There are horror stories that lure you in with a familiar setup only to pull the rug out from under you and take you on a wild ride. Morsels by Abe Moss might be a story you should enter with little prior knowledge of the premise as it threw me for a loop, but in a way that had me eager to find out more. This horror story is far from familiar when it all is laid out in the end.
Connie can’t deny she’s nervous about meeting her boyfriend’s family. Spending the weekend at their ritzy woodland summer home, Evan has already given her fair warning that his parents are cold, snobbish, and especially unpleasant toward those outside their usual social circles.
So when Evan’s mother warmly greets them with open arms, Connie is as confused as he is. Evan’s parents are nothing like he described. They’re so friendly, in fact, Evan himself can hardly believe they’re real. Then, while helping with dinner, Connie overhears strange noises coming from the basement—what almost sounds like voices calling out for help. Connie doesn’t realize that once the door is opened, it can’t be closed. Or that once she descends those rickety steps into the darkness below…she may never see the light of day again.
I am a reader who needs to read the description or solicitation of a story before diving in headfirst. Giving myself an idea of the story itself allows me to enjoy the experience a bit more. However, there are some stories that I then put forward to much of an expectation or preconceived knowledge, making the story turn out to be a surprise. Morsels was something I thought was going to go one direction and ended up going a different, but that’s not to say it was a bad thing.
With the direction change from my own preconceived thoughts, I shouldn’t have been surprised as much as I was along the way. Every time I thought I knew where the story was headed, Moss found another unique way to surprise me. This kept me on my toes throughout and made for an interesting reading experience. Not to mention how Moss continuously raises the stakes as the story moves along at a breakneck speed.
This monstrous horror story is more than just blood and gore, but uses supernatural horror elements to help creep us out. However, this is not the only horrors Morsels relies on. Moss also weaves in family struggles, abuse, identity, and even elitism. A big takeaway for me was that you don’t always have to be like the rest of your family and sometimes being the odd-one-out can be a saving grace. While the real-life horrors are ever-present, Morsels does use unsettling and atmospheric storytelling to creep us out and frighten us to the core. A great blend of varying horrors to keep us on edge.
Morsels never really settles for the obvious, taking what you might think the story is about and giving us a wild ride. Abe Moss crafts an imaginative and unsettling story that takes big swings and lands on that majority of them. Morsels kept me guessing to the very end while creeping me out along the way.
Morsels hits bookstores everywhere on October 6, 2026 from Evil Twin. The audiobook, narrated by Candace Fitzgerald, is available via Libro.fm!
