Day 10: Liselle Sambury

“That was the thing about families. They knew even the things you wanted to keep secret.”

— excerpt from Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury

Liselle Sambury is a Trinidadian-Canadian author who writes genre- blended speculative fiction with dark themes, complicated families, and edges of hope. Her debut novel Blood Like Magic garnered multiple starred reviews and is a Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist, and its sequel Blood Like Fate was featured on Bustle, PopSugar, CBC Books and more. Her psychological thriller debut Delicious Monsters was a Barnes & Noble YA Pick and Goodreads Choice Awards selection. Her latest novel, Tender Beasts which Kirkus called “a creepily potent story of family legacy,” returns to Toronto to follow a dysfunctional wealthy Black family grappling with a serial killer and a sinister past. In her free time, Liselle shares helpful tips for upcoming writers and details of her publishing journey on her YouTube channel dedicated to demystifying the sometimes complicated business of being an author.

“I draw on my personal experience having attended a PWI, and the ways I’ve encountered systems meant to assist BIPOC individuals which often failed due to a pre-existing colonial framework. It is my aim to help youth engage in critical thinking around institutional structures through an adventurous, action-packed narrative.”

— Liselle Sambury

A MASTERY OF MONSTERS

Ninth House meets Legendborn in this thrilling first book in a dark academia fantasy series about a teen who’s willing to do anything to find her brother—even infiltrate a secret society full of monsters.

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.

Release day: July 29, 2025

Today I Am

Anthology of 10 Stories of Belonging

A fresh and fearless collection of short fiction, poetry and graphic fiction for today’s middle-grade readers.

In this timely, thought-provoking, funny and heartbreaking collection, ten acclaimed BIPOC authors from across Canada explore the theme and concept of home.

From awkward family dinners, to life on the rez, to moving to a new town, each of these stories provides a unique perspective on the theme of belonging through characters tasked with navigating and finding their place in this world.

Brought together by curator (and story contributor), Jael Richardson, Today I Am will make readers laugh and cry while opening their hearts and minds to the world around them, validating how it feels to be young and alive today.

Today I Am includes stories by Jael Richardson, Marty Chan, Rosena Fung, Michael Hutchinson, Chad Lucas, Angela Misri, Mahtab Narsimhan, Danny Ramadan, Liselle Sambury and Brandon Wint.

Editor: Jael Richardson

TENDER BEASTS

After her private school is rocked by a gruesome murder, a teen tries to find the real killer and clear her brother’s name in this psychological thriller perfect for fans of The Taking of Jake Livingston and Ace of Spades. Sunny Behre has four siblings, but only one is a murderer.

With the death of Sunny’s mother, matriarch of the wealthy Behre family, Sunny’s once picture-perfect life is thrown into turmoil. Her mother had groomed her to be the family’s next leader, so Sunny is confused when the only instructions her mother leaves is a mysterious note: “Take care of Dom.”

The problem is, her youngest brother, Dom, has always been a near-stranger to Sunny…
and seemingly a dangerous one, if found guilty of his second-degree murder charge. Still,
Sunny is determined to fulfill her mother’s dying wish. But when a classmate is gruesomely
murdered, and Sunny finds her brother with blood on his hands, her mother’s simple
request becomes a lot more complicated. Dom swears he’s innocent, and although Sunny isn’t sure she believes him, she takes it upon herself to look into the murder—made all the more urgent by the discovery of another body. And another.

As Sunny and Dom work together to track down the culprit, Sunny realizes her other siblings have their own dark secrets. Soon she may have to choose: preserve the family she’s always loved or protect the brother she barely knows—and risk losing everything her mother worked so hard to build.