Title: A Mastery of Monsters
Author: Liselle Sambury
Genres: Contemporary/Dark Fantasy
Pages: 592
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Review Copy: ARC by publisher
Availability: Available now
Summary: When August’s brother disappears before his sophomore semester, everyone thinks the stress of college got to him. But August knows her brother would never have left her voluntarily, especially not after their mother so recently went missing.
The only clue he left behind was a note telling her to stay safe and protect their remaining family. And after August is attacked by a ten-foot-tall creature with fur and claws, she realizes that her brother might be in more danger than she could have imagined.
Unfortunately for her, the only person with a connection to the mysterious creature is the bookish Virgil Hawthorne…and he knows about them because he is one. If he doesn’t find a partner to help control his true nature, he’ll lose his humanity and become a mindless beast—exactly what the secret society he’s grown up in would love to put down.
Virgil makes a proposition: August will join his society and partner with him, and in return, he’ll help her find her brother. And so August is plunged into a deadly competition to win one of the few coveted candidate spots, all while trying to accept a frightening reality: that monsters are real, and she has to learn to master them if she’s to have any hope of saving her brother.
Review: Liselle Sambury is known for her speculative/horror fiction and this latest installment, which is the beginning of a new dark academia series series that really examines who are the actual monsters, set the right mix of horror with a touching emotional story. Set on the Queens University campus in Kingston, Canada, the story follows August, a teen who has decided she doesn’t want to attend college, but doesn’t know what she wants either. Her mother had months ago, she is a bit estranged from her father, she lives with an aunt she barely knows, and her only connection to her family is her brother – and then he also goes missing. As one would expect, this leads her to make some questionable choices but these choices land her in a secret community which has her meet friends who accept her for who she is now, in all her messiness.
August is a narrator that is often hard to like as she has a very one track mind and seems to be extremely selfish. However, you understand her selfishness because prior to her mother’s disappearance she was trying to be the perfect daughter and it wrecked havoc on her mental and emotional state. At the beginning of the novel, when we first meet August, she is living fully for herself for the first time in her life. It is kinda hard to be annoyed by a character like that. Which is what Sambury does well if you’ve read her other books. Her main characters are deeply flawed to the point of almost being unlikeable, but deep down they are beautiful souls who’ve just been hurt and are protecting their self. By trying to find her brother August ends among folks who take her as she is and I feel like this one of the best parts of the novel. Virgil, and all of the other members of the secret society who help her, are all deeply flawed and hurt characters who are trying to protect themselves as well. Their openness to their hurt heals August and the friendship that forms among all of them is uplifting. To me, the growth of their friendships and August ability to open up with herself is the strength of this novel. The monsters and the mystery were fun, but it was the emotional journey August, and all the characters, that they went on that stood out the most.
I also think the definition of “monster” is explored really well in this novel. While Virgil is a literal monster, there are many others in the book who actually behave as monsters. Virgil is the sweetest cinnamon roll around and is the perfect foil for August because he allows her to understand that a person is not just their hurts but that they can use that hurt to become better people. And there are others in the book who are human but wield their cruelty against the “monsters” and others and don’t think twice about the consequences of their actions. The novel also explores how the concept of power and how those “monsters” tend to make decisions that they feel are best, but again, might not be and how can we change this power. There was so much to this novel that was deeper than just a monster tale I really enjoyed this novel because of it.