I like the pov of this book and the uniqueness of the main character. Kylie tackles such a major and recent stain on American history with the horrendous treatment of Asians during the COVID 19 pandemic. The fear and anger are clear, the writing is haunting and descriptive, BUT I struggled with the pace. Ultimately, I chose to DNF at 54%

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced eARC.

Kyle Lee Baker has absolutely solidified herself as one of rare authors whose prose is as sharp as a knife and beautiful as falling leaves. Her prose truly is so stunning, and KLB absolutely brought the same horridly visceral quality to her historical fantasies to her adult horror debut, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng. Lastly, it was such a delight to see KLB using 3rd person POV for the first time and I hope we get to see that again sometime soon. While this book did not hit it out of the park for me, it is a worthy entry into Kylie Lee Baker’s already flawless bibliography. May 2025 be the year of Cora Zeng.

What an excellent horror novel- it has some traditional elements (ghosts, rampant murder), but also an analysis of Asian racism and the fallout of COVID. It really read as fresh, and real, and unsettling for such a large number of reasons. The trauma is coming at Cora from so many directions- witnessing a brutal hate crime, working as a crime scene cleaner, suffering from OCD, hungry ghosts, and more. It adds up to an overwhelming sense of dread. The writing was very good and I'll looking forward to reading more from this author. I will definitely be recommending this one.

masterful macabre • rating [5]: 🍚🍚🍚🍚🍚

A horrific tragedy leaves Cora Zeng numb and broken leading into the world-altering COVID-19 pandemic. Her germophobia and meticulousness help in her job as a crime scene cleaner, until she realizes the victim trend of all Asian women and a unique calling card - dead bats left at the scene. As the Hungry Ghost festival commences, Cora finds that the horrors of the past and present is not something she can easily run away from.

I am such a big fan of horror movies and TV and this was my first real dive into horror literature. Let me tell you, there’s nothing I love more than when horror can show you that cruelty that humans can impose is much scarier than the supernatural. Kylie is has truly made a masterpiece and created a voice that tells the deepest fears of Asian American communities during the pandemic. But this was also a such a good gory ghost tale, satisfying spooky cravings for this reader!

This book was incredible. Traumatic. Unhinged. Definitely creepy. I loved every minute of it. This is my first intro to this author and it didn’t disappoint. Amazing.

I enjoyed the exploration of anti-Asian racism during the pandemic and connecting it to horror. I liked the descriptions as well!

Wow. It was definitely horror and mysterious. Who is killing all of these Asian women and leaving bats around? Who had killed Cora’s sister, Delilah and called her bat eater?

This book is set during the time when Covid first became rampant and Anti-Asian hate grew ten-fold. We see this with Delilah’s death, when a man spits at Cora, when the white men at the dumpling shop joke about the meat in the pork, and when a man grabs Cora and she pushes him into the street. The book really centers around the anti-asian hysteria with the deaths and the hungry ghosts.

I really enjoyed this book. It touched on racism as well as Christian and Asian cultural traditions. In one chapter, it almost feels like Spirited Away when the spirit eats the feast from the table.

In the end, I’m glad there is a bit of justice, but it also is open ended. There is a lot of death in this book, and unfortunately some of the characters I like were part of that number.

Cora did frustrate me at times, but she eventually became stronger and finally stood up for herself.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a twisty dark adventure, between horror, classic mythos, and a mystery to be solved this book keeps you on your toes. With notes on racism and COVID throughout the book, this take on was interesting and a new perspective I think everyone should take a look at.

I didn’t realize how absolutely crushing and gut-wrenching this book would be. The ending especially hurt me because how does someone recover from the internal and external trauma that Cora went through?

This book was also just so incredibly FREAKY. I’m a new Kylie Lee Baker fan and I could tell from The Scarlet Alchemist that she could definitely write horror if she wanted to and DID SHE WRITE HORROR. I physically JUMPED in fear at one point of the book.

I want to add a random point that Cora’s job as a crime scene cleaner was really interesting. Her OCD manifesting into a spectacular cleaner was so interesting.

"In this explosive horror novel, a woman is haunted by inner trauma, hungry ghosts, and a serial killer as she confronts the brutal violence experienced by East Asians during the pandemic."
Cora is a crime scene cleaner who is traumatized by the murder of her sister. Delilah was pushed in front of a train and the murder shouted "bat eater". She has buried her trauma and ignored her superstitious Aunt who warns her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the fates of hell open. As she is struggling to figure out what is real and what is in her head, her most recent crime scenes are all East Asian women and all the crime scenes have dead bats.

I will admit I am a scaredy cat, I never watch horror movies and rarely read horror novels. I was skeptical about requesting this arc and I did it on a whim because the synopsis was so intriguing. I am beyond thankful that I requested this arc and was able to read this amazing book. The way the author wove the themes of trauma, racism, and horror was so well written. The ghost story theme and the serial killer mystery kept me invested. The characters are well written and I loved the bond that developed between Cora, Harvey and Yifei. I enjoyed every page of this book and found it hard to put down. I devoured this book. I highly recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC.

2024 API Month

Holy shit. What a ride.

