5 star ⭐️

Harrowing, gripping and deeply creepy throughout.

From the first chapter I was hooked, letting out gasps in shock and desperate to continue.

We follow Cora, a Chinese American, throughout the time of COVID, who cleans crime scenes, these scenes ultimately start uncovering a creepy and mysterious string of events.

Along the way Cora finds herself tangled up with her two colleagues-to-pals to uncover some mysteries which take a creepy paranormal turn.

Each character stood out to make a great trio, I loved their interactions, developments and opening up to one another.

The book features some incredibly creepy scenes and when I found myself feeling like a I had predicted the next moment suddenly we take a twist and dive headfirst into a horror story worth remembering.

I loved kylies other series, the scarlet alchemist so when I found out she’s writing horror I was incredibly excited and had to read it ASAP, I absolutely was not disappointed!

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC!

My first 5 star read of the year. I’ve been handselling this by simply saying ‘the writing is so visceral it makes your skin sticky’.

Set during the COVID pandemic, the narrative follows Cora. Cora witnesses the brutal murder of her sister which leads her down a twisted trail of grief, fear and love. At work she’s noticing patterns, Asian women are turning up dead at a rapid rate and each have bats near the bodies, a harrowing reminder of what her sisters murderer shouted before killing her: Bateater. To add to everything else, the shadows are moving, the darkness is creeping in and Cora needs to feed her hungry ghosts before they come too far from the shadows.

If you have to give one COVID-19 pandemic fiction a chance, I beg you to consider Bat Eater as your choice, because this novel is so much more than a more terrifying 2020 setting (which btw, it’s not by much).
It wasn't an easy read; grief, loss, fear, and anger permeate the novel from beginning to end, a result of unfortunately nothing close to fiction as the title itself suggests. The delivery is raw, powerful and brutal in the depiction of hatred, violence, and dehumanisation in the name of racism; the evil? Nothing more than human.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I teared up during the last chapter and I ended up literally sobbing because of the author's note.

Cora herself is a relatable struggling mess, her characterisation so much more than mere representation. She's desperately longing for identity, for a community, a culture, and a society to belong to but none seems to want, accept, nor claim her fully. From her Chinese American eyes we experience Chinese culture in its traditions, beliefs, and rituals (and even food), to Cora unknown and ungraspable. It was a pleasure to experience it with her, a breath of fresh air in the sea of cultural appropriation of the passive media consumption world.

And it doesn't stop here. I LOVED the horror elements (multiple, supernatural and not) in the story. Horror is my favourite genre across all media, and it's the first time a novel managed to put me on edge and make my heart tighten out of sheer tension. The build up is slow but masterfully paced to surface when it can hit the hardest, also as a result of well developed characters impossible not to attach to and the eerily descriptive narration. Heads up for some gory stomach-churning imagery.

I could sit on writing this review for years and I'd still probably never be able to write one that would give this novel justice. There is so much I didn't even get to talk about. Please read it.
I've never been more honoured and grateful to have been granted access to an advanced review copy as I was after finishing Bat Eater. I'm definitely buying a physical copy of the book and no I won't stop raving about it for a very long time.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have gotten this book. To be honest, it’s probably going to end up in my top 10 of the year—and we’re barely finishing January!
Bat Eater by Kylie Lee Baker is a fantastic novel that intertwines two different kinds of horror: the supernatural entities haunting the main character and the very real racism and xenophobia toward Asians during COVID. I’m not American, and there isn’t a large Chinese expat community where I live, so most of my understanding of this context comes from the news. This book feels like an insider’s perspective on what the Chinese community endured in such a polarized society - and add ghosts to boot!
As for the supernatural elements, I loved the inclusion of authentic Chinese folklore and mythological creatures—it’s a refreshing take on the ghost genre.
5/5 time to explore Baker's other works!

A heavy novel which deals with a heavy topic. I found this a tough read with some of the depictions of mental health being quite intense, and the depiction of such violent racism was a lot at times, but unfortunately felt not too distant from our reality.
I loved the writing style in here, you are inside Coras chaotic mind and you really feel the isolation and paranoia that comes with that.

