For readers of Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister the Serial Killer and Bella Mackie's How to Kill Your Family, this is a monstrous, gleeful, bitingly funny tale of murder, body-swapping and bloody vengeance from the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award® for Lifetime Achievement and 'Queen of African Horror'. Chia runs one of the best restaurants in Abuja, Nigeria, and is renowned among the male clientele for her captivating beauty—she is every man's dream woman—and delicious hot pepper soup. But her hot pepper soup has a secret ingredient, and her beauty is not what it seems… Claire is a 50 year-old British woman living in Abuja with her young Nigerian boyfriend and his beautiful cousin, Shadé. Consumed by jealousy and resentment and blinded to the poisonous tendencies of her beloved son, after a night out at Chia's infamous restaurant, Claire's carefully organised life spirals into chaos… Both women seethe with rage and bitterness, and when a trickster spirit offers them revenge on those who have wronged them, they cannot resist... Crackling with wit, this is a blood-soaked, expletive-laden, vengeance-filled horror story. Satirical, twisty and murderous, this is bloody, deadly fun from a writer at the top of her game.

A collection of poignant, perceptive essays that expertly blends the personal and political in an exploration of American culture through the lens of our obsession with dead women. In her debut collection, Alice Bolin turns a critical eye to literature and pop culture, the way media consumption reflects American society, and her own place within it. From essays on Joan Didion and James Baldwin to Twin Peaks, Britney Spears, and Serial, Bolin illuminates our widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster a man’s story. From chronicling life in Los Angeles to dissecting the “Dead Girl Show” to analyzing literary witches and werewolves, this collection challenges the narratives we create and tell ourselves, delving into the hazards of toxic masculinity and those of white womanhood. Beginning with the problem of dead women in fiction, it expands to the larger problems of living women—both the persistent injustices they suffer and the oppression that white women help perpetrate. Sharp, incisive, and revelatory, Dead Girls is a much-needed dialogue on women’s role in the media and in our culture.

Joyce Carol Oates’s prize-winning story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” takes up troubling subjects that continue to occupy her in her fiction: the romantic longings and limited options of adolescent women; the tensions between mothers and daughters; the sexual victimization of women; and the American obsession with violence.  Inspired by a magazine story about a serial killer, its remarkable portrait of the dreamy teenager Connie has made it a feminist classic.  Connie’s life anticipates the emergence of American society from the social innocence of the fifties into the harsher contemporary realities of war, random violence, and crime.  The story was the basis for the movie Smooth Talk, which became the subject of much feminist debate. This casebook includes an introduction by the editor, a chronology of Oates’s life, an authoritative text of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” an essay by Oates on Smooth Talk, the original Life article about the serial killer, ten critical essays (including two about the film), and a bibliography.The contributors are Brenda O. Daly, Christina Marsden Gillis, Don Moser, Tom Quirk, B. Ruby Rich, R.J.R. Rockwood, Larry Rubin, Gretchen Schulz, Marie Mitchell Oleson Urbanski, Joyce M. Wegs, Marilyn C. Wesley, and Joan D. Winslow.  

The mind of Ray Bradbury is a wonder-filled carnival of delight and terror that stretches from the verdant Irish countryside to the coldest reaches of outer space. Yet all his work is united by one common thread: a vivid and profound understanding of the vast set of emotions that bring strength and mythic resonance to our frail species. Ray Bradbury characters may find themselves anywhere and anywhen. A horrified mother may give birth to a strange blue pyramid. A man may take Abraham Lincoln out of the grave—and meet another who puts him back. An amazing Electrical Grandmother may come to live with a grieving family. An old parrot may have learned over long evenings to imitate the voice of Ernest Hemingway, and became the last link to the great man. A priest on Mars may confront his fondest dream: to meet the Messiah. Each of these magnificent creations has something to tell us about our humanity—and all of their fates await you in this new trade edition of twenty-eight classic Bradbury stories and one luscious poem. Travel on an unpredictable and unforgettable literary journey—safe in the hands of one the century's great men of imagination.