I notoriously don't like horror films, because I'm a big baby that hides behind my hands, but leaves just enough space between my fingers to see, thus furthering the problem. This doesn't span formats. I enjoy the genre in books. Asian horror is particularly gruesome, and I love what Kylie did with it. This is my first book by her, and certainly won't be the last.

I can talk about COVID and Asian racism all day. I imagine some of you are tired of that. This book isn't for you. I won't say Asians have it worse than other minorities, but there is a particular brand of racism that exists for us. I read once that some people don't even consider us POC, because our skin is light. First of all, not all Asians have light skin. The continent spans many countries, of which most are not East Asia. Second of all, fuck you.

Cora Zeng is a biracial Chinese American crime scene cleaner and a germaphobe. She excessively washes her hands, uses sanitizer until her hands bleed, and takes more precautions than the average person. The casual racism she is dealt feels very familiar.

Cora grew up with her half sister Delilah. Delilah's mother is Chinese and she grew up speaking several dialects. Cora struggles with Mandarin, as her mother is white.

The book starts off during March 2020. The scene is New York City. The sisters are at a train station. As they hover ever closer to the edge, a white man pushes Delilah into an oncoming train. Cora spends the entirety of the book dealing with the repercussions of this. This is where her job as a crime scene cleaner comes into play. Most of the crime scenes she is called in to clean are young Asian American women. A serial killer is on the loose.

What else is on the loose? Delilah's hungry ghost. I didn't grow up with this mythos, but hungry ghosts are very prevalent in East Asian, in particular, Chinese culture. The story is beautifully intertwined between family, horror, and racism, and I loved every second.

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and MIRA

I'm not sure if I just read a darkly honest and horrifyingly realistic analysis of Covid and its aftermath—exposing how it pushed people to the brink of survival and fueled illogical hatred and racism against Chinese people (a phenomenon that might be called Sinophobia)—or if I just experienced a spine-tingling, gory ghost story intertwined with a serial killer murder mystery, featuring mutated bats at crime scenes. I believe I encountered both, making this book uniquely unconventional and thought-provoking, while also turning readers into scream queens with its heart-throbbing tension. I warn you, my friends, this is one of the best books I've read, but it is truly hard to digest. It’s extraordinarily gory, stomach-churning, jaw-dropping, and eye-popping with fear. There are numerous triggering and graphic scenes of violence that realistically portray the changing face of New York during the pandemic, as people navigate their way through the darkness.

The story opens with 24-year-old Chinese woman Cora Zeng and her sister Delilah waiting for the subway at an abandoned station. A mysterious man appears as the train approaches, utters the word "bat eater," and pushes Delilah onto the tracks, resulting in her brutal death before Cora's eyes. Unfortunately, the man escapes.

In the following chapter, we find Cora working as a crime scene cleaner, washing away the cruelest and goriest remains of bodies, mostly those of Chinese people targeted by a mysterious serial killer who leaves mutilated bats at the crime scenes.

Cora faces not only a foreboding situation but also struggles with grief and guilt as a sister who always lived in the shadow of her stepsister. We learn about her estranged relationship with her parents, her father's abandonment to form a new family in China, her cult-member mother's misuse of her college fund, and Delilah's impending departure from her life (ironically, her last words before she died). Cora's guilt, abandonment, resentment, and anger evolve into mental issues, including OCD. When she learns about the Chinese myth of hungry ghosts returning to fulfill their cravings, she initially dismisses it until she notices food disappearing from the house and encounters what remains of her sister's ghost.

Unable to consult her two eccentric aunties—one a pyromaniac, the other overly conservative—Cora turns to her two coworkers, Yifei and Harvey, who also deal with the horror of bile-piling crime scenes. They become close confidantes, declaring themselves ghostbusters to help Delilah pass peacefully between universes following Eastern traditions, and they team up to catch the killer known as Batman, who targets Chinese people.

The unconventional bond between these three eccentric characters and their unique ways of facing supernatural forces and unexpected situations warmed my heart. They become each other's family during the most tragic and vulnerable times, showing the importance of having someone to hold on to and care for.

The realistic depiction of racism and the unfair Sinophobia people faced, combined with a scary ghost story rooted in Eastern folklore and a bleak, dark murder mystery, is perfectly executed. The book is terrifying and thought-provoking, making readers nod in agreement with the author's explored points, which makes it extra special and one of a kind.

Overall, this book is harsh reality! It's extra bleak, dark, and not for the faint of heart, but it rocked my world with its honesty and creative execution. I wholeheartedly loved it! I also cried a lot after reading the Author’s Note, which shook me to the core. I advise you not to miss it after finishing the book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing / MIRA for sharing this amazing horror novel’s digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I absolutely loved this book and hope Kylie Lee Baker writes more adult horror in the future.
The themes of racism, trauma, grief, and mental illness seamlessly blend in with the horror elements, and although the later are very well done, the thought-provoking nature of Cora's hardships is, for me, where this book truly shines. After all, is being haunted by the hungry ghost of a gruesomely murderer sister the worst that can happen to a Chinese American germaphobe who cleans up crime scenes during the COVID-19 pandemic?

I don’t even know what to say about this book. I was hooked from that gruesome science at the beginning. I loved the supernatural ghost elements of this story and all the horror elements.

Highly recommend if you’re a fan of ghosts, grief horror, and lots of gore.