A heavy and challenging read, but feels like one of those books that should be required reading for anyone who wants to be a human.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher Hodder and Stoughton for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

TW: racism, COVID-19, OCD, grief, death, murder, blood, gore, ghosts, mental illness, horror, injury, animal abuse and death


After witnessing the murder of her sister Delilah, pushed in front of a train by a man yelling ‘bat eater’ in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cora Zheng is struggling to cope. Having started working as a crime scene cleaner in Chinatown, she sees the aftermaths of murders and suicides every day but nothing is as horrifying as the memory of Delilah’s murder. Her OCD worsened by the ongoing pandemic, Cora is more terrified of the germs in the subway, the possible hidden viruses on every surface and the constant reminder of the words uttered before Delilah died. However, apples start going missing from her fridge and there are bite marks on her coffee table, driving Cora to doubt even further if she can trust her own mind to know what is real. Her aunt advises Cora to recognise the Hungry Ghost Festival by burning joss paper because that’s when the gates of hell are open and the unhappy dead are free to roam. She ignores her and soon enough Cora is haunted by terrifying visions of Delilah’s starving ghost, while also finding dead bats at crime scenes where East Asian women have been killed. Forced to face Delilah’s murder and the serial killer massacring women during a pandemic Asian people are being blamed for, Cora teams up with two of her workmates, Yifei and Harvey, to discover the truth and stop the ‘Batman’ before he can kill anyone else.

I can honestly say I’ve never read a book like ‘Bat Eater’ before- it is raw and unapologetic in its brutality, its deeply disturbing and terrifying from the very first chapter as the reader witnesses Delilah’s death while also weaving together themes of racism, identity, belief, religion, mental illness and grief. I found it nearly impossible to stop reading once I started, it’s such an engrossing and dark book with moments of humour that really helped with the horror. I made the mistake of reading a lot of this at night, the scenes with the ghosts and Cora’s visions were so creepy and well written. This seamlessly combines murder mystery, thriller, horror and the supernatural without ever going too far in either direction, all while retaining the theme of sisterhood that constantly haunts Cora. Her perspective and the way she’s written is beautiful but stark, she lived her entire life in Delilah’s shadow and now doesn’t know how to function without that label. I spent a lot of the early part of this book questioning Cora’s sanity as much as she does, all up until that moment when she sees Delilah’s ghost for the first time. Her experiences with religion, racism (she’s half Chinese, half American) and her family are truly distressing and in some ways more horrifying than the actual ghosts. What she and the other people of Chinatown, particularly the women killed by the ‘Batman’, go through in this book is disgraceful. The descriptions and language are some of the best I’ve read. I haven’t read any COVID-19 based horror before, this was an exception because I so loved the author’s fantasy works, but I can’t imagine it could top this. I genuinely can’t think of another horror book that has handled the issues of racism, murder and OCD with such grace and skill. There aren’t any books out there like ‘Bat Eater’ and I’ll never forget this one, I hope the author writes more horror.

I LOVE Kylie Lee Bakers writing! I have only read her fantasy in the past but this one really sucked me in.
Its my first covid 19 book and i was dubious about that when starting but i ended up loving the emphasis on how it focused on how covid effected mental health and it hit really hard with the narrative of racism towards Chinese people in the aftermath of what had happened. I loved the culture in this and the comparison you get with American life.

Kylie Lee Baker is becoming and auto buy author for me

Bat Eater follows Cora Zeng as she navigates a pandemic-stricken world where people who look like her are being blamed and discriminated against. Through her job as a crime scene cleaner, Cora and her colleagues become privy to the often hidden extremes of this very prejudice.

I’ll start by saying that this is very much a Covid-centric book, so approach it with care if you find such themes triggering. As someone who has largely avoided Covid-related narratives, I’m glad I took the risk with this one.

While I occasionally felt that the pacing was slightly off, I was quickly drawn back in, which is a testament to Kylie Lee Baker’s skill as a writer. In Bat Eater, Baker masterfully combines beautiful prose with unpredictable, gruesome moments and the pervasive fear of the unknown. This is interwoven with a painfully authentic portrayal of real-life horrors such as racism and misogyny.

When I say the gruesome moments are intense, I’m not exaggerating. Personally, I appreciated what these visceral elements added to the story, but it’s worth noting that they might be challenging for readers who struggle with graphic gore.

I recommend going into this book knowing as little as possible, whilst being mindful of the trigger warnings. I truly believe I enjoyed it more because I went in with minimal knowledge.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the e-ARC. All opinions are my own.

TWs/CWs
Graphic: Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Racism, Grief, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Self harm, Sexism, and Violence
Minor: Gun violence, Vomit, Police brutality, and Sexual harassment

With a title and cover like this, I was always going to be intrigued by this book. Almost as soon as I started reading, I understood the true meaning of the title and in fact the tone of the rest of the pages. Spiky, punchy and unbelievably icky, Bat Eater was a crazy ride.

Cora is a crime scene cleaner and since witnessing the horrific murder of her sister at a tube station, she isn’t fazed by the gory nature of her work. But recently, she realises that all of the scenes she’s cleaning up appear to be of the murders of East Asian women and for some reason, there are bats at every one of them. Her sister’s killer still hasn’t been caught and Cora can’t forget the fact he shouted ‘bat eater’ as he fled. Is the same guy behind this recent spate of murders?

