The Book Eaters

The Book Eaters is a gothic low fantasy novel by Sunyi Dean; it is also her debut novel. The book creates a nontraditional interpretation of vampirism and monstrosity through a species of people who survive by eating books. It explores themes of Motherhood and Sacrifice, Patriarchal Oppression, and Creativity and the Use of Knowledge.

This guide refers to the 2022 paperback edition from HarperCollins.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death and substance use.

Plot Summary

This novel follows two timelines: one in which Devon Fairweather, in her thirties, enacts a plan to run away with her son and another that follows Devon through childhood and the events that lead to the present day.

Devon discovers a human man on her book-eater family’s land 22 years before the present day. He reveals that he is a journalist and hints that he’s come to write a story about Devon’s family. Devon comes from a wealthy, elite family of book eaters, one of six families left in the United Kingdom. Devon introduces the reporter to her uncle, who arranges for the man to be taken away. 

As Devon grows up, she navigates the unusual culture and gender dynamics of her kind. Because female book eaters are so rare, they are carefully cultivated and forced into arranged marriages in order to preserve their line. Devon enters her first marriage with a distant, uninterested man named Luton, and together, they have a daughter named Salem. Devon loves her daughter but is forcibly separated from her and enters a second marriage with a cruel man named Matley. 

Devon befriends Matley’s brother, Jarrow, and has a son with Matley named Cai Devonson. Cai is born a mind eater, a deviation of the book eaters who feed on human brains. Devon and Cai are forced to go into hiding. She makes a deal with her brother Ramsey, who has been forced to join the book-eater order known as the knights. Together, they plan to track down the dispersed Ravenscar family, book eaters known for making a drug called Redemption. Redemption allows mind eaters like Cai to exist without feeding on humans. 

Ramsey has an explosive surgically implanted in Cai’s body so that Devon will do everything he says. As Devon searches for signs of the Ravenscars, she meets a young woman named Hester Ravenscar. Hester agrees to introduce Devon to her family, although she is secretive about their whereabouts. Ramsey has them followed when they leave. Devon, Hester, and Cai hide out before continuing onward to the Ravenscar home in Scotland. There, Devon meets their leader, Killock, and makes the shocking discovery that the entire family is made up of mind eaters. 

Another surprise is that the reporter whom Devon met as a child, Amarinder “Mani” Patel, is still with them and is being kept comfortably imprisoned. Killock is mentally unwell and regularly feeds off humans from the nearby village. He calls this practice “communion,” as he absorbs some of the essence and memories of everyone he feeds on. Devon secretly meets with Jarrow, who has developed a device to scramble the signals from Cai’s explosive. With his safety secured, Devon plans to run away with Hester, Jarrow, Vic (Jarrow’s sister), Cai, Mani, and a case full of Redemption to manage Cai’s hunger. 

They’re interrupted by the early arrival of Ramsey and his knights, and the families battle. Hester is seriously wounded but survives, and in the fight, Cai kills Ramsey. In doing so, he absorbs a piece of Ramsey’s spirit. The group prepares to leave England, and Devon vows to return for her daughter one day.