One of my favourite things to read are short, fun and very gory books and Delilah S. Dawson definitely deliveres on that front. I was hooked from page one and I absolutely loved the setup of the story. We have a girl who wants to make it in the fashion industry but has a hard time even getting in the door. One day, she meets a very wealthy guy who's the absolute worst but his mother is someone that could give Dez her chance. She decides to go with him to his family's private island. But things get unhinged as soon as she gets there. It was such a fun story, that reminds me a little bit of The Menu. However, what I loved about that movie, didn't work as well for me in this book. I feel like it was a little strange following the events on the island from our main character's perspective. I don't want to go into spoilers but that choice made the story a little bit repetitive and unrealistic for me. However, I just had a good time with this book. If you're one of the weirdos that loves a gory time with some girly elements, this book is for you!

"People without this kind of money, without enough money—they just keep on going, no matter what."

Horror is not a genre I lean towards, but I'm always up for trying something new. This was described as The Menu meets Ready Or Not.

There are trigger warnings(all off page), so please check them out before picking this up.

Dez Lane doesn't want to date Patrick Rushkin she just wants to meet his mother editor in chief of Nouveau magazine. Patrick invites Dez to his family's big Easter reunion at their ancestral home. With Marie Caulfield-Rushkin in her sights, Dez hopes she can fight Patrick's advances of long enough to ask Marie for an internship. Once all family members arrive and the ferry leaves, things soon turn dark.

Dark, gruesome and sharp, it packs a lot for a short read!

Guillotine is a short, sharp horror novel about a young woman who snags herself a chance to spend time with her heroine, fashion magazine editor Marie Caulfield-Ruskin, by dating her son Patrick, only to find that the private island retreat is going to be the site of revenge. Dez needs a job as she finishes college, but she's not privileged and applying to fashion houses isn't going anywhere. When she meets Patrick Ruskin, she realises that dating him might give her an in with his mother, but when that turns into an Easter weekend on their private island, things start to get weird. All the servants wear pink and mustn't be talked to, and their prize polo pony breeding hints towards the family's secrets that soon Dez must try and escape.

This is not subtle horror. This in in-your-face, eat-the-rich horror about going to an uber rich family's home and discovering their secrets, whilst the servants fight back, and it's great fun. The plot and pacing is very much like a film, which I do think is a good kind of horror novel: one that can be easily read in one go, not really a slow burn or explaining the backstory too much, but instead is filled with gore, revenge, and a memorable setting. It's easily compared to a lot of horror and thriller films because of this, making it great for people who don't want sprawling, long horror, but instead a fast-paced story filled with revenge set pieces that don't overstay their welcome. The ending is pretty predictable, but this isn't a book going for nuance and unexpected twists, because the rich people are just terrible.

I had a fun time with this book, which was gripping and dark, and delivered on the revenge set pieces. Some people might not like that it is so much like a film, down to not really dwelling on the characters, but I liked that it worked as that kind of narrative and didn't leave space for greater nuance around all the rich people covering up their terrible actions.

Guillotine follows Dez Lane who loves fashion and wants to get a job in the field. Unfortunately entry level positions seem to want years of experience so Dez decides to date Patrick Ruskin as his mother is the editor-in-chief for a fashion magazine. Patrick invites Dez to his family’s Easter reunion on an isolated island but things start to get weird a few days in with NDA’s being signed and strange behaviour.

I really enjoyed the first 40% of this but when the twist came I did start to lose interest. It had some interesting conversations but it was quite predictable. It was very gory/graphic though.

As a fan of The Menu and Ready or Not, I was OBSESSED with this book beginning to end. Highly recommend! Will purchase for libraries!

After reading BLOOM earlier this year and giving it a 5 ⭐️, i knew i wanted to read more by this author, and Guillotine only solidified my obsession. Guillotine is one hell of a ride, it’s messed up, in the best way, and incredibly entertaining. I adored our main character Dez. Smart. Interesting. and an absolute pleasure to follow around. when the horror kicks in, it’s delicious 👌🏻 the death are awesome and super satisfying! So was the ending. Well, done.
I’m not giving it a 5 ⭐️ just because it took me a little while to fully get into it, and with a book this short, that did break my enjoyment a little.
i would definitely recommend this one to anyone looking for a fun and quick horror story.

