Bat Eater

The Sunday Times bestselling WINNER of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel

By: Kylie Lee Baker

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Paperback | 18 February 2026 | Edition Number 1

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Paperback

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19.7 x 13.0 x 2.7

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BAT EATER follows a biracial woman haunted by both her own inner trauma and hungry ghosts as she's entangled in a series of murders in NYC's Chinatown.

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.

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.

Industry 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

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

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

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

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