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Bat Eater
On sale
7th January 2025
Price: £20
Genre
From Sunday Times bestselling author Kylie Lee Baker comes a sharp and propulsive horror thriller, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic and She is a Haunting.
‘Gory’ PAUL TREMBLAY
‘Bat Eater will swoop in like a bat out of hell, swallow you whole and leave no crumbs’ Alice Slater
Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train.
Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater.
Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won’t take her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open.
Cora tries to ignore the rising dread in her stomach, even when she and her weird co-workers begin finding bat carcasses at their crime scene clean-ups. But Cora can’t ignore the fact that all their recent clean-ups have been the bodies of East Asian women.
Soon Cora will learn, you can’t just ignore hungry ghosts.
PRAISE FOR BAT EATER
‘A profound reminder of the true horrors that lurk in the world’
Tori Bovalino, author of My Throat an Open Grave
‘A serial killer mystery and a heartbreaking portrayal of grief’
Kirsty Logan, author of Things We Say in the Dark
‘This book dug its claws into me and would not let go’
Ling Ling Huang, author of Natural Beauty
‘Body horror and female rage fiction combine in a powerful novel that will leave you quaking’
Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor
‘A poignant, searing portrait of the hostility and violence that plagued pandemic-era NYC’
Veronica G. Henry, bestselling author of The Canopy Keepers
‘This is easily one of the most exciting and unique books I’ve read in years’
Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
‘Gory’ PAUL TREMBLAY
‘Bat Eater will swoop in like a bat out of hell, swallow you whole and leave no crumbs’ Alice Slater
Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train.
Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater.
Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won’t take her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open.
Cora tries to ignore the rising dread in her stomach, even when she and her weird co-workers begin finding bat carcasses at their crime scene clean-ups. But Cora can’t ignore the fact that all their recent clean-ups have been the bodies of East Asian women.
Soon Cora will learn, you can’t just ignore hungry ghosts.
PRAISE FOR BAT EATER
‘A profound reminder of the true horrors that lurk in the world’
Tori Bovalino, author of My Throat an Open Grave
‘A serial killer mystery and a heartbreaking portrayal of grief’
Kirsty Logan, author of Things We Say in the Dark
‘This book dug its claws into me and would not let go’
Ling Ling Huang, author of Natural Beauty
‘Body horror and female rage fiction combine in a powerful novel that will leave you quaking’
Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor
‘A poignant, searing portrait of the hostility and violence that plagued pandemic-era NYC’
Veronica G. Henry, bestselling author of The Canopy Keepers
‘This is easily one of the most exciting and unique books I’ve read in years’
Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
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Reviews
I smashed through Bat Eater - shocking, visceral and haunted by more than ghosts: trauma, rage, grief, racism, crime scene clean ups and COVID paranoia. Bat Eater will swoop in like a bat out of hell, swallow you whole and leave no crumbs
Bat Eater and Other Names For Cora Zeng possessed me from the first page and haunted me for long after the last. The visceral emotionality of Baker's writing and the specificity of New York through the Asian American experience makes for a powerful exploration of loneliness, community, and belonging in the face of hatred. Singular in every way, this book dug its claws into me and would not let go
Unless you are Asian, you cannot know the terror and anger we felt during covid times - but Bat Eater will get you pretty close. Body horror and female rage fiction combine in a powerful novel that will leave you quaking. There has never been a hungry ghost like the one in Bat Eater
There's a lovely touch of humour intricately woven throughout this otherwise brutal, tense, and daring story. I found myself totally enraptured with these characters, horrified at times and unable to pry my eyes away from the page. For some, there's such delight in the thrill of terror. If that's true for you, Kylie Lee Baker's exceptional book will carve a permanent grin into the face of even the most discriminating horror critic. Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng has everything I look for in a compelling horror novel-strangeness, sensitivity, and empathy. This is easily one of the most exciting and unique books I've read in years
Kylie Lee Baker's Bat Eater is a poignant, searing portrait of the hostility and violence that plagued pandemic-era NYC. This story of hungry ghosts demanding redemption is in a word... magnificent
Viscerally haunting. Bat Eater & Other Names for Cora Zeng is a profound reminder of the true horrors that lurk in the world, the ones that cannot be dispelled by turning on a light or flipping the page.
Bat Eater is a compelling, gory, ghostly romp, and it's a righteous battle cry aimed into the racist heart of the pandemic hellscape. You won't be able to stop turning pages while rooting for Cora
WOW. Just wow. I am completely obsessed with this book. Bat Eater is a serial killer mystery and a heartbreaking portrayal of grief and a brutal depiction of a Chinese woman's experience during COVID and a genuinely terrifying ghost story, all at once. I loved every single page