This brutal novel unfolds like an epic opera, structured in five acts that build to a crescendo of blood, destruction, and raw emotion. The pacing is wonderful, with each act meticulously crafted to intensify the suspense, pushing you closer to the edge until you're utterly consumed by the final act's fury. Every moment, every scene, is designed to engulf you in its dark, haunting embrace.

The story is anchored by four trans narrators—each with a unique voice and story to tell. Ivy, a grown woman; Cabrina, the tragic dead girl whose diaries reveal her suffering; and her two best friends, Xi and Rex, who navigate their own treacherous paths as they confront both human and supernatural horrors. Cabrina’s torment, inflicted by a mother who refuses to accept her, is just the beginning of the terror that unfolds.

The narrative sweeps you into a speculative world that becomes more real—and more terrifying—with every act. As you tunnel deeper, the line between nightmare and reality blurs, leaving you breathless. This novel is not just a vampire story—it’s a reinvention of the genre. It echoes the eerie dread of Compton's Devil Kill Devils (which I just read) but it carves out its own chilling mythology. Piper's work is a terrifying masterpiece, intimate yet vast in its implications, forcing you to confront fears both supernatural and all too human.

When you reach the end, the terror lingers, leaving you to wrestle with emotions as intense as the story itself. Fear, anger, love, and existential dread collide, making this a haunting experience that will stay with you long after the final page.

I loved Piper’s take on certain creatures in this book and the exploration of how the pursuit of revenge can consume you. Thematically, it was rich and interesting, but the pacing was not the most precise for me.

thank you to netgalley for the earc.
**3.5 stars on storygraph**

i went into this book thinking i was going to love it. the synopsis had everything i love with ghosts, a mystery, and hauntings, but i just couldn’t get into it.

i didn’t really enjoy the read until about 70% of the way in which was when everything began to spiral and things got somewhat interesting for me. the ending was what gave my review that extra .5 star.

the characters were just eh for me. i didn’t really care for any of them nor did i think any of them were all that interesting. i think the story could’ve been shorter by about fifty pages, but that could just be me.

ghosts and vampires were definitely a very interesting pair in one world. i haven’t seen anything where the two exist in the same world, i think the author was really creative for that.

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

All the Hearts You Eat opens like a riff on Twin Peaks, with a girl’s body found on the beach of a small resort town, a mysterious poem/suicide note, and an ever-expanding web of connections to the troubled victim.

A little further in, it feels like we’re reading Fire Walk With Me as if directed by Jean Rollin.

But, finally, the real touchstone is none of these, but rather the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Like Miyazaki’s best work, Piper’s novel spins mythology out of the salt air, never once feeling the need to explain, building a story whose world operates by its own slanted logic and illogic. Also like Miyazaki, there is a profound sense of sadness at the heart of All the Hearts You Eat that is never quite covered over by the larger-than-life plot events, or the young protagonists’ best intentions.

Ivory is a barista in Cape Morning, and she is also a deeply traumatized woman. When she sees the body of Cabrina Brite, another trans woman, there is a profound sense of identification, and Ivory sets out to discover the true story of Cabrina’s death.

Or maybe the connection is less profound than she thinks. Just as in the aforementioned Twin Peaks, the portrait of Cabrina that emerges is really just a variety of projections by the people around her. The question quickly shifts from “What happened to Cabrina Brite?” to “Who was Cabrina Brite?”

There’s a novel’s worth of ideas in this set up, but there are also ghosts, vampires, and maybe the end of the world.

Piper’s vampires are all but unrecognizable, save for the blood drinking, but they are chilling, as is the surreal cosmic doorway into Cape Shadow, the underground inverse of Cape Morning. Soon, Ivory is caught up in the vampire’s machinations, and things get very bloody.

All the Hearts You Eat gleefully resist summary, riding a tidal wave of bad vibes, bloody violence, and existential horror, occasionally plunging the reader beneath the surface, where the dark things wait.

