Bat Eater
- Author Kylie Lee Baker
- Narrator Natalie Naudus
- Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
- Publish Date 14 January 2025
- Run Time 8 hours and 48 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Classic crime and mystery fiction, Classic horror and ghost stories, Contemporary horror and ghost stories, Horror and supernatural fiction, Thriller / suspense fiction.
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What to expect
WINNER OF THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 2025
🦇 '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
🦇 '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
Critics Review
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
A haunting social horror that focuses on anti-Asian hate and harassment
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
Fantastic... this astonishing work of speculative crime fiction blends mystery with horror, rage with grief, to memorable and moving effect
I highly recommend this addictive and unsettling read if you're in the mood for horror
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
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
Uniquely powerful
Operating on the ragged edge of obsession, madness and rage, never has the phrase darkly compelling felt more appropriate
It's an energetic, grimy and spooky tale, powered by indignation
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
If you only read one book this year - writers, booksellers and critics pick titles to entice
Gory and haunting...will have you hooked from the get-go
An important and timely tale about life as an 'other' in chaotic times
Equal parts incisive and relentless . . . Kylie Lee Baker catapults readers back to the chaos of the early COVID-19 pandemic
Hold on to your hat. Bat Eater is a wild ride from start to finish, an intense examination of the racism toward Chinese people (especially in the wake of COVID-19), and, quite possibly, one of the best horror novels of early 2025
Kylie Lee Baker brings a darkly humorous story to readers with a grounding in a reality many of us are all too familiar with
This is terrifying in its texture, tenor and tone. Not only did it make me deeply wary of every shadow in my house, but its emotional heart also made the horrors of the book feel so soberingly real
User Reviews
| Author | Kylie Lee Baker |
|---|---|
| Narrator | Natalie Naudus |
| Duration | 8 hours and 48 minutes |
| Release Date | |
| ISBN | 9781399729857 |
| Format | Audiobook |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Genre | Classic crime and mystery fiction, Classic horror and ghost stories, Contemporary horror and ghost stories, Horror and supernatural fiction, Thriller / suspense fiction |
| Collections | Gothic Tales |
| Availability | AU, GB, IE |
| Rating |
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| Narration |
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