Obviously this book is set against the backdrop of COVID-19 and the widespread racism towards Chinese culture that followed. There is a sense that the killer could be any nameless, faceless white man and this is perhaps representative of where racist ideas originate -they could come from literally anyone.

Some parts of the writing was really thoughtful and beautiful. However, most of the time, the book didn’t seem to have time for this. As a reader who loves interesting turns of phrase and spending time analysing my surroundings, I really missed this in Bat Eater. However, I adored it when we got it. It is a thoughtful book with some very firm ideas, so I wanted more of Cora’s slow reflections.

This philosophical tone returned when Harvey was ruminating on his own mortality. He feels that he’s not living life to the full and that video games have played a role in his disregard for life. I’d never considered that having several lives in video games might affect gamers’ thoughts on the sanctity of real life but I guess it could!

I also really enjoyed learning more about the Hungry Ghost festival. I have read about it in other books but not in as much detail as it is here. I’d also never realised how truly dangerous leaving food out for hungry spirits truly is. The scene in Yifei’s kitchen with her roommates was horrendous and I think those images will stay with me for a long time. I was genuinely scared of the spirits in this book.

Of course, the book is also about grief. Cora is still grieving Delilah and it’s natural for her to wonder whether the same fate awaits her. To be honest, I was almost waiting for it to happen. It was really sad to realise that there seems to be such a lack of people who value the lives of Asian women that even Asian women themselves (Cora) question whether their lives are really worth living.

Bat Eater is a unique, incredibly dark and gory horror. It has a lot to say about the darkest pits of our society and the real world horrors that East Asian people face. However, you need a strong stomach for certain scenes and the ability to roll with the twists and tragedies.

Bat Eater by Kylie Baker delivers a striking and harrowing opening that hooks the reader immediately, setting a chilling tone that lingers throughout the story. I really enjoyed Cora's job as a crime scene cleaner too and the thriller elements of the killer.

However, as the narrative progresses, the pace slows, and the initial intensity diminishes, which may leave some readers yearning for the earlier momentum. I wasn't as fond of the ghostly elements that get added in later on.

Would recommend for those drawn to dark, atmospheric stories.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

For a reasonably short book, Bat Eater was (at times) a difficult one to get through. The book is part horror/part crime fiction, with a clear agenda to address anti-Asian racism. The book is set during the COVID-19 pandemic and follows Cora Zeng who, shortly after witnessing her sister’s murder, finds herself cleaning the crime scenes of a racially motivated serial killer for a living. I’m generally not a fan of books with the Covid backdrop, as a lot of the narrative and behaviour of the characters can feel a bit generic or predictable. For me Cora was unfortunately no exception, with extreme germophobic tendencies and was very difficult to like or empathise with. This was perhaps by design, but it took away some of the enjoyment for me.

The first 70-75% was a bit of a grind and felt a bit muddled, uncertain whether to focus on the story’s crime or paranormal elements. Once I hit the last quarter, the pace picked up and I was compelled to finish. Whilst I did feel a bit unsatisfied with the ending and felt there were a few loose ends, overall I really enjoyed the author’s writing style and the book had some genuinely creepy/shocking moments. I could definitely see myself trying one of her other books, but perhaps this one just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Kylie Lee Baker and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bat Eater is a darkly atmospheric and vividly imagined story that lingers in your mind long after the final page. Baker’s writing is lush and haunting, perfectly capturing the macabre tone of the narrative. The protagonist is compelling, with a rich inner life and moral complexity that makes her journey utterly captivating.

While the plot is gripping and layered with eerie twists, there are moments where the pacing feels uneven, and some secondary characters could have been fleshed out more. Nevertheless, the book excels in its world-building and its ability to weave together horror, folklore, and emotional depth. A thoroughly engaging read for fans of dark fantasy and gothic storytelling.

I read this so quickly and found it so hard to put down. Again, it's a genre I rarely read but what a book! Cora, daughter of a Chinese man and a white American mother, lives in New York with her half-sister Delilah, who is beautiful and arty and dreams of becoming a model, when Covid begins. After Delilah is pushed under a subway train by a stranger, Cora becomes a crime scene cleaner and starts noticing a huge number of murder victims seem to be young East-Asian women, and as strange events keep happening, her and her two colleagues Harvey and Yifei start to investigate.

In the afterword, Kylie Lee Baker writes that the pandemic has changed the world because of "the way we sacrificed the elderly and disabled on the altar of capitalism, the way trust in the government and the CDC swiftly dissolved, and the way we as a country still haven't learned not to scapegoat an entire race of people in times of fear". Of course she is writing about the US but it feels true in so many countries.

