Granny's Special Sauce

by Lolly Sparrow, Kelvin V.A Allison (Editor)

Valencia Vialli, desperate to save her failing restaurant, digs through her Nonna’s handwritten recipes and discovers a legendary sauce said to have once kept the family business alive...
But the recipe is dark and its power hinges on a single, secret ingredient. As pressure mounts and her livelihood slips away, Valencia’s sense of right and wrong begins to erode.
Each compromise pulls her deeper into obsession, until her quest for culinary salvation becomes a descent into moral ruin, depravity and decay. What began as a search for flavour spirals into a tale of corruption, desperation, and the terrible lengths she’ll go to ensure her restaurant and her legacy survive.

Extreme horror, elements of feminine rage, a shit ton of ickiness!

Reviews

[Yvonne (the putrid Shelf) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valencia owns a struggling authentic Italian restaurant. Everything she knows, she's learned from her Nonna. But, it's safe to say her restaurant is struggling. The bills are piling up, her taxes are due and she just doesn't get many body's through the door anymore. She is drowning in anxiety and hopelessness.

Valencia digs deep, she isn't willing to go down without a fight and unearths the recipes that made her Nonna's restaurant such a wild success. Her special sauce contains one special ingredient, a forbidden liquid. And the lengths she goes to acquire it made me swallow back a rising tide of bile.

Lolly is a magician of the bizarre macabre, a captain of the high tides of gore. Although such a storyline of disgusting proportions, it is a story of immense heart. Valencia is passionate about her craft and family and would do anything to protect it.

[Milt Theo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vile and unsanitary, the titular special sauce of this story promises to create a whole lot of dark mayhem - and, boy, does it deliver! This is a novelette of culinary horror, expertly stirred to perfection by Lolly Sparrow, whose instincts for the extreme and the depraved work wonders every time the main course is served. And this is one course no extreme horror fan can miss!

Essentially one woman's show, the tale figures Valencia, an Italian chef whose restaurant in a small English seaside town is on the verge of foreclosure. She unearths her Nonna's recipe, and meets with huge success. But the recipe has a secret ingredient, which is not as readily available as required to save the business. And so begin Valencia's forays into the most disgusting of places, to secure the one thing she needs to honor her granny's recipe. But this proves to be a descent into moral depravity, with many, many twists!

The blunt, sharp writing, almost purely descriptive, especially those short sentences hitting like darts on target, make the story suspenseful and immersive. Highly recommend!

[Erica Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG!
This book was absolutely foul! But soooooo good. Well written and exciting. I truly felt for Valencia
And the ending?! Pure perfection!
If you like gross out horror with a touch of something sinister then this is for you! I wont ever look at a sanny bin the same way again!
🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸/5!

[Claudia Rambles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valencia will do everything to keep her restaurant afloat and her Nonna’s special sauce recipe might be the answer. But how far is she willing to go to get the main ingredient?!

I don’t know why I find disgusting books so entertaining and this one is not only gross, it also has a lot of heart. Valencia just wants to protect the family’s legacy, but things quickly start to snowball and we’re right there beside her, rooting for her while barfing at people stuffing their faces.

I have to say, Lolly’s writing is addictive. The characters are relatable, and the twists and turns keep you on your toes, never quite knowing where the story is going.

If you like short stories that test your stomach, make sure you add this one to your tbr!

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[Rebecca Bectoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from the author and I'm giving a voluntary review 😊.

This book was gross. I think I've been put off pasta sauce for life 🤣. Val is a struggling chef in debt and is about to lose it all, but she finds her Nonna's recipe book and her restaurant becomes a success basically overnight but this recipe book is not your typical recipe book. I can't really say much more without giving too much away, it's only 90 pages long but it packs a punch.

[K D Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valencia is close to losing it all. That is until the memory of her nonna’s recipe books surface. Valencia try’s out a new sauce recipe. It’s a success but that special ingredient very nearly made me barf 🤮
I really enjoyed the writing in this one! The context is gross but the writing is beautiful and on point! This story mutates and changes, raw and visceral, a black magic for the palette. I read this one in one sitting! A total banger!

[Jess Beedle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my bloody hell! 🩸🩸🩸🩸
Quite literally
But what a book!
It was one of the grimmest books I have read! Thank you for the arc Lolly and Kelvin
An amazing book as usual from you guys.
The whole story was a fast paced read! Great length and great revenge! Loved the heart part. (Iykyk)
Will always recommend both of you!
And highly recommend this book!

[Andrew Wilkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valencia runs a small Italian restaurant by the name of the Il Segreto. Her goal was to make her Nonna proud of her, and be as successful restarantuer. Just one problem, she isn't really getting any business, and, within the next four weeks she must come up with a substantial amount of money in order to make a loan payment. This leads Valencia to a new course of action, that being to find rediscover her roots, and start using her Nonna’s recipes, particularly the one for her famous sauce. Finding and studying her Nonna’s small cookbook, Valencia makes the sauce, down to the very latter of the recipe, which also includes what is referred to as a "special ingredient." Soon, she discovers what this special ingredient is, and, though sounding vile, the results are that the people love it, and her business has picked up, once again. However, such an ingredient is really hard to obtain, and she is about to find out the lengths she will have to allow herself to go to in order to secure what she needs to continue to be a success. Will she get greedy? And, what happens if she were to be discovered? What if she alters the recipe, and loses customers, or worse? This was absolutely outstanding! I live for stories like this. Completely vile, disgusting, creatively descriptive in its depravity, and gore. This is my first novella by Lolly, and, it really exceeded my expectations! A must read!
5⭐️/5

[Summer Waters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me just start this off with: holy shit! This book was so good, I read it in one sitting (it was also short, so that helped too). I can see why the book made Kelvin, of Prickles fame, gag! The book has it all. The book follows Valencia, who owns and runs an Italian restaurant that's on the verge of closing due to financial problems. She's willing to do what it takes to keep it open, remembers her grandmother's recipes, and decides to make the special sauce. There's something off about the sauce: it's TOO good, and that's all thanks to a special and secret ingredient. The lengths she goes to get her supply are nothing short of violating and disgusting, but she's in dire straits and has no choice, or so she thinks. She gets mixed up with a nasty man while on one of her excursions, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket from there. Out of guilt, she decides to visit her grandmother in prison one day, where she promises not to change the recipe, as the magic of the sauce will darken if she does. This all leads to the gory, violent, and wild climax. The end twist will have your jaw on the floor as well! This book is in my top 10 best books of 2026 thus far! I can see this being a book I rave about and recommend for years to come!

[Kelvin Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing novel that hit my blood phobia so hard I passed out at one point. Legit the most disgusting thing I have ever read. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended.

[Donyale Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy God damn. Lolly, are y'all ok? This was amazing

[Sarah Cartwright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, absolutely disgusting - pure genius!