Lauren Beukes

Most of the men are dead. Three years after the pandemic known as The Manfall, governments still hold and life continues -- but a world run by women isn't always a better place. Twelve-year-old Miles is one of the last boys alive, and his mother, Cole, will protect him at all costs. On the run after a horrific act of violence-and pursued by Cole's own ruthless sister, Billie -- all Cole wants is to raise her kid somewhere he won't be preyed on as a reproductive resource or a sex object or a stand-in son. Someplace like home. To get there, Cole and Miles must journey across a changed America in disguise as mother and daughter. From a military base in Seattle to a luxury bunker, from an anarchist commune in Salt Lake City to a roaming cult that's all too ready to see Miles as the answer to their prayers, the two race to stay ahead at every step . . . even as Billie and her sinister crew draw closer. A sharply feminist, high-stakes thriller from award-winning author Lauren Beukes, Afterland brilliantly blends psychological suspense, American noir, and science fiction into an adventure all its own -- and perfect for our times.

A grieving daughter’s search for her mother becomes a journey across alternate realities in Bridge, a wildly entertaining, reality-bending new thriller from Lauren Beukes, author of the AppleTV+ smash hit The Shining Girls.It was a game they played; the other worlds, the other lives. It was part of her mom’s grand delusions. It wasn’t real. Unless it was…  Bridget Kittinger has always been paralyzed by choices. It has a lot to do with growing up in the long shadow of her mother, Jo, a troubled neuroscientist. Jo’s obsession with one mythical object, the “dreamworm”—which she believed enabled travel to other worlds—led to their estrangement. Now, suddenly, Jo is dead. And in packing up her home, Bridge finds a strange device buried deep in Jo’s freezer: the dreamworm. Against all odds, it actually can open the door—to all other realities, and to all other versions of herself, too. Could Bridge find who she should be in this world, by visiting the others? And could her Jo still be alive somewhere? But there’s a sinister cost to trading places, and others hunting the dreamworm who would kill to get their hands on it . . . Across a thousand possible lives, from Portland to Haiti, from Argentina to the alligator-infested riverways of North Carolina, Bridge takes readers on a highly original thrill ride, pushing the boundaries of what we know about mothers and daughters, hunters and seekers, and who we each choose to be.

Las elecciones siempre han paralizado a Bridget Kittinger, un problema estrechamente relacionado con haberse criado a la sombra alargada de su madre, Jo, una neurocientífica atormentada cuya obsesión con un objeto mítico, el gusano de los sueños, que creía que permitía viajar a otros mundos, provocó el distanciamiento de ambas. Ahora, Jo ha muerto repentinamente, y al acudir a su casa para vaciarla, Bridge encuentra un extraño objeto enterrado en las profundidades del congelador: el gusano de los sueños. Contra todo pronóstico, es verdaderamente la llave que abre la puerta a otras realidades y a todas las demás versiones de sí misma. ¿Podría Bridge descubrir su lugar en este mundo visitando a las demás? ¿Podría su Jo seguir viva en algún lugar? De Portland a Haití, y de Argentina a los ríos infestados de caimanes de Carolina del Norte, Bridge transporta a los lectores a un viaje electrizante y sumamente original, forzando los límites de lo que sabemos acerca de madres e hijas.

Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies, but this one is unique even by Detroit's standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams? If you're Detective Versado's geeky teenage daughter, Layla, you commence a dangerous flirtation with a potential predator online. If you're desperate freelance journalist Jonno, you do whatever it takes to get the exclusive on a horrific story. If you're Thomas Keen, known on the street as TK, you'll do what you can to keep your homeless family safe--and find the monster who is possessed by the dream of violently remaking the world. If Lauren Beukes's internationally bestselling The Shining Girls was a time-jumping thrill ride through the past, her Broken Monsters is a genre-redefining thriller about broken cities, broken dreams, and broken people trying to put themselves back together again.

