Just in time for dark, chilly winter nights, Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta’s Feast While You Can (Grand Central Publishing 2024) is one of my top reads of 2024 and has quickly become one of my most-recommended queer horror novels!
Marketed as perfect for fans of novels like Nightbitch, Feast While You Can is a novel of queer love and a haunting in a small town. In Cadenze, which sits in a valley isolated by three mountains, Angelina Sicco spends her days working at the local bar and watching for queer tourists passing through town. From a long line of family members born and raised in Cadenze, Angelina loves her hometown, despite its lack of queer residents and its sleepy seasons when the tourists are gone.
On the night of a family party, Angelina’s brother Patrick brings his ex back into town. Jagvi has always fascinated Angelina, with her aloof judgement of everything about Cadenze—Angelina included. But the night Jagvi arrives, Angelina awakens something ancient in the caves near Cadenze, and suddenly nothing about Angelina, the town, or its secrets can stay contained for long. As the thing possessing Angelina comes closer and closer to the surface—walking with her body, talking through her dog, eating her memories—the stakes get higher. Somehow, only Jagvi’s touch repels the creature, and the two women grow closer, giving into the tension that has been broiling under the surface for years. But the monster feeds on joy, passion, and heartbreak, and Angelina’s desire for Jagvi is a feast of emotions, forcing Angelina to make a choice about how far she will go to save herself.
I read this book on a recommendation from a friend immediately after it came out—with almost no idea what it was really about other than that it was queer horror (a favourite genre!). I was more than pleasantly surprised at how sharp, clever, and well-written the novel was, with excellent suspense, pacing, and drama. The horror elements, just as much as the romance, were thrilling. Angelina and Jagvi’s desire for one another was sexy and believable, and the horror plot—which also reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s It—was disturbing enough to keep me compulsively reading.
I finished Feast While You Can in a day because the plot was truly propulsive. My favourite horror novels are also the books that prioritize poetic writing. The language in this novel is immersive and paints a clear picture of a town that is just as much a character as Angelina, Jagvi, and Patrick are. The structure kept me guessing until the very end. This was an essentially flawless horror novel brimming with multiple aspects of queerness.
With genre fiction like Feast While You Can, I can’t emphasize enough what a fun, exciting novel this was. Absolutely a book in my top ten of 2024!
I highly recommend Feast While You Can as the perfect queer horror read for this winter!
Please add Feast While You Can to your TBR on Goodreads and follow Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta on Instagram.
Content Warnings: violence, animal abuse/death.
Rachel Friars received her doctorate in English Literature Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada in 2024. Her current research centers on neo-Victorianism and lesbian literature and history. Her work has been published with journals such as Studies in the Novel, The Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies, Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, and The Palgrave Handbook of neo-Victorianism.
You can find Rachel on X @RachelMFriars or on Goodreads @Rachel Friars.
