Feast While You Can Review — Is It Worth Reading?

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Verdict: The most convincing butch/femme yearning I’ve read in a trade-published horror novel, undercut by a first half that takes too long to bite and an ending readers repeatedly say loses its nerve.

Best for: Readers who want literary queer horror first and romance second, who left Our Wives Under the Sea wanting something filthier, and who won’t be stopped by graphic animal death.

Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — explicit open door)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.7/5 — a 3.89 Goodreads average across 3,975 ratings, marked down for a slow first half and a divisive ending)

Tropes: Forbidden romance, brother’s ex, butch/femme, small-town claustrophobia, possession horror, touch as the only cure, secret relationship, slow-burn yearning, coming home, nontraditional HEA.

Feast While You Can by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta is a standalone queer possession-horror novel, 304 pages, published by Grand Central in the US on 29 October 2024 and Simon & Schuster in the UK five days earlier, written by a married Berlin-based duo, and built on a mechanism doing double duty as plot and metaphor — an ancient thing in the caves above the mountain town of Cadenze latches onto Angelina Sicco, and the only force repelling it is the touch of Jagvi, her brother’s ex, which turns a relationship they have every reason to hide into the thing keeping Angelina alive.

The numbers show a well-liked book with a real split underneath. Goodreads has it at 3.89 across 3,975 ratings — 29% five stars, 39% four, only 7% at two or one. StoryGraph runs warmer at 4.04 from 2,719 reviews, 90% choosing “dark” as a mood. romance.io scores it 4.16 and sets the heat at 4/5, “Explicit open door.” It was shortlisted for the 2025 British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, losing to Johanna van Veen’s My Darling Dreadful Thing. The split is not about quality. It’s about which genre you thought you were buying — readers who came for horror mostly got it, and readers who came for romance found the romance is the horror.

What Is Feast While You Can About?

This is folk horror with a romance engine bolted into its centre, and the join is the interesting part. Cadenze is a dead-end valley town between three mountains, tourist-fed in summer and comatose the rest of the year, with Roman ruins, a recent war in its memory, and family lore about the caves. The authors never name the country — Italian names, a nonna, wartime scars, enough that Publishers Weekly called it Italian outright. Most readers take the vagueness as intentional: this is any town that tolerates a lesbian as long as she stays quiet.

The romance is not decorative and not a subplot. Angelina and Jagvi’s relationship is the anti-possession mechanism, so every scene of desire is also a scene of survival, and every reason they have to stay apart — Patrick, the family, the town, a decade of resentment — is a reason for Angelina to be eaten. That is why the sex carries weight that sex in horror novels usually doesn’t.

What Makes This Sapphic Folk Horror Work

• The mechanism: Touch as the only cure turns desire into life support, and 22 of 450 Goodreads reviews single out the resulting tension.
• The butch/femme writing: 21 reviewers praise the dynamic by name and “butch” appears in 52 of 450 — central texture, not incidental representation.
• The body horror: StoryGraph readers flagged gore graphic 34 times, body horror 26, cannibalism 14.
• The town: Kirkus calls it “a fresh, queer spin on possession horror”; 88 of 450 reviews name the Siccos, the real antagonist.
• The prose: Two authors, one voice — two reviewers in 270 noticed the co-writing, and Muir, Armfield and van der Wouden all blurbed it.

Book Synopsis

Angelina Sicco has never left Cadenze and does not particularly want to. She lives with her friend Gemma and her brother Patrick in a town that knows she is a lesbian and files it under things it does not discuss, taking what she can get from the summer tourists. Her place inside the Sicco clan cost her freedom.

Then Jagvi comes back. She dated Patrick, broke it off, came out, and left, and every return since has been the chaos variable in Angelina’s life. This time the caves stir with her, and something old follows Angelina home, gets inside her, and eats through her memories.

