Tender Beasts

December 15, 2023
A Black Canadian private school student tries to solve a series of gruesome murders connected to her family. Seventeen-year-old Sunny Behre is good at fooling people. After the death of her mother, Ainsley, Sunny embraces her role as the perpetually smiling golden child among the five siblings. Her family owns Behre Academy, a Toronto private high school that depends on donations to educate young people in need. With Ainsley gone, Sunny considers herself the ambassador for the school. When Dom, her younger brother, is charged with murdering his girlfriend, Ainsley's loss feels even more pronounced. One day after school, Sunny stumbles upon the chilling sight of the mangled body of a fellow student--and of Dom, who's been released while awaiting trial, with blood on his hands. Dom maintains his innocence, and although Sunny isn't entirely convinced, she races to uncover the actual killer. As the campus body count ramps up, Sunny realizes that Ainsley kept secrets, including details about a violent night that changed Sunny's parents' young lives forever. Told through Sunny's first-person narration, Sambury's latest taps into the skin-prickling discomfort of a slasher film to explore the heavy inheritance of generational trauma. Identity, the intersection of race and privilege, and the nuances of class are handled with care, though the rules governing the supernatural elements are not fully explained. A creepily potent story of a family legacy that gives terrifying shape to monsters real and imagined. (Horror. 14-18)

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January 1, 2024
Grades 9-12 Quiet and people-pleasing Sunny Behre was raised to be the leader of her family, but no one knew that at the time of her mother's unfortunate death. With a brother, Dom, accused of murdering his girlfriend, and her older sister assuming the role of family matriarch, Sunny turns all of her attention to clearing Dom's name. And with more of her classmates winding up dead, Sunny and Dom are in a race against time to stop a potential serial killer. Sunny's complexities are one of the major draws to this novel. She has a duty to honor her wealthy family's name, even when that means doing things she doesn't want to do, like dating a boy she doesn't even like. Her loyalty to her family guides Sunny's principles, and her inner turmoil makes for an engaging read. While the murder mystery aspect can feel more paint-by-numbers than thrilling, the dark, shocking secrets of the Behre family will have readers craving more.

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March 1, 2024

Gr 9 Up-Sunny Behre has lived a charmed life as part of the uber-wealthy Behre clan, a Black Canadian ranching family that also runs an elite school for underprivileged students. But when her mother, the family matriarch, dies, she doesn't leave Sunny the coveted spot of de facto family leader as anticipated-instead, she leaves a note telling her to "look after Dom," Sunny's 15-year-old brother. Sunny has her work cut out for her when Dom, the family outsider, is accused of killing his girlfriend and then found at the scene of a second violent murder, this time of a student at the Behre Academy. Although she questions whether Dom is truly innocent, Sunny was raised to protect her family at all costs and the two team up to find the true murderer. But the investigation rapidly goes south as Sunny receives incoherent threats from a strange woman, other students turn up dead, and the remaining Behre siblings and father begin to act erratically. The present-day narrative is broken up with diary entries written by Sunny's mother in the 1990s, detailing a ritualistic childhood game of animal torture that culminates in a massacre. While the book's first half is slow and somewhat repetitive, an ominous tone, off-kilter family dynamics, and increasingly sinister diary entries ratchet up the tension until reaching the bloody, unsettling denouement. VERDICT A fresh horror offering mixes social commentary on race and class with gore and supernatural possession. Recommended for general purchase.-Elizabeth Giles

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