The writing of this was beautiful and right away made this book feel like a literary horror. The characters felt like real people, which made the trans representation in this book all the more informative and impactful. I loved the way that folklore and history were woven into the horror at the heart of this story, and the tense small-town atmosphere was very well done.

I think Hailey Piper is one of the coolest authors I’ve ever read and I’m so happy to have been granted access to this ARC. Piper writes stories from a well informed, intentional perspective that I appreciate. Her stories are wonderfully dark and each one is incredibly unique. I absolutely loved this, as is no surprise.

Gothic horror about a small town full of memories. Cape Morning is full of folklore and mystery.

One morning, the body of Cabrina Brite is found on the shore. That same morning, Ivory watches as the authorities gather around the body and finds a scrap of paper, with a poem from Cabrina Brite. Is this a suicide note? Is this just poetry? Whatever it is changes Ivory's life.

What's going on at Ghost Cat Island? Ivory is sure she saw a white figure slipping into the water. Later, she sees that same white figure outside of her friend's house.

Cabrina's closet friends also start experiencing a white figure, one of Cabrina. This Cabrina can't be real, they know that she was dead, they saw her funeral. But after messing around with occult possibilities, they know something isn't right.

Cape Morning is a town that is unlike any other and Ghost Cat Island is just part of that. The themes explored here might be difficult for some, but they are important. Have both Ivory and Cabrina being in various parts of their transition journey added a new insight and voice to a genre that is often dominated to cis-gendered protagonists. I do feel that the over-arching theme of loss, identity and pain to be incredibly powerful, making this more than just a 'horror' novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

When Ivory goes to the beach for her regular morning swim, she finds Cabrina’s body, and a poem.
From there on, we start to get to know Ivory, Cabrina, and Ivory’s friends closely.
The trans representation deserves a separate kudos and thank you.

Piper’s writing is interesting, to say the least.
I found the first chapters and Cabrina’s diaries to be well-written.
Piper also has a knack for characterisation, mood/atmosphere, and offers an original take on the vampire stories.
Plot: 3
Concept-plot realisation/harmony: 3.5
Characterisation, mood, prose: 4

I wish it were slightly differently edited, and the pacing were faster after the first two chapters.
Otherwise, I enjoyed the body horror elements and that Piper does not shy away from difficult topics, and brave plot points.

This is a ghost story.
This is a vampire tale.
It's all of that, none of that.
This isn't a helpful review.
If you're a Hailey Piper reader, you know you're getting brutality between the pages, albeit one infused with a poetic beauty that makes one think, the world is a shit place, but maybe not all the time. All the Hearts You Eat is no exception. Piper's longest work yet, the story is divided into five acts, each of which feel meticulously plotted and measured, designed to unravel and pull back the shadows of Cape Morning.
There is loss, acceptance, buckets of blood, and some of the most visceral, stomach-churning scenes the author has put to page to date. If you're a Piper fan, you're going to want this on day one. If not, this is a great place to start.

Dark and subversive All The Hearts You Eat is a creeping suspense outing with brilliant prose and excellent characters

All the Hearts You Eat is a horror novel about life and death and the bonds that tie people together, as dead trans girl Cabrina appears to loner Ivory and to her best friends in life Xi and Rex. Cabrina Brite washes up dead in Cape Morning, and Ivory finds her death poem lying nearby. Ivory didn't know the girl, but she seems to be haunted by her now. Meanwhile Cabrina's best friends are also dealing with the realisation that Cabrina's presence is still around, in this small town that held no space for her.

I didn't know anything about this book going in, so it was a very welcome surprise to discover that it is, if you really want to boil it down, a trans vampire book. All of the main characters are trans and the book explores who you can choose to be and who you can't, using the gothic horror of a town haunted by vampiric creatures and a mysterious island. One of the great things about this book is the complexity and messiness of the main characters, especially the complex relationships between the three teenage characters who are just reaching adulthood. The ending really highlights how this isn't a simple 'trans characters versus the world' book, but a horror novel with the space to explore different ideas about who someone is and how they might act when treated badly.