Angelina finds the one thing that holds it off: Jagvi’s hands on her skin. What starts as emergency treatment becomes a secret they keep from Patrick, from the Siccos, and from a town that would not survive knowing. The creature feeds on passion and heartbreak, so the more they want each other, the stronger it grows.

My Review

The mechanism is the best idea here and it holds all the way through. Making a woman’s touch the only barrier between another woman and a thing that wants to wear her body could have been cheap, and instead does real work — every time Angelina reaches for Jagvi she admits what she spent a decade refusing, and the town’s homophobia gains teeth, because hiding is now physically dangerous. The New York Times Book Review called it “queer desire as the cure, not the curse.”

The writing is genuinely good, worth saying plainly because it is not the norm in this corner of the shelf. Clements and Datta build a suffocating small town with real specificity — the Sicco house, the summer crowds, the caves, the way a place can love you and diminish you at once. The co-authorship is invisible: in 270 reviews, two readers noticed there were two writers. The Lesbrary’s Rachel Friars called it “sharp, clever, and well-written.”

Pacing is the problem, and the single most repeated criticism in the reviews. Eighteen reviewers in my 450-review sample name a slow start, a dragging middle or a slog; ten more call it repetitive. That puts readers in direct conflict with the trade press, the most interesting thing in the evidence file: Publishers Weekly says the story “moves at a breakneck clip,” Kirkus says it runs at a rapid pace, and only BookPage noticed that “the extended family drama is a distraction from the forward momentum.” That drama is also the book’s richest material, so it’s a trade-off, not a fixable flaw — but if you need a horror novel scaring you before page 100, it will test you.

The genre gap is real and readers feel it. Seven say outright that it isn’t scary enough or isn’t really horror, and the blog Just Read It Already landed on 3.5/5 with the note that “it felt more like a romance to me.” Meanwhile every piece of institutional recognition sits on the horror side — a British Fantasy Award shortlist, a Library Journal horror review, a Kirkus review filed under literary fiction. Nobody calls this a romance except the romance databases. If you found it in a sapphic romance guide, including this one, adjust.

Then the content warnings, which are not decoration. StoryGraph’s users put animal death at the top with 87 graphic flags — more than double gore and double sexual content — with animal cruelty at 39 behind it. Seventeen reviews raise it unprompted, several from five-star readers who docked half a star.

My honest note: This is a four-star horror novel and a three-star romance, and which one you’re holding depends on what you came for. If the pitch that hooked you was lesbians repelling a demon by sleeping together, the book takes it seriously and owes you no wedding.

Element	In Feast While You Can
Central relationship	Angelina Sicco & Jagvi — small-town femme and her brother’s butch ex
Core tropes	Forbidden romance, brother’s ex, butch/femme, secret relationship, possession, touch as cure
Setting	Cadenze — an unnamed European mountain town with Roman ruins and something in the caves
Heat level	4/5 — explicit open door (romance.io)
Series	Standalone; no sequel announced as of August 2026
Content notes	Graphic animal death and cruelty, gore, body horror, cannibalism, explicit sex, racism, homophobia, lesbophobia, outing

How Dark and Spicy Is Feast While You Can?

Dark, and darker than the romance framing suggests. Ninety percent of StoryGraph readers chose “dark” as a mood and 68% “tense,” and the graphic content-warning list runs animal death, cruelty, gore, blood, body horror, violence and cannibalism before it reaches the sex. The possession scenes are physical and unpleasant in a way that earns the horror label. Racism, homophobia and lesbophobia were flagged graphic by 22, 18 and 15 readers.

On heat, romance.io puts it at 4/5, “Explicit open door,” and that is accurate. The sex is on the page, explicit, and load-bearing rather than ornamental — 60 of the 450 reviews I read mention it, and 32 StoryGraph readers flagged sexual content as graphic. What it isn’t is frequent the way a contemporary romance is. This is a horror novel that stops for sex when the plot needs the two women touching.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you read horror first and romance second; you want butch/femme writing that treats the dynamic as a personality rather than a label; you like a small town as antagonist; and you don’t need the supernatural rules explained.

