All The Hearts You Eat by Hailey Piper
I would like to thank Titan for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Titan
Published - Out Now
Price - £9.99 paperback £5.03 ebook
What really happened to Cabrina Brite?
Ivory's life changes irrevocably when she discovers the body of Cabrina Brite on the sands of Cape Morning, along with a mysterious poem. How did she die, and why does it seem she was trying to swim to Ghost Cat Island, the center of so many local mysteries?
Desperate to uncover the answers surrounding Cabrina's death, and haunted by her discovery, Ivory begins to see the pale ghost of Cabrina, only to shake it off as a mere hallucination. But Ivory is not alone. Cabrina's closest friends have also seen a similar apparition, and as they toy with occult possibilities, they begin to unravel the truth behind Cabrina's death.
Because Cape Morning isn't a ghost town, but a town filled with ghosts, and Ivory is about to discover just what happens when you let one in.
Horror like any good demon contains multitudes. No one wants to be in a horror story but if you do you really want to know which type you’re in as that may help you survive it. Avoid full moons, grab the half or aim for the head? There is something of expectations also in a horror story you don’t go straight to the climatic reveals you slowly build up. We pick up clues but also those clues are often down to our own biases. Hailey Piper’s brilliant novel All The Hearts You Eat is a powerful story in dialogue with horror but plays with our expectations and ultimately for me was a story of the choices that define us.
On the Atlantic coast in the small seaside town of Cape Morning Ivory Sloan is swimming and witnessed the discovery of a body washed on the shore. She also finds on the beach what appears to be a poem about death. She finds out that this was Cabrina Brite a young teenager from the town and Ivory finds a connection when she discovers that like herself Cabrina was trans. Ivory feels there is more to Cabrina’s death than meets the eye she discovers the way her parents refused to accept her but also discovers a strange link to the rocky island known as Ghost Cat Island that sits in the bay. Powerful forces are at work, Cabrina’s friends and Ivory appear haunted by her spirit but even greater dangers are in wait.
I loved this story which in many ways is in dialogue with many types of horror stories but all serving a clear purpose to help us explore the really interesting characters we meet. Initially we appear in this strange haunting town aptly punned Cape Morning to be in a ghost story. There is a sense of tragedy that a young life is wasted yet again due to intolerance: we meet Cabrina’s friends themselves trans all lost in grief, Ivory feels a connection through her own life and we witness the cruelty of parents who refuse to ever accept their daughter and instead even deadname her grave and wave off anything they didn’t wish to hear. Piper though has decided to challenge us and this story is not another tale of a LGBT character simply becoming the victim that others must help to rest and expose intolerance.
They key is so many ways is Ivory initially we think she is going to be the typical investigator like main character of a ghost story. Clearly Ivory feels a connection and we think a sense of justice to be done will be done. But Piper also hints Ivory isn’t quite the ‘creature of life’ that her tattoo says. She is in a toxic relationship that feels more about power than love. She is hiding some past trauma herself so when Ivory investigates she finds as so we that Cape Morning is a lot more stranger than we realise.
The ghost story we thought we were in morphs very cleverly into a mix of finding out that there are other worlds than these with a reveal of a dimension that feels both dreamy and nightmarish cosmic horror that can offer Ivory something she is always after and that within it is a very unusual creature that locks onto Ivory whom she will nickname Honey. I’m not going to spoil too much here as what happens is well worth you experiencing vividly and hourly but Ivory becomes less the investigator and more the catalyst for a lot of death and chaos. Piper here creates a fascinating mix of a familiar monster and yet something very much its own that is smart, dangerous and very hard to stop. Ivory’s relationship with that becomes a lot more complex and our feelings about her will change as we see her actions. Piper makes these sections always powerfully dreamy a collision of our world and something darkly magical than transforms people’s lives but brings huge danger and death to.
What I then appreciated is that the story never forgets Cabrina she is quite central to the story throughout. Two other key characters to the story are her friends and we find her lovers Xi and Rex. Their grief and their love for Cabrina comes across and through that Cabrina becomes a lot more than tragic potential suicide victim - we see her laugh, joke, start to fall in love and also her faults as a person. Cabrina was alive, a teenager figuring her life out and even Ivory hasn’t quite grasped that. As the story turns into its bigger plot Rex and Xi come to the fore challenging what is going on (aided by much classic media!) and I think it’s really notable that it’s the new generation who have to sort things out. Even Ivory carries too much of her rage and own trauma to see the bigger picture. Compassion and love perhaps are much more powerful forces but Piper makes the excellent climax of the story feel uncertain all the way.
All The Hearts You Eat is a beautiful dark horror story that lulls us into thinking we are into a mournful ghost tale and instead is something angrier, bloodier and more powerful very much a modern horror story tackling subjective sensitively but also challenging some pre-conceptions about the role of LGBT characters particularly just as victims - her we have four trans characters all in a variety of roles. It’s refreshing, thought-provoking sensual and bloody and it’s excellent horror. Strongly recommended!
