by Kylie Lee Baker
Mira Books
2/29/2025, hardcover
SKU: 9780778368458
In this explosive horror novel, a woman is haunted by inner trauma, hungry ghosts, and a serial killer as she confronts the brutal violence experienced by East Asians during the pandemic.
Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. But none of that seems so terrible when she's already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister, Delilah, being pushed in front of a train.
Before fleeing the scene, the murderer shouted two words: bat eater.
So the bloody messes don't really bother Cora--she's more bothered by the germs on the subway railing, the bare hands of a stranger, the hidden viruses in every corner, and the bite marks on her coffee table. Of course, ever since Delilah was killed in front of her, Cora can't be sure what's real and what's in her head.
She pushes away all feelings and ignores the advice of her aunt to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open. But she can't ignore the dread in her stomach as she keeps finding bat carcasses at crime scenes, or the scary fact that all her recent cleanups have been the bodies of East Asian women.
As Cora will soon learn, you can't just ignore hungry ghosts.
For fans of Stephen Graham Jones and Gretchen Felker-Martin, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is a wildly original, darkly humorous, and subversive contemporary novel from a striking new voice in horror.
Reviews:
"An adult debut that frightens to the bone, deftly illustrating trauma and paranoia in aching prose and with perfectly timed grim humor." -- Library Journal, starred review
"Kylie Lee Baker's blood-soaked, Chinese folklore-inspired adult debut deftly explores weighty themes of grief, mental illness, collective memory, and Sinophobia (particularly its rise during the COVID-19 pandemic), building as she does to a pulse-pounding finale that will linger long after readers have turned the final page. Essential reading from a new voice in horror." -- Booklist, starred review
"Equal parts incisive and relentless.... Kylie Lee Baker catapults readers back to the chaos of the early COVID-19 pandemic." -- BookPage, starred review
About the Author:
Kylie Lee Baker is the author of young adult and adult novels. Her writing is informed by her heritage (Japanese, Chinese, and Irish) and her experiences living abroad. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing and Spanish and an M.S. in Library and Information Science.