We begin, as we should, with a prologue. A scene of horror. Violence. Death. Talk of a doctor. A creation of monsters. We’re some time ago in the New World. A mother is born. History and time passes.
Jazz on a sea breeze introduces us to the world proper of This Ravenous Fate, the debut novel by Hayley Dennings. I’m immediately interested. It’s 1926 and we’re heading into New York with homebound Elise Saint, knowing there are very real monsters waiting for her, and a family empire built on their destruction to protect. The Saint patriarch, Tobias, created a steel alloy which could kill this America’s monsters—and created great wealth for him and his family, as well as respect and power. The monster-killing Saints live in Harlem, which is alive with jazz clubs, parties, and dancing, despite the years of prohibition. This is a dynamic that has lent itself to what at first appears to be racial integration in Dennings’s world, but there is still racial tension, of course, with Black women knowing they need to dance for “the whites” in order to get by.
Elise is eighteen and has returned home from five years in Paris, where she is studying music. The ubiquitous monsters were created three hundred years ago and are known as reapers, akin to vampires as we might know them but not quite: they do not hide in the shadows. Elise is home to take part in the ten-year celebrations of the creation of the family empire. She’s also the reluctant heir. She is excited to see her younger sister, Josi, a young dancer who is about to have her life upended. Elise’s best friend, meanwhile, is named Sterling, and he welcomes her home. He’s also the family’s main hunter.
Tobias Saint believes he has a perfect family. His daughter is going to be the best pianist in France (or “pianoist” according to Josi). He commands the respect of his wife and children. At the outset, Elise seeks his approval. She is relieved to get it. Mr. Saint rules his family with an iron fist. He says that everything good in Elise’s life is because of him and demands thanks because of it. He insists that his family never backs down or fails. Yet he is distant. His focus is elsewhere despite the impending celebrations.
What is the source of this distraction? It is seemingly not caused by the loss of his other daughter, Elise’s older sister and the family’s first heir, Charlotte, who died a violent, horrendous death at the hands of reapers before Josi was born. Nor is he seemingly distracted by his decision to make Josi the family heir and primary hunter (and no longer a dancer), in place of Elise. Is Tobias distracted by his allies? Is it because some reapers are turning part human, and no one knows why? Or is it something to do with a young scientist named Thalia, who is close, we are told, to developing an antidote to the reaper bites?
Mr. Saint would have Elise return to Paris to continue her music education and be safe from the reapers, who are evidently less of a problem in Europe. Josi, in place of Elise, is sent to France to keep her safe. At home, Tobias’s new project is to open a lab for research into reapers, to be funded by a Mr. Wayne (not that one). Tobias wants to eliminate the reapers once and for all.
Other than their lack of aversion to sunlight, Dennings’s reapers are very much like the classic vampires we know from movies. They have superspeed and see themselves as apex predators. They are instinctive killers, craving blood. Sometimes they have blood furies where they completely lose control. Their blood has healing properties. They drink wine from crystal glasses. But reapers have rules. Yes, some reapers are rogue—clanless, younger, ignoring the wiser ways of the clans—and it is these that cause most conflict with humans. But through the character of Layla Quinn, Dennings shows us the other, more ordered, side to reaper culture. As the novella opens, Layla has been a reaper for five years and lives in a lair with her clanmates and clan mother. She still resents being turned, in events which involved Tobias and his children. She is angry. And she wants revenge on the Saints.
And so the scene is set for a reasonably traditional vampire story: one that isn’t ironic, or meta, or trying to be too clever with a new take on vampire mythology. Dennings’s only conceits are not to mention the word “vampire” to describe her monsters, and the revelation that these reputed monsters were created by a white man. Her New York is a city of gangsters and there is tension between them, the reaper clans, and the Saints and their allies. The whites are coming into Harlem and the Black residents are feeling like they are being replaced. Layla and Elise were childhood best friends, but now they are on opposite sides. Early on in the novel there is deep animosity, blame, and ghosts of the past in evidence: neither can get the other out of her head. Layla blames the Saints for ruining her life. Their antagonism is palpable. But when Layla is framed for a particularly vicious attack, the former friends must again work together: Tobias has offered Layla a deal.
The elder Saint insists that Layla must work with Elise to investigate how these attacks might be linked to what might just be that reaper cure. And thus the story becomes one of a classic crime caper where the good cop is paired with the crook in order to solve the crime. It is well executed by Dennings, although at times it does seem like it is written as a TV serial, with overly familiar characters, staged set pieces, and cliffhangers. There is a summit held between the humans and the clan, which doesn’t end well; one of the main recurring venues is a version of the Cotton Club, where white people are entertained by Black people (the owner chews on a fat cigar); later, in a hotel, Elise is subject to a set piece where she must try to cure Layla with her father watching on from a balcony. It’s all very cinematic.
The traditional elements of a horror novel are also present and correct. There is plenty of blood sprayed over walls and gory half-eaten remains cast about. Throats are ripped open by fingernails. The characters regularly revisit the frightening details of their past lives. Night falls and the monsters come out to play, full of bloodlust. Of course, there are betrayals, secrets, and lies. As the story progresses, we find out how Charlotte died protecting Elise, and what caused the rift between Elise and Layla. (There is literally bad blood between them.) Layla says that Elisa is responsible for her condition, telling her, “You killed me.” We also find out that Mr. Saint was involved in the deaths of Layla’s parents. Of course. Other plot strands, too, continue through the investigation: Sterling is forced to choose between Elise and loyalty to the family; Josi’s trip to Paris turns out to be another betrayal; the cure for the reapers becomes a complicated subplot between the minor characters.
Despite what many might see as a clichéd list of scenarios and locations, This Ravenous Fate is, to me, a highly enjoyable old-school vampire horror with added commentary about the oppression of the Black community. Unsurprisingly, it is the white man in a laboratory that created the monster; but it is also a Black man, in the guise of Tobias Saint, who behaves as a monster to his family. Sometimes the novel’s race message isn’t subtle: its Black people are always considered by whites less than human, Black reapers more so. But sometimes a message needs to be hit home: Dennings refers to the Tulsa race riots and how their effects ripple through time; being a reaper is close to hell on earth because they have so much stacked against them. Other elements, too, elevate Dennings’s story: the simmering romance between Elise and Layla, how people need hope and choice in their lives, the claustrophobia of family, the importance of music even. For a debut, the writing is assured and very readable, although it occasionally slips into hackneyed, as when Sterling tells Elise she is the “strongest person I know.” But don’t let that spoil an enjoyable read.
What I especially liked about the novel was that both Elise and Layla exhibited a determination to be their own people. Elise is not just a talented musician or her father’s daughter or the heir to the Saint empire. Layla is not just a reaper or a clanmate. Elise, for example, is surprised reapers are interested in the arts. As they investigate the crimes and search for answers in the rumours of a reaper cure, they begin to present themselves as acerbic, reluctant partners. Reminding each other of how much their past has come between them, they start to see each other’s real selves. They are both tired of reputations. They see how the situations in which they find themselves—the deaths, the griefs, the pressures of expectations—are affecting them. Most importantly, they remember why they were childhood friends in the first place—how, despite their problems, they missed each other. The dedication for This Ravenous Fate is “For Black girls everywhere—you are enough.” And in the course of the novel, Dennings makes this more than clear.