Brielle Petitfour has a serious talent for cooking, but with her mom's ongoing illness and mounting bills, her dream of becoming a chef feels impossible. Plus, as a Haitian zombie, created through voodoo, she sometimes finds it hard to relate to human emotions. And the smell of blood sharpen all of her instincts. Her mother left Haiti before Brielle was born, and her father died of an overdose. Her mother, who is poor physical health, works as the health attendant for the man who founded the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the drug that killed her husband.
When this old man is accidentally run over by his Preston, his grandson, while on a walk in front of his estate, Brielle knows things are about to go from bad to worse. Her mother loses her job. At the same time, Brielle receives text messages meant for Preston's father requesting a donation of $10 million. Brielle replies that not only will he donate $10 million, he will double the funds!
Quickly caught, Brielle is offered a choice. She can do an internship at the pharmaceutical company, or Preston's father will file charges. Concurrently while doing her internship, Brielle pursues her cooking interests and starts her own business of catering. The wealthy families who hire her are obsessed with the unique and delicious flavors in her dishes, always trying to figure out her secret ingredients. What they don't know is that Brielle's secret ingredient is human flesh, specifically from the rich dead of the community.
As Brielle connects with Preston, her web of lies start catching up with her. The Summer I Ate the Rich is a twisted and thought-provoking story that takes inspiration from Haitian zombie legends to look at the messed-up social and economic inequalities in our world. Just like the rich people in the book who devour Brielle's food without knowing what it really is, this story will make the reader think about who has power and who gets taken advantage of, leading to a disturbing question: What are we really consuming?
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