“Love, for me, was an endless cycle of rebirth and death; each man phoenix rising from the ashes of the last…”

Satara knows that her husband is cheating on her with her best friend, Lilah, and she’s decided she’s going to dispose of him… like so many of the others she’s removed from her life before. How has Satara fallen this far? Will they find out her secrets?

What a masterpiece as a debut novel. For those of you like me who thoroughly enjoy unhinged weird girl lit, please add this to your list of must-reads. This novel has the moments of shock factor and gore that we love in horror. But it also felt like a thriller as we wonder along with our main character whether she’ll be caught for what she’s done - and wow, the twists twisted in this plot!

Satara as a main character is beautifully complicated and interesting - a dramatic embodiment of extreme jealousy, insecurity, and someone who honestly wants the quick fix on the road to being happy. She’s in love with this perfect ideal of what life and marriage should be - and how she ends up dealing with it isn’t just about killing someone - it’s about that hunger and need to get to where she wants, which in the 1970s was not an easy journey for a female of color.

I thought this was really well done and I look forward to seeing more novels by Mia Ballard! Thank you NetGalley and Galaxy Press for the advanced reader copy!

I recently had the pleasure of receiving an ARC copy of "Sugar" which has truly left me in awe. Satara Stratton is a character that I instantly connected with - a revenge killer who I found to be incredibly lovable and relatable. The author's writing style is so rich and detailed, almost like poetry in prose. I found myself completely engrossed, so much so that I ended up highlighting about 70% of the book. This thrilling ride had me experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions - from chills to moments of sheer excitement. I've already been raving about it to all my friends and I can't wait to add it to my collection. The cover art is also absolutely stunning, adding to the overall appeal of the book. Trust me, this is a must-read!

Sugar is a 1970s acid soaked fever dream about love, death and deceit. We follow Satara who uncovered an illicit affair her husband Dean was having with her best friend Lilah. Satara is no stranger to disposing of men’s bodies once she’d done with them, but having Lilah on her case itching to expose her, Satara must surpass others to keep her secrets safe. Searching for meaning in the leftover pieces of her life she seeks help from a Love Witch. With her newfound powers at play she’s working on manipulating those around her for her own personal gain. She quickly learns that sometimes her heart doesn’t always get its way.

Sugar is a dark dreamy tale of what happens when feminine rage calls the shots, when women let their most primal urges bubble to the surface. With immersive writing that showcases how trauma and abuse shape the way we love. Full of horrific twists and turns ensuring you that you’ll never guess what will happen next.

This book packs a punch! It has so many moving pieces to it that at times, it does seem a bit much. The timeline and jumps were unclear at first and really took me out of the story in places. Satara’s demeanor in some of her flashbacks bewildered me a bit. The penultimate chapters reveal proved to be a bit problematic to me. But that ending drew me back in, in such an electrifying way! I’m interested to read more by Ballard and hope she continues working on projects like these.

I would recommend this book to readers who loved Gone Girl, Maeve Fly, Go Ask Alice and Girl Interrupted. Thank you to Netgalley, Galaxy Press and Mia Ballard for the arc!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an e-arc of this book. Wow! That was a pretty wild ride! Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned indeed! We follow Sata throughout her life as she struggles to find love, but ends up finding a love for killing the men who scorn her. You almost feel for the main character at times but quickly snap back to reality, noting her depravity. The twists at the end were really awesome, and I wasn't expecting them! It's definitely a great book to pick up for spooky season!

This one is tricky to review, there were some things I loved and some things I disliked. At the start it was a little slow to find its voice but eventually the story of Satara was a compulsive and wildly entertaining read. The ending felt a little rushed and I'm not sure that it needed to be so complicated. Overall though, I enjoyed the novel.

✨ I have a huge love for “unhinged” characters, so when I read the blurb of Sugar by Mia Ballard, I knew this was going to be one of my new favourite reads.

This is feminine rage in its finest. A story about empowerment, love, friendship, revenge, rage, witchcraft and murder.

I honestly loved this so much, I finished it in a few hours. I loved Satara, I truly loved her in her beautiful SK glory.

5⭐️ I love love psycho female revenge stories! This is for fans of Maeve Fly! Also this cover?!?! Come on it’s perfect

I was so into this story! It’s a mixture of horror and thriller I think. There was one scene that was downright insane (in the car with her teeth, if you know you know 😅). But there was a massive plot twist that I legit didn’t see coming one bit. At first I wasn’t sure if I liked it, but the very end of this book was so satisfying

Pick this up when it comes out!!!

OH MY DAYS!! The delusion, the revenge, the rage ... it's giving Pearl? A little American Psycho? I tore through this book in one evening, it was that engrossing. The twists! *chefs kiss* Thank you to Galaxy Press & NetGalley for the ARC. Give this a read when in publishes October 29, 2024!