In a stand-alone tale, Beast must hunt a beauty, but what is her relation to his past? And then, in a 6-part epic, Rapunzel lives one of the most regimented lives in Fabletown, forced to maintain her rapidly growing hair lest her storybook origins be revealed. But when word of her long-lost children surface, she races across the sea to find them--and a former lover. Collecting: Fairest 8-14

Chicago, 1931. Harper Curtis, un vagabundo violento, se topa con una casa que oculta un sorprendente secreto: es la puerta que lo traslada a otros momentos del tiempo para acechar a mujeres jóvenes que se le aparecen como «luminosas», rodeadas de una aureola especial que las convierte en el preciado objeto de sus instintos asesinos. Chicago, 1992. La vida de Kirby Mazrachi se ha trastocado tras el brutal intento de asesinarla. Mientras lucha por encontrar a su atacante, su único aliado es Dan, un antiguo periodista de homicidios que se ocupó del caso y que trata de protegerla de su obsesión. A medida que Kirby avanza en la investigación descubre a otras chicas, las que no lo lograron. Las pruebas de los crímenes son imposibles y la respuesta parece ocultarse en una casa abandonada en medio de la ciudad.

«Tengo que decirlo: ¡este libro es alucinante, una fantasmagoría criminal! Esta espléndida novela es un manual para explorar la decadencia humana elevada a la enésima potencia». James Ellroy En Detroit, la ciudad que se ha convertido en el símbolo de la muerte del sueño americano, una ciudad embargada, desahuciada, un asesino en serie pretende redimir sus frustraciones artísticas a través del horror. La detective de homicidios Gabriella Versado ha visto muchos cadáveres a lo largo de sus ocho años de carrera, pero este es demasiado macabro incluso para los estándares de Detroit: el tronco de un niño de doce años aparece pegado a la parte trasera de un ciervo, en una suerte de fusión repulsiva. A medida que la policía va hallando cadáveres cada vez más inquietantes, surge una pregunta: ¿cómo se puede sobrevivir en esa ciudad, escombrera del sueño americano? Monstruos rotos es un thriller que trasciende el género y que muestra ciudades rotas, sueños rotos y personas rotas que buscan recomponerse. Lauren Beukes se mueve sin esfuerzo entre los distintos submundos de la ciudad, ya sean comisarías de policía, las vidas secretas de unas adolescentes obsesionadas con internet, refugios para indigentes o los vecindarios moribundos de una ciudad renqueante, todo mientras se asoma al universo perturbadoramente hermoso y casi sobrenatural que existe en las fronteras.

A frighteningly persuasive, high-tech fable, this novel follows the lives of four narrators living in an alternative futuristic Cape Town, South Africa. Kendra, an art-school dropout, brands herself for a nanotech marketing program; Lerato, an ambitious AIDS baby, plots to defect from her corporate employers; Tendeka, a hot-headed activist, is becoming increasingly rabid; and Toby, a roguish blogger, discovers that the video games he plays for cash are much more than they seem. On a collision course that will rewire their lives, this story crackles with bold and infectious ideas, connecting a ruthless corporate-apartheid government with video games, biotech attack dogs, slippery online identities, a township soccer school, shocking cell phones, addictive branding, and genetically modified art. Taking hedonistic trends in society to their ultimate conclusions, this tale paints anything but a forecasted utopia, satirically undermining the reified idea of progress as society's white knight.

Look out for AFTERLAND, the new novel by Lauren Beukes In a troubling, near-future Cape Town four broken people try to carve out a place for themselves before a brutal storm of change hits them . . .******'Beukes deals with slightly surreal things in very real ways. I'm all over it' Gillian FlynnKendra, an art-school dropout, brands herself for a nanotech marketing program. Lerato, an ambitious AIDS baby, plots to defect from her corporate employers. Tendeka, a hot-headed activist, is becoming increasingly rabid. Toby, a roguish blogger, discovers that the video games he plays for cash are much more than they seem.Four hurt and damaged individuals trying to make lives for themselves in a broken, uncertain future. But as events send them on a collision course their worlds are about to change in unexpected - and explosive - ways.*******'You don't have to be an SF aficionado to love this novel that is fast, brimming with original ideas' Guardian'A major, major talent' George R. R. Martin