You may want to skip it if: graphic animal death is a hard line — it is the most-flagged warning by a wide margin; you need a horror novel moving by page 50; you want a guaranteed romance-genre HEA; or you want your setting anchored to a named place.

In short: exceptional queer horror with a romance at its structural centre, shelved in the wrong genre.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)

The discourse here is trade-shaped, not community-shaped, and the absences say as much as the coverage. The book has Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, BookPage, People and the New York Times Book Review, plus a British Fantasy Award shortlist — none of it starred. What it lacks is a sapphic-blog footprint: nothing at I Heart SapphFic, Jude in the Stars, LezReviewBooks or Bookish Sapphic, and no BookTok moment. The Lesbrary is the exception, covering it in November 2024 and again in April 2026. This book travelled the literary-horror pipeline and reached sapphic readers second.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Atmosphere, loudest — 54 of the 450 reviews I read reach for creepy, eerie, unsettling or dread. Then the butch/femme dynamic, praised by name in 21. The yearning gets credit from 22 reviewers, body horror from 24, the Siccos from 88. StoryGraph backs it: 70% call the characters loveable, 94% call the cast diverse, 70% say character flaws are a main focus.

What readers argue about and complain about: Pace, above everything — 18 reviewers name a slow start or dragging middle, and the mechanism is structural, since the family scenes that give the book its richness are the same ones stalling the horror. Second, the genre gap: seven say it isn’t scary enough, because the entity spends most of the novel as a metaphor for suppressed desire rather than a threat with an agenda. Third, the ending — six call it rushed, the last act resolving the possession faster than the buildup deserved. Fourth, the unnamed country, which a handful find evasive.

The standalone question worth asking first: it is a true standalone. Possession and relationship both resolve, there’s an epilogue, no sequel is announced as of August 2026, and nothing requires further reading. On the ending, spoiler-free: romance.io tags it “Nontraditional HEA,” and having read the reviews closely, Angelina and Jagvi end the book together, with multiple readers using “happily ever after” without irony and not one describing a tragedy. What makes it nontraditional is the price — the resolution permanently changes what Angelina is, and the couple stays bound to Cadenze rather than freed from it. One three-star reviewer said the ending “loses its teeth”; another objected to being sold “a nightmare for a happy ending.” Yes, they get each other. No, it is not the ending a romance reader is trained to expect. The authors’ catalogue offers one other option, The View Was Exhausting (Grand Central, 2021), at 3.63 across 8,682 Goodreads ratings — a fake-dating novel with a mixed-gender pairing, so a curiosity rather than a follow-up. In audio, Feast While You Can is narrated by Jaclyn Kelso.

Prefer audio? Listen to Feast While You Can on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Feast While You Can have a happy ending?

Yes, with an asterisk. Angelina and Jagvi end the novel together, there is an epilogue, and no reviewer in my sample called the ending tragic — but romance.io tags it a “nontraditional HEA” because the resolution costs Angelina something permanent and binds the couple to Cadenze. Six reviewers found it rushed.

Is Feast While You Can a romance or a horror novel?

Horror, structurally, with the romance as its mechanism. It was shortlisted for the 2025 British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel and reviewed as horror by Kirkus and Library Journal, and seven reviewers complained it was not scary enough.

How explicit is Feast While You Can?

A 4/5 on romance.io’s scale, labelled “Explicit open door.” The sex is fully on the page and structurally necessary, since Jagvi’s touch repels the entity, but it recurs less often than in a contemporary romance at the same band.

Is Feast While You Can part of a series?

No, it’s a standalone. Possession plot and relationship both resolve inside 304 pages, there’s an epilogue, and no sequel is announced as of August 2026. The authors’ only other novel is unrelated.

Is there an audiobook, and is it on Kindle Unlimited?

