This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings

(Hodderscape, 2024)

Reviewed by Leanbh Pearson

This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings is an alternate history of 1920s United States focused on Harlem, New York. Dennings creates a fascinating world of gangsters, jazz clubs, prohibition, illegal alcohol trade, racial discrimination and social tensions. To this backdrop, there is an expertly layered supernatural realm of reapers, which are vampire-like beings originating from historical and unethical medical experiments.

On two opposing sides of the brewing battle between the growing numbers of reapers and humans, is the complex-relationship between two young African American women: Layla Quinn, a reaper, and her former best friend, Elise Saint, the heiress to the wealthy and politically influential Saint Empire.

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Review from BSFA Review 25 - Download your copy here.