In her edgy, satiric debut collection, award-winning South African journalist and author Lauren Beukes (The Shining Girls, Moxyland) never holds back. Nothing is simple and everything is perilous when humans are involved: corruption, greed, and even love (of a sort).A permanent corporate branding gives a young woman enhanced physical abilities and a nearly-constant highRecruits lifted out of poverty find a far worse fate collecting biohazardous plants on an inhospitable worldThe only adult survivor of the apocalypse decides he will be the savior of teenagers; the teenagers are not amused.From Johannesburg to outer space, these previously uncollected tales are a compelling, dark, and slippery ride.

One was possessed by a poltergeist. Another was trapped in a haunted house. A third had a killer doll. Ever wonder what happened to these children of the 1980s? Find out in Survivors' Club, a new series co-written by renowned horror novelist Lauren Beukes and award-winning cover designer and illustrator Dale Halverson, with art by Ryan Kelly (Northlanders). Having found each other over the internet, six grown-up survivors are drawn together by the horrors they experienced in 1987 when a rash of occult events occurred around the world--with fatal results. Now, there are indications that it may be happening all over again. Is it possible that these six aren't just survivors--but were chosen for their fates? Collecting: Survivors' Club 1-9

The girl who wouldn't die hunts the killer who shouldn't exist. "The future is not as loud as war, but it is relentless. It has a terrible fury all its own." Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the past. Kirby Mazrachi is the girl who was never meant to have a future. Kirby is the last shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper is destined to snuff out after he stumbles on a House in Depression-era Chicago that opens onto other times. At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of the shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He's the ultimate hunter, vanishing into another time after each murder, untraceable—until one of his victims survives. Determined to bring her would-be killer to justice, Kirby joins the Chicago Sun-Times to work with the ex-homicide reporter Dan Velasquez, who covered her case. Soon Kirby finds herself closing in on the impossible truth. . . . The Shining Girls is a masterful twist on the serial killer tale: a violent quantum leap featuring a memorable and appealing heroine in pursuit of a deadly criminal.

In the near future, lab-grown sex dolls are the pleasure toy of choice in this disturbing and provocative short story from Lauren Beukes, the bestselling author of The Shining Girls. Actor and sex worker Nats is experienced at putting on a show. However, her new gig supplying intimate whispers for growgirls takes her to a place darker and lonelier than she could have ever imagined. The lab-grown dolls can respond to pleasure or pain; their synthetic heads contain only the simplest AI to prevent any pesky robo sex doll uprisings. But just because growgirls don’t have a brain, doesn’t mean they don’t have a voice… Ungirls is part of Disorder, a collection of six short stories of living nightmares, chilling visions, and uncanny imagination that explore a world losing its balance in terrifying ways. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single disorienting sitting.

La maggior parte degli uomini è morta. Tre anni dopo la pandemia nota come Manfall, i governi resistono ancora e la vita continua, ma un mondo gestito da donne non è sempre un posto migliore. Il dodicenne Miles è uno degli ultimi ragazzi in vita e sua madre, Cole, lo proteggerà a tutti i costi. In fuga dopo un orribile atto di violenza - e perseguitata dalla sua stessa sorella spietata, Billie - tutto ciò che Cole vuole è crescere suo figlio da qualche parte in cui non sarà una semplice risorsa riproduttiva o un oggetto sessuale. Un posto chiamato casa. Per arrivarci, Cole e Miles dovranno attraversare un'America profondamente diversa, travestiti da madre e figlia. Da una base militare a un bunker di lusso, da una comune anarchica a Salt Lake City ai seguaci di un culto pronto a riconoscere Miles come risposta alle loro preghiere, i due saranno costretti a muoversi velocemente perché Billie e il suo sinistro equipaggio saranno sempre più vicini. Un romanzo fortemente femminista, "Un mondo di donne" fonde suspense psicologica, noir e fantascienza.

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons. Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow. Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own.