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Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

Chinatown crime scene cleaner Cora Zeng is haunted by her sister’s murder and fears germs. As she finds bat carcasses and murdered East Asian women, hungry ghosts loom.

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New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2025 2025 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel Goodreads Choice Award Finalist for Horror USA TODAY Best Books of 2025 Library Journal Best Books of 2025 Spotify Best Horror Books of 2025 Kobo Best Horror Books of 2025 Book Riot Best Books of 2025 Los Angeles Public Library Best Fiction of 2025 Google Play Best Horror Novel of 2025

"A compelling, gory, ghostly romp." —Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie

"This is what it felt like to live in New York City during lockdown: haunted, absurd, terrifying, ridiculous, and full of hungry ghosts." —Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House

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 Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. But none of that seems so terrible when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister, Delilah, being pushed in front of a train.

Before fleeing the scene, the murderer shouted two words: bat eater .

So the bloody messes don’t really bother Cora—she’s more bothered by the germs on the subway railing, the bare hands of a stranger, the hidden viruses in every corner, and the bite marks on her coffee table. Of course, ever since Delilah was killed in front of her, Cora can’t be sure what's real and what’s in her head.

She pushes away all feelings and ignores the advice of her aunt to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open. But she can't ignore the dread in her stomach as she keeps finding bat carcasses at crime scenes, or the scary fact that all her recent cleanups have been the bodies of East Asian women.

As Cora will soon learn, you can’t just ignore hungry ghosts.

For fans of Stephen Graham Jones and Gretchen Felker-Martin, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is a wildly original, darkly humorous, and subversive contemporary novel from a striking new voice in horror.

For readers who love:

Monika Kim, Stephen Graham Jones, and Grady Hendrix

Terrifying, gory horror with heart and dark humor

Ghost stories and mythology

Crime novels

Themes of friendship and family

Horror that highlights social issues

First published: 2025
Publisher: MIRA
Amazon reviews: Read reviews on Amazon

Book tags

Content warnings

Animal Death
Death of a Loved One
Gore
Racism
Suicide

Missing warnings do not mean other content is absent.

Horror profile

Scary: Not rated
Creepy: Not rated
Gore: Not rated
Disturbing: Not rated
Weird: Not rated

How we calculate this

These are editorial estimates of intensity, informed by reading and review evidence, then checked before publication. They aren't star ratings, reader-vote averages or a measure of quality.

Each dimension runs from 1 (low) to 5 (exceptionally intense). A 5 is reserved for strongly consistent evidence. People experience horror differently.

Scary: Fear, tension and immediate threat.
Creepy: Unease, dread and an uncanny atmosphere.
Gore: Graphic injury, blood and bodily detail.
Disturbing: Upsetting ideas and lingering psychological impact.
Weird: Surreal, strange and reality-bending elements.

We draw a filled profile only when all five scores have been reviewed. Unrated does not mean mild. Missing scores are not estimated from genre tags or your saved taste. This profile isn't a complete content-warning guide.