When Dez Lane maneuvers her way onto a billionaire island owned by the rich Ruskin family in her attempts to get close to Fashionista Marie Caulfield-Ruskin things take a turn for the worst with their servants finally having enough and hunting down their rich abusers. You’ll hear people talking about this book in the same breath as Saw, Glass Onion, The Menu, and Ready or Not. Honestly, I can’t argue against any of these comparisons. I think it definitely takes a lot more of the themes of The Menu and Ready or Not than Saw with a definite “eat the rich” tone. It’s a wild thriller that will leave you wanting to get to the next chapter as quickly as you finished the last. Dez is a great protagonist with her being this sarcastic person that you need to deal with the Ruskin family’s boorish behavior. If you want a fast-paced novel like that, I highly suggest Guillotine.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Titan Books for approving me for this early copy of Guillotine.

This book was WILD. I devoured it the same day I finished another book of her's, Bloom, which is also insane and I highly recommend it.

Guillotine follows Dez, who uses Patrick Ruskin, to get her in with his mother, Marie Caulfield-Ruskin, who is the editor in chief of one of the biggest fashion magazines. Patrick takes her on a weekend Easter trip to his family's island, makes her sign an NDA, and starts to realize this family is a bit insane, with their ridiculous and unncessary luxury. Once everyone is on the island and the boat has taken off, shit gets real. Dez comes to find out that their personal butlers have signed contracts that make them indentured servants, and for them to get out of their contracts, they will stop at nothing to get rid of the Ruskin's. As Dez and Patrick are on the run, more and more truths come out about the Ruskin's and Dez comes to the conclusion she wants absolutely nothing to do with Marie, this family, and the company.

It's more than just a gory, revenge story. It makes you realize how messed up the 1% truly are, thinking that they are everything and more than anyone else in the world, and how everyone below them doesn't deserve the love and respect they should receive.

The description of the book doesn't prepare you for the absolute wild ride this book takes you on. The servants pick off the family one by one until they're done. It's graphic and gory, but it doesn't make you want to put it down because you want to know what happens in the end. I was rooting for Dez the whole time.

****A ittle bit of a spoiler**** - She was spared in the end, but I thought she would be spared in a different way than she was. I truly thought she was going to get away from all of this because she was nice to the servants at the beginning of the book. She spoke to the servants, thanking them for everything they did to help her when realistically, no one on the island was able to speak to them.

The big reveal at the end makes you root for the servants. No, truly. The Ruskin's are a fucked up family who deserve all the horrid things that happened to them throughout the book.

I truly wish this book was longer, a second part where we see the servants get away and try to live life the best they can.

Overall, I truly loved this book. Delilah Dawson is easily becoming the queen of horror in my mind, and I can't wait to read the rest of her books.

This was compared to Ready or Not and The Menu, which are two of my favorite movies, so I knew I had to pick it up and I'm so glad I did. This book was dedicated to everyone who works service or retail jobs, and as someone who worked in retail in a fancier neighborhood, I can't count the number of times that I imagined rage quitting over the entitlement that some people had. And in some strange way, reading this novella repaired a piece of my soul.

Some of the characters were pieces of work, but I enjoyed following Dez as the main character. She's doing what she needs to do to get her foot in the door (at least in the beginning) and I can respect that. The family was wild though and honestly (mostly) deserved everything that went down.

This book was a wild and crazy time. My only complaint is that I wish this were longer. Besides that, I highly recommend this book and I think anyone who has ever worked a service job should read this too.

Big thank you to Titan Books and Netgalley for providing me with this eARC!

If you read the blurb, you know exactly what to expect. Very similar to, but much more engaging than Sarah Gailey's Eat the Rich. Although, you know, without the cannibalism.