I found the book took me a while to get into, with the writing style quite obtuse at first so I couldn't quite work out what was going on. Once I settled into the book it became much more enjoyable, though still occasionally a bit confusing. As everything else about this book was so up my street, it was a shame that I found it so hard to get into at first. However, this didn't stop me really appreciating this book, from its depiction of the messiness of feelings between trans teenagers to its exploration of what it means to feel like a outsider and how that might cause you to react to promises from supernatural creatures. Piper uses horror to tackle a lot of interesting things about growing up trans in a small town, but doesn't forget to include gory and dramatic moments along the way.

Cabrina's young and deceased body is washed up ashore. She is found with a death note, but as you'd expect, the contents are quite cryptic. Folk legends abound in this book- the ocean giveth and it taketh away, it desires to be fed its certain allowance of human souls etc. Ivory, the girl who finds Cabrina and the note, finds they have more in common than suspected. They become so entwined, in fact, the spectral form of Cabrina eventually shows itself to Ivory- despite her denial that it is only happening inside of her mind, and her eyes are deceiving her. Her closest friends both experience the same apparition, and all three band together to track down the truth of Cabrina's untimely death. What makes Cape Morning so full of and fond of ghosts? That is the main question explored in this book, and it accomplishes its goal of describing spectral spirits and a lovely ocean front town.

I have no complaints, except for the fact that I wasn't quite ready to take all this on. The story, the plot, the people, the town, the spook factor- was all there. To me, though, some of the prose was too stilted and try hard. More so in the vein of King or Tolkien's wandering and meandering world building. This is not a negative, and obviously this doesn't take away from the beauty and intention of this author's attempt at a genuinely spooky novel. In that aspect, Piper no doubt delivered. Thank you so much and forever to the author and publisher for the eArc.

This one started really strong for me and then just progressively lost me the further I read until I found myself skimming whole paragraphs. I DNF’d at 47%

I thought the prose was absolutely beautiful but I wasn’t drawn in by the characters or the plot.

Hailey Piper, one of my all-time favourite authors, has come out with a new release, "All the Hearts You Eat," which has been accumulating well-deserved pre-release buzz and good reviews, which is great to see. The story starts with Ivory Sloan and a sea that wants blood. She finds death at the shores of Cape Morning. Set in New England, she’s relishing a morning ritual of getting to a stretch of beach before the intense daylight phase gets all the tourists down there and she has to retreat to a cafe until evening. Someone has died and Ivory knows she better get out of dodge before the guy who is on the shore, possibly a detective, spots her or wants to bring her in for questioning.

The next chapter goes into the point of view of the person who has been found dead, with a diary entry from a few years ago.

Ivory has a tenuous relationship with a man named Wolf, and the reader hopes it will go in a good direction while worrying about what the outcome will be.

Piper’s story has a slow build as the reader witnesses the anatomy of a life, told in bits here and there, through discovering more about Cabrina, who has turned up dead.

The novel builds with suspense as the chapters go on, with the palpable sense of dread mounting for Ivory who is trying to unravel the mystery.

A must-read for fans of Piper.

I think this book will be wonderful for people that are into the twist that occurs halfway through - but I wasn't. It wasn't a bad twist, just not my thing in books.

All the Hearts You Eat by Hailey Piper is a beautifully grotesque horror novel that expertly blends atmospheric dread with deeply emotional storytelling. Set on the eerie shores of Cape Morning, the book introduces Ivory Sloan, a trans woman whose peaceful morning swim is interrupted by the discovery of a dead body and a chilling death poem. From there, the novel spirals into a gripping tale of ghostly visitations, murder investigations, and supernatural mysteries linked to the ominous Ghost Cat Island.

The writing is decent, and the plot is interesting, but I can't get over these naming conventions. Random name generators made from data pulled from r/tragedeigh

This book was a bit confusing at times but overall a good dark gothic horror novel. There was some trans representation and a bit of spice, which I enjoyed. Some of the book could've definitely been trimmed down a bit- I felt it was too wordy at times.

A gothic horror. A vampire tell te like no other. Then behind that vampire tale is a story of heartache and love through the eyes of translation men and women.