror book, there is a fair amount of gore and violent moments. The vampires in this book are not your typical literary vampires and I applaud the author's unique and original take. I did find this book to be beautifully written and well thought out.

Others are enjoying this book more than I did, so please read their reviews as well.

Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖

This is a viscerally grotesque, twisted, and disturbingly heart breaking novel about identity and some of the most terrifying "vampires" you'll ever read about.

Unapologetically queer and deliciously disgusting, this story follows Ivory who happens to be on the beach one morning when the body of a teenage girl is discovered.

Something will follow her home that day. Something hungry and full of malice. But what starts as a haunting soon turns to something much more horrific. And just when you think you know what's going on, you absolutely don't.

This is as much about love as it is the creatures. And love can be selfish and cruel and cut you deep at times. The themes of identity and isolation, feeling as if you don't belong, are dealt with throughout this book but the crushing terrifying narrative begs you to keep reading until the horrible truth is laid bare.

This one is frightening, amazing, and is un-put-down-able. I highly recommend it.

I received this book from the publisher this morning and just finished. That’s how good it is; I could not put it down! This is a must-read for horror fans, especially if you’re looking for something unique. I also appreciated the trans representation done with care and compassion. This is going to be a book with tons of buzz. Thanks for the opportunity to read in advance!