Description
'WOW. This book is now burned into my brain for so many reasons! I don't recommend you read right before you go to sleep . . .' 🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇
🦇 'Haunted, absurd, terrifying, ridiculous, and full of hungry ghosts. This book shook me in all the best ways' GRADY HENDRIX 🦇
🦇 '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.
NEW HORROR FROM KYLIE LEE BAKER COMING 2026 . . . JAPANESE GOTHIC
🦇 'A profound reminder of the true horrors that lurk in the world' TORI BOVALINO 🦇
🦇 'A serial killer mystery and a heartbreaking portrayal of grief' KIRSTY LOGAN 🦇
🦇 'This book dug its claws into me and would not let go' LING LING HUANG 🦇
🦇 'Body horror and female rage fiction combine in a powerful novel that will leave you quaking' ALMA KATSU 🦇
🦇 'A poignant, searing portrait of the hostility and violence that plagued pandemic-era NYC' VERONICA G. HENRY 🦇
BAT EATER WAS A NUMBER 4 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WEEK ENDING 09/02/2025
About the Author
Kylie Lee Baker is the Sunday Times bestselling author of adult horror novel Bat Eater and YA novels The Keeper of Night duology and The Scarlet Alchemist duology. She grew up in Boston, but lived in Atlanta, Salamanca and Seoul before returning to Massachusetts. Her work is informed by her heritage (Chinese, Japanese and 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 an MS in Library and Information Science from Simmons University. In her free time, she plays the cello, watches horror movies and bakes too many cookies.
Reviews
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 *
Stylish, propulsive, occasionally shocking and fuelled by a great big beating heart for its characters, Kylie Lee Baker's Bat Eater is a ghost story that exists in its own glorious phylum -- Nick Cutter
Fantastic... this astonishing work of speculative crime fiction blends mystery with horror, rage with grief, to memorable and moving effect * Irish Times *
I highly recommend this addictive and unsettling read if you're in the mood for horror * Cosmo *
Reading this novel is like having an extended panic attack . . . It's a vibrant, pulsatingly righteous response to the horrors around us, and it's masterfully done * SFX *
This is a gore-filled spectacle and extremely entertaining, yet the authenticity of grief and fear, culture and beliefs, hammer home. Bat Eater is an unforgettable wild ride of a tale, it truly deserves to fly * LoveReading *
Uniquely powerful * Crime Monthly *
Operating on the ragged edge of obsession, madness and rage, never has the phrase darkly compelling felt more appropriate * Daily Mail *
It's an energetic, grimy and spooky tale, powered by indignation * Financial Times *
Folk-horror meets crime thriller in a witty, gory, genre-defying novel that takes readers on an exploration of Chinese-American heritage while observing the racism rampant in New York during COVID-19 * House of Books & Friends Manchester *
If you only read one book this year - writers, booksellers and critics pick titles to entice * Guardian *
Gory and haunting...will have you hooked from the get-go * USA TODAY *
An important and timely tale about life as an 'other' in chaotic times -- Gabino Iglesias
Book Information
ISBN 9781399729833
Author Kylie Lee Baker
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Hodder Paperback
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
