Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

In this incendiary horror novel, one woman is hunted by trauma, hungry ghosts, and a killer who forces her to confront the violence inflicted on East Asian communities during the pandemic.

Cora Zeng works as a crime scene cleaner, scrubbing away the aftermath of murders and suicides across Chinatown. None of it compares to the worst thing she’s ever seen: her sister Delilah shoved in front of an oncoming train while the assailant screamed two words—bat eater.

Blood and gore don’t rattle Cora. What terrifies her are the germs on subway rails, the ungloved hands of strangers, the invisible viruses collecting in corners—and the bite marks appearing on her own coffee table. Ever since Delilah’s death, reality feels porous; hallucination and memory blur.

Determined to feel nothing, Cora ignores her aunt’s warnings to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the boundary between the living and the dead thins. But dread coils tighter with every new cleanup: bat carcasses turning up at crime scenes, and a chilling pattern—every recent victim is an East Asian woman.

Cora is about to learn that hungry ghosts don’t go away just because you refuse to see them. They come closer. They demand. And they will not be ignored.