Yes — narrated by Jaclyn Kelso, 10 hours 14 minutes, released by Grand Central on 29 October 2024. Library Journal praised narration that “skillfully evokes the story’s gothic atmosphere.” It is not in Kindle Unlimited; this is a trade-published title.

If You Loved Feast While You Can, Read These Next

Three readers in my sample reached for Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea, and Armfield blurbed this book, so start there if what held you was queer body horror as relationship metaphor. If it was the literary register and the sapphic hunger, Kat Dunn’s Hungerstone sits closest on romance.io’s similar-titles list at 3.98, running the same trick with a vampire instead of a cave. And Chuck Tingle’s Bury Your Gays made the same 2025 British Fantasy Award ballot with a far more genre-savvy take on queer monsters. Closest on this site is Providence Girls, which works the same literary-horror register — a monster girlfriend, body horror as intimacy, and a slow burn that earns its ending. For heat-forward books nearby, browse our spicy sapphic romantasy guide or the full run of book reviews.

The Bottom Line

Feast While You Can is a better novel than its Goodreads average suggests and a worse fit for a romance shelf than its tags suggest. The conceit is elegant, the butch/femme writing is the best I’ve read in a trade-published horror title, and the prose earned blurbs from Tamsyn Muir and Julia Armfield without straining. It is also slow for its first third, thinner on scares than its horror shortlist implies, and capped by an ending six reviewers found rushed. Come for the horror and treat the romance as the load-bearing wall it is, and this is a four-star book; come for a sapphic romance with a spooky coat of paint and you’ll spend 150 pages waiting. Check Feast While You Can on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Feast While You Can ranks as a literary sapphic possession horror with a romance engine — elegantly constructed and genuinely charged, held back by a slow first half and an ending that flinches, and best approached for the yearning and the suffocating town rather than for a romance-genre payoff.

The Evidence Scorecard

Overall ★★★★☆ 3.7/5

• ✓ 3.89 Goodreads average across 3,975 ratings
• ✓ StoryGraph runs warmer at 4.04 average
• ✓ Shortlisted, 2025 British Fantasy Award horror
• ✓ Pacing flagged by 18 independent Goodreads reviewers

Romance ★★★★☆ 4/5

• ✓ 22 reviewers single out the yearning specifically
• ✓ Butch/femme dynamic praised by 21 reviewers
• ✓ Touch-as-cure gives every scene of desire stakes
• ✓ Seven readers say it overwhelms the horror

Characters ★★★★☆ 4/5

• ✓ 70% of StoryGraph readers call them loveable
• ✓ 94% of readers rate the cast diverse
• ✓ Sicco family named in 88 of 450 reviews
• ✓ 28% choose “complicated” on character development

Writing ★★★★☆ 4.2/5

• ✓ Kirkus, PW and NYTBR all praise the craft
• ✓ Blurbs from Muir, Armfield and van der Wouden
• ✓ Co-authorship noticed by two of 270 reviewers
• ✓ Unnamed country frustrates a handful of readers

Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4/5

• ✓ 90% of StoryGraph readers chose “dark”
• ✓ Race engaged by 50 of 450 reviewers
• ✓ Family obligation is the real engine
• ✓ Animal death raised unprompted 17 times

Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5

• ✓ romance.io band 4/5: explicit open door
• ✓ 60 of 450 reviewers mention the sex
• ✓ Sexual content flagged graphic by 32 readers
• ✓ Less frequent than a contemporary romance

Ending ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5

• ✓ Couple ends together, with a closing epilogue
• ✓ No reviewer in 450 describes a tragedy
• ✓ A standalone, with nothing left unresolved
• ✓ Six reviewers call it rushed or flat

Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.7/5

• ✓ Atmosphere named by 54 of 450 reviewers
• ✓ Audiobook runs 10 hours 14 minutes
• ✓ Library Journal praised Jaclyn Kelso’s narration
• ✓ Graphic animal death deters a second pass

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