Bat Eater

'Essential reading from a new voice in horror' BOOKLIST

'Gory' PAUL TREMBLAY

'Bat Eater will swoop in like a bat out of hell, swallow you whole and leave no crumbs' ALICE SLATER

'Easily one of the most exciting and unique books I've read in years' ERIC LAROCCA

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner. But 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.

But the killer was never caught, and Cora is still haunted by his last words: bat eater.

These days, nobody can reach Cora: not her aunt who wants her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, not her weird colleagues, and especially not the slack-jawed shadow lurking around her doorframe. After all, it can't be real - can it?

After a series of unexplained killings in Chinatown, Cora believes that someone might be targeting East Asian women, and something might be targeting Cora herself.

Soon, she will learn . . . you can't just ignore hungry ghosts.

This is what it felt like to live in New York City during lockdown: haunted, absurd, terrifying, ridiculous, and full of hungry ghosts. This book shook me in all the best ways -- GRADY HENDRIX
Baker successfully uses fear, both supernatural and human, to shine a spotlight on anti-Asian hate. Fans of creepy ghost stories and social horror will want to snap this up Publisher's Weekly
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 -- PAUL TREMBLAY
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 -- ALICE SLATER
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
Bat Eater 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 -- LING LING HUANG
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 -- ALMA KATSU
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. Bat Eater 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 -- ERIC LAROCCA
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 -- VERONICA G. HENRY
Viscerally haunting. Bat Eater 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. -- TORI BOVALINO
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 -- KIRSTY LOGAN
A haunting social horror that focuses on anti-Asian hate and harassment Library Journal

Kylie Lee Baker is an author of dark YA fantasy series such as The Keeper of Night duology and The Scarlet Alchemist duology. She grew up in Boston and has since lived in Atlanta, Salamanca, and Seoul. Her work is informed by her heritage (Chinese, Japanese, & Irish) as well as her experiences living abroad as both a student and teacher. She has a BA in creative writing and Spanish from Emory University and M.S. in library and information science from Simmons University. In her free time, she plays the cello, watches horror movies, and bakes too many cookies.

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