Alas.

Weird that this is the second book I've read this month that takes place primarily on an island off the coast of Georgia. That doesn't have anything to do with anything, it just felt worthy of being mentioned.

If you don't enjoy gore, you'll have a bad time with Guillotine, but bloody as fuck is my absolute favourite, ESPECIALLY when it's assholes doing the bleeding.

This was a fun one. The plot isn’t a super new one, typical eat the rich fare which is always something I can get behind. I honestly had no idea where this book was leading for the first half. I assumed some of our less than likable characters would be meeting gory ends, but had no idea from which angle it would come from. When things ramp up it gets pretty wild fast.

The plot is fairly simple. Dez has struggled in life and is having a hard time securing a job despite a 4 year degree. Seeing an opportunity arise with the son of a fashion magazine, she’s whisked off to an island where things are *strange*.

The first half was almost a bit Black Mirror like with its rising creepiness and strange interactions. Everyone on the island is bizarre and as the tension climbs things just get stranger. I really enjoyed Dez as a character. The book has a nice satirical tone and definitely has an anti-misogynistic message which obviously won’t resonate with all readers. I really enjoyed The Violence by Dawson as well and can only hope life hasn’t been as cruel to her as it has some of the characters in her books.

Overall this is one of those books that goes FAST once the tipping point is reached. I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who vibes with fast paced revenge-esque horror. There’s some fun kill scenes but most of the darker themes aren’t presented graphically in the book. I look further to reading more of Dawson’s work in the future.

A gruesome look at consequences, and the call to action when one finds themselves caught in the bloody crosshairs.

If you've ever dreamed of a modern-day class uprising or enjoyed a bloody 'Eat-the-Rich' revenge drama, Dawson's Guillotine will appeal to your tastes. Part horror, part thriller, all heart-pounding action, Dawson performs a violent, exaggerated, yet somehow cathartic takedown of a family of racist, classist White supremecists through the eyes of an ambitious middle-class scholarship student caught up in a terrifying Saw trap of a situation mostly outside her control. I tore through this book in an afternoon, the storying carrying me along at a (literally) breakneck pace from start to finish. This isn't a book of anti-heros or sympathetic villains: nearly every character is an evil caricature designed to be propped up and torn down. Yet, somehow this fits so neatly into the tradition of B-list slashers that I can't countenance it: each characters is merely a vehicle by which the author vents her anger at white-collar criminals and their enablers. If you are looking for a quick, satisfying horror novel and don't mind reading about grotesque methods of violent murder, Guillotine lives up to the invention that gave it its name.

This is a satisfying "eat the rich" revenge story. The first half dragged a little, but once the plot picked up pace, it became an engrossing read. I would have liked a few loose ends tied up, but overall, I enjoyed this story.

You could feel the tension as soon as Dez made it to the exclusive home dubbed the Island. I wanted to yell: you in danger girl. With the staff in all pink, the wives being weird, it just gave off a very sinister feeling. I understood Dez wanting to make it in the fashion game, but she definitely did not know what she was walking into.

This was very bingeable, with very rich, entitled people behaving disgusting, and characters you hate and characters you are rooting for. There were very inventive ways to commit the act of murder which even I was a little shook while reading. This gave me Get Out and Ready or Not vibes I was very much here for. Don’t let this pretty pink cover fool you, this one gets very gory and very graphic, which I think horror fans will love.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC for early review.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

I was a HUGE fan of Bloom, the first book I picked up from Dawson, which really did scream of being written from a fan, for fans. She blatantly said that she was still waiting for a fourth season of Hannibal, and I'm thrilled to see that Guillotine is something that came out of that period of waiting. And we even got a reference to Will Graham in this one.