Since its earliest midnight showings at the Waverly Theater in New York City, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been an underground sensation. For five decades, people around the world have dressed up and gathered in dark theaters to dance, yell, mime obscene acts, and forge connections with other queer people and weirdos. The film shattered expectations and social norms at the time of its release. But how does its presentation of queerness—not to mention its portrayals of murder, manipulation, consent violation, and cannibalism—hold up today? The essays in Absolute Pleasure—by queer writers including Sarah Gailey, Grace Lavery, and Magdalene Visaggio—explore the film's complicated legacy, along with queer and trans joy, sexuality, family, generational understandings of queerness, and what we do with our problematic faves.

A page-turning, supernaturally-tinged LA puzzle-box thriller – Zodiac with teeth, from the Bram Stoker Award-nominated and bestselling author of Come with Me. Perfect for fans of Riley Sager and Lauren Beukes.What do you see...?When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the detective assigned to the case can't deny the similarities between this murder and one that occurred a year prior. Media outlets are quick to surmise this is the work of a budding serial killer, but Detective Bill Renney is struggling with an altogether different a secret that keeps him tethered to the husband of the first victim.What do you hear...?Maureen Park, newly engaged to Hollywood producer Greg Dawson, finds her engagement party crashed by the arrival of Landon, Greg’s son. A darkly unsettling young man, Landon invades Maureen’s new existence, and the longer he stays, the more convinced she becomes that he may have something to do with the recent murder in the high desert.What do you feel...?Toby Kampen, the self-proclaimed Human Fly, begins an obsession over a woman who is unlike anyone he has ever met. A woman with rattlesnake teeth and a penchant for biting. A woman who has trapped him in her spell. A woman who may or may not be completely human. In Ronald Malfi's brand-new thriller, these three storylines converge to create a tapestry of deceit, distrust, and unapologetic horror. A brand-new novel of dark suspense set in the City of Angels, as only “horror’s Faulkner” can tell it.

Jaws with wasps. By the time Scarlett Sutton arrives at her dad’s cabin in the Smoky Mountains, two locals have already been eaten alive by wasps. Of course, she doesn’t know this yet. All Scarlett knows is her mom finally checked herself into a hospital to take care of her mental health, leaving Scarlett alone with her dad all summer. After he insists that she get a job, Scarlett accepts a position at nearby Stovetop Outfitters, hoping to spend as much time away from him as possible. She doesn’t expect to trip over a skeletonized corpse beneath the zip-line during one of her shifts—and definitely doesn’t expect to be thrown into a Netflix-style true crime investigation. The local sheriff’s department is so overwhelmed by these unsolved deaths that when one of the Stovetop Outfitters employees disappears next, Scarlett and her co-workers set out to find him on their own. They discover something much more horrifying: a swarm of yellow jackets stripping the meat off his body. Scarlett never signed up to solve a disgusting mystery, but in order to protect her friends and family, she must defeat the mountain’s darkness and all these godforsaken wasps.

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death. A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

During the hot, dry summer of 1988, in a forgotten neighborhood known as the riverside, seventeen-year-old Shinogaki Toma is entangled in a desperate struggle against what he believes to be his fate to become his sadistic father. Consumed by a fear that he will harm his girlfriend, Toma's downward spiral into depression and instability becomes increasingly intense. Toma's mother left his father long ago and now lives nearby as a fishmonger. Using the hook that replaced the hand she lost during wartime bombings, she guts the eels Toma catches in the sewage-filled river for his father to eat. Things come to a head when Kotoko, his father's live in girlfriend, becomes pregnant and makes the decision to leave the riverside for a better life.Translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony, Tanaka Shinya's Akutagawa Prize-winning masterpiece, Cannibals, sold over 200,000 copies in Japan and was adapted into a movie by Cannes Film Festival-winner Shinji Aoyama.