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Bat Eater

Sharp, witty, GORY: The addictive Sunday Times bestselling social horror-thriller

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Bat Eater

By: Kylie Lee Baker
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
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PRE-ORDER KYLIE LEE BAKER'S NEXT ADDICTIVE HORROR JAPANESE GOTHIC
🦇 '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.

🦇 '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
©2025 Kylie Lee Baker Crime Crime Fiction Fantasy Ghosts Horror Supernatural Thriller & Suspense Murder Scary Fiction
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Critic reviews

Ingenious mash-up of surreal folklore horror, sly buddy comedy and painfully timely social commentary
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
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!
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)
All stars
Most relevant
I had to slow the narrator down as far as I could as she read too fast

anxiety induced speed read

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This was pretty good, well written. liked the narration. It's not a feel good and I didn't find the ending satisfying but the journey getting there is super interesting and enjoyable

Surprised me and good

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Probably the best audiobook ive listened to in a long while... Graphic but not distasteful, spooky yet not horror. The author portrays an eye opening account of how fear breeds hate. Plausible, probable and I fear sadly accurate.
I look forward to her publishing more literature aimed at adults.

Excellent story paired with the perfect narrator

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Cora and her sister Delilah"'s lives are changed forever during a racist COVID related incident on a subway one day. Cora finds herself working as a crime scene cleaner as dead Chinese and east Asian girls and women start turning up dead in increasingly violent murders. As Cora wrestles with her own demons, they seem to somehow cross from her mind into her day to day life. Something is in the darkness and it wants something from Cora... Terrifying, visceral and gripping, this violent horror has a lot of axes to grind, and grind them it does. This is a book of righteous wrath and fear, giving life to uncomfortable spectres that COVID brought to the surface.

A book with bite

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Loved this. Horror that felt fresh, maybe this will start a new Asian Gothic genre! I’ve never heard of Hungry Ghost month, in fact, never heard any Chinese folk stories or horror before. The main character was a fully fleshed out person that I was rooting for, not a perfect and not a caricature. The story was well paced and genuinely disturbing, featuring both supernatural elements and a serial killer storyline. Highly recommend this for any horror fan who is bored of the same stories on repeat

So fresh, so clean

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