If you love a unhinged FMC and beautiful poem-esk writing with a crazy story and plot you will devour this book! I could not put it down I rated 4.75⭐️ due to the ending being a bit outlandish but still shocked the hell out of me lol!! Such a great read !!!

I want to scream from the rooftops about this book. The best way I can describe it is if Roxane Gay wrote American Psycho.
So deeply, deeply, satisfying and compelling.
The novel opens with Satara discovering her husband and best friend have been having an affair. She does what any unhinged, drug-adled, scorned, FMC would do and brutally murders him and buries his body in the backyard under the lemon tree.
From there Satara’s life begins unraveling and as we learn more about her past, we also watch her desperate scramble to keep out of the hands of the law.
A perfect blend of horror & thriller and deserve shelf space right next to Boy Parts, Ripe, Natural Beauty and The Eyes Are The Best Part.

I’ve been seeing this everywhere. I’m obsessed with the cover and I will never not eat up some female rage. Gorgeous.

This tale about an unhinged female and her rage against the men who have wronged her made for a wild ride! And that twist at the end?!? Wow!

Delule woman AND revenge (with a hint of gay)? I'M IN LOVE. And it didn't dissapoint!
I thoroughly enjoyed every fucked up second I spend living in Satara's brain for a few days.
The plot...wasn't my favourite. But it ended with a banger, so I can't complain.
God, I love women.

Wow, what a fun, wild ride. I am generally a fan of books featuring psychopathic women like Satara, quite frankly, their stories are chaotic and fun. Sugar was exciting from the beginning and while I'm not normally fan of flashbacks in books, I found these to be interesting to Satara's story.

This book was wild.
To begin I loved the format it was written- the time jumping a bit. It wasn't enough to be jarring and each flashback chapter felt very relevant.
This book is like if a certain hunger met the love witch. It's dark and beguiling and you can't help but have a slight tinge of sympathy for our FMC Satara.
Sugar is dripping with feminine rage as we follow Satara on her acid fuelled, deranged quest for love and fulfillment. Fans of Layne Fargo's They Never Learn will also enjoy this book on it takes on a similar tone of female contempt for the male species.
I can honestly say that I could never quite anticipate what Satara was going to do next.
Perfect spooky season read!

Really great book in the “feminine rage” subgenre of horror. The main character was one of those characters that you hate to love.

3.5 / 5!
Satara has had enough. Her best friend having an affair with her husband of six years? No thanks. He'll learn the hard way that he crossed the wrong woman. Doesn't really matter, because he wouldn't be her first...

First of all: have you seen the book's cover? Amazing!
Second of all: who doesn't love a book about a woman who's had enough of men having their way with her and taking matters into her own hands? If you want a book about female rage and unhinged women, this is the book for you. Because Satara is exactly that. Full of rage and completely unhinged in her doing, emotions, and thoughts.

I have to say that I was a bit frustrated with Satara from time to time because lots of things she did are not rational enough for me. I caught myself shaking my head in disbelief and even sighing out loud why Satara did some of the things she did. BUT in hindsight: it all made sense. I didn't think it would, but it actually did.

There's a grand finale in the book and I definitely dig the epilogue, but I don't think the story would've suffered if the revelation would've been.. maybe 5 pages longer? Or less detailed in some points and some meek side characters, but emotionally more damaging for the reader (trying to keep this as spoiler-free as possible).
I feel like the book took a lot of time to really form Satara and her character but then just ends with no time or room for really feeling the ending.

So, all in all: Loved the rage, loved the 70's feel to it, was sometimes frustrated with Satara, felt a bit distanced to the grand finale, LOVED LOVED LOVED the twist.

The cover is what interested me it was a book with a lot of twists and turns the cover definitely is going to get a lot of attention from people looking for a book it really stood out

I Can see the similarity to the movie the love witch but this got a bit silly for me towards the end. It frittata too unbelievable

If I'm being 100% honest, I requested to review Mia Ballard's debut novel, Sugar, for one reason - its stunning cover. I went into the book blind, not even really knowing what genre I was diving into, but that only enhanced the immersiveness of my reading experience.

From the first page, Ballard's prose hit me like a flash-bang. That is, a dark, twisted, sophisticated, and savvy flash-bang. I could also use these words to describe the novel's overall plot, as well as Satara's characterization, which were both incredibly well-developed. I love the female rage that Satara represented, and having the novel be from her perspective puts the reader at odds with their own morality. We know that her actions are wrong, but I found myself almost rooting for her character despite what she's done. I personally loved the decision to experience the events of the novel through Satara's tinted lens, because it made her character, actions, and the ending so much more complex.

Speaking of the ending, I was floored when I came upon *that* twist. I wasn't expecting anything of the sort, which says a lot considering this is a book where numerous murders and morally questionable acts are the norm. Sugar is definitely a book that will be on my mind for quite some time.

Thank you to the publisher via NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of Sugar by Mia Ballard to review. All thoughts are my own and are not influenced by any third party. #Sugar #NetGalley #MiaBallard