Guillotine is another story that is definitely written for an audience. It's self-aware, funny, brutally honest, and fiercely unapologetic. It's referential of movies like Saw and horror tropes, it's full of modern touches that don't overwhelm the fact that it's terrifying. Dez is such a fantastic main character--- she's not perfect, not by any means, but no one really is. And when you see her lined up with all of the Ruskins... Wow, the creep factor is seriously severe. This one is definitely a psychological horror for the girlies. The gore, the revenge, the final girl, and especially the fashion. I was totally engaged and finished it in a single sitting. You hate all of these Ruskins, you feel for all of the servants, and you know that nothing is ever going to be normal again. I'm totally looking forward to Dawson's next book. Also, 5/5 stars for extremely feral horses.

This is only my second book by Delilah Dawson and she continues to entertain. The pace of this novel never eases up and is as much a political statement of the working versus upper classes as just a fun horror thriller read. I do believe that I had as much fun reading it as the author did writing it. Very satisfying to see crappy people get much deserved ends.

Guillotine shines with "eat the rich" opulent horror. It is a deeply alluring and darkly violent read, wrapped in a pink bow the colour of a kitten's nose.

I finished Guillotine this morning, after reading it in sub-18 hours. I am not sure I have been so excited for an ARC's publication so that we can all DISCUSS.

If you liked Bloom, I have a strong suspicion that you will like Guillotine. If you didn't like Bloom because of the topics discussed, please do not immediately assume you won't like Guillotine! While the storytelling style is similar, the more uncomfortable topics discussed are not the same (IYKYK).

In keeping with the similarities to Bloom, you get a similar storytelling path:
1. General setup and character outline.
2. Are these descriptions intentionally quirky or is this set up for something weird...
3. Wait, what?
4. Yes, something is certainly weird.
5. Okay very weird.
6. Oh gosh I feel uncomfortable.
7. THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
8. Who am I supposed to be rooting for here?
9. Am I satisfied by this ending or disquieted?
10. I need to discuss this with everyone immediately.

I will be rushing to my bookstore to buy a copy on the publication date. The urge to annotate, re-read and analyze is strong!

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for a digital advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A satisfying "eat the rich", sweet, sweet revenge story. Some intense (bold and underlined) bits of body horror. If you liked the movie or the premise of Ready or Not, this will probably be your jam.

Delilah Dawson horror really just does it for me because Bloom was also fantastic!

***This review will go live on Goodreads on 9/1***

I was a big fan of Dawson's book “Bloom," so this was an exciting ARC. It's a very different story and feels like a horror movie with visceral kills and an imaginative setting. I think the aesthetic of the island was supposed to be “a bit much,” but I loved it. It was so vivid and unique and all terrible events aside I would absolutely stay in a vacation spot that *looked* like that! (Maybe I like the color pink more than I realized?)

I'll get the negative out of the way first, because my only complaints happened early on. It was initially very tough to have sympathy for the main character Dez because of the decisions she made. (No spoilers, but there's a very big one that affects the plot and I was flabbergasted by the stupidity.) As a result, there was then constant justification for why Dez was staying in this situation. Mostly in the first third or so, I could not get on board with her choices. Things eventually got better as the book went on, because her situation became dire and her actions were more understandable at that point. Dez was a good character, and I do want to make that clear. There was just stuff in the beginning that had to happen to kick off the story and that stuff had me going, "Are you kidding me?" 

What I appreciated the most about this book: once the horror kicks in it is nonstop. You will not be bored for even a second. 

It is filled with violent, creative scenes that are oddly satisfying given the circumstances. It’s one of those books that makes you question your own morals a little bit. At least, I did. I think I had the reaction that I was supposed to, but at the same time: was I meant to enjoy some of it that much? Another reviewer described this as an “Eat the rich” story and it is very much that. Also, a bloody revenge tale. But I don't want to give too much away.

One other minor nitpick I had, but this is always a problem for me: I don't care for straight up "villain" monologuing. However, the dialogue was pretty good, so it was bearable.

This was a stressful but exciting horror read. I recommend it for people who like things very violent and want a story in which people get what they deserve. (But heed the triggers if you have any!) I look forward to reading more from this author!

Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own. 

Potentially spoilery trigger warnings list below! 

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TW: Sexual Assault (off-screen), Torture, References to Abortion, Incest