I tend to avoid COVID content like the plague (sorry), I avoid novels set during COVID, I hate TV shows that tried to show us their version of COVID. The COVID episodes of Grey's Anatomy are the absolute worst.

But in a gory, graphic horror novel about racism and ghosts and alienation, with a heroine who suffers from OCD and cleans "people's entrails for a living" I found that it felt like a more sincere and a more genuine depiction.

Free ARC sent by Netgalley.

This book was one of my favourites of last year and I've already lost track of how many times I've raved and recommended it online. Seriously, read it!

4.5 stars!

4.25 STARS!

This was brutal from start to finish. From the racism endured by the asian characters to the vivid body horror, this book did not let up with it’s dark content.

Pros
• The writing was stunning and I found myself highlighting A LOT
• The main character. The fact that she wasn’t a typical selfless hero but a struggling girl who was just doing what she could to get by
• Exploration of grief I think was done with sure care in this story. I won’t mention too much as I feel like that is part of the story you need to witness for yourself

Cons
• The only downside to this story for me was how cartoonish the ghosts felt in a couple of places.

This was such a good read. Set during the COVID pandemic, this is a horror, and as well as the more fantastical elements, the all too real horror is the racism displayed towards the Chinese community in the US at this time.
I found the character of Cora and how she deals with trauma and grief incredibly compelling.
Overall a creepy, well-written read and one I would recommend.

4.5 stars

Bat Eater is gory, creepy and utterly horrific, in the best way.

“Many people think that death is the end. The ending of pain, of hate, of love. But these things are not so easy to erase. Any kind of wanting leaves a scar. The living are good at forgetting, the years smoothing out memories until all the days of their lives are nothing but rolling planes of sameness. But in Hell, it is always just yesterday that everything was lost. The dead do not forget.”

It’s Summer 2020 and Cora Zeng is working as a crime scene cleaner in New York. Just a few months ago she watched as her sister came head to head with a train (yup, this is page 1 folks), so kneeling in a bathtub of brain matter on a Tuesday morning certainly isn’t going to be what breaks her. No, Cora feels safest in her hazmat suit and rubber gloves, because she knows how unsanitary other people are, yet most people in the street act like *she’s* then one who’s a COVID risk, because Cora’s half Asian - *a ’Bat Eater’*. Soon though, Cora will have bigger things to fear than her own intrusive thoughts, as mutilated bats start showing up at an alarming number of crime scenes. What’s more, hungry ghost month is approaching and … are those bite marks in her coffee table?

This was a highly anticipated release for me, and it delivered on more fronts than I could have hoped. It offered a unique perspective of the Chinese American experience in the US during the pandemic. It was packed with blood and guts, hungry ghosts lurking in shadows, and a serial killer who was hella creative with his methods, but you know what was most horrific? The inspection of how Asian people were treated during the pandemic. The stares, slurs, misinformation, abuse and violence that stripped a sense of humanity and belonging from a whole community of people.

“The white spider in Cora’s dreams was a million different people - the man who spit in Cora’s face, the one who grabbed Yifei’s arm, the ones who called Delilah a Chink and threw garbage at her, the quiet ones on buses who glared at Cora for wearing a mask, who crossed the street to avoid her like she was a living breathing virus even though she was cleaner than any of them, the words ‘China virus’ like a poison promise, go back home, repent for killing Americans.”

The writing in this was hard hitting and eerie throughout, but the characters and the relationships between them brought moments of joy. I did not expect the characters in this novel to be my favourite part of the book, but they were by FAR. It contributed to the horror in a way. I got to know these people. I understood them. I loved them for, not in spite of, their flaws and they seemed so unique, complex and real. Then I watched them suffer, and I was angry and I was sad and it made the monsters so much scarier; they were trying to strip humanity from these characters that felt so inherently human.

It felt like a long build up before any real plot got rolling, which is the only down side for me. I do appreciate that we spent much of the first building suspense and atmosphere, and laying ground work for the action to follow in the second half, but I could have used some more points of intrigue to keep pulling me through the beginning. There were also some elements that I had to stop myself thinking about too hard, or the narrative might’ve unravelled, but I was happy to wear the blinkers and plough ahead because I was having a good time.

Ultimately, I commend KLB’s ability to balance the many elements poured into Bat Eater. Our main character alone was experiencing grief, mental health struggles, trauma from abandonment, racism, an identity crisis, and a total lack of belonging - and that’s before we get to the fact she scrapes flesh off of walls for a living and is maybe looking for a serial killer. Oh, and she’s being haunted by the hungry ghost of her dead sister who creeps out of the shadows, so she’s not slept in weeks and can’t even close the shower curtain. What a ride.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read Bat Eater.

I had high expectations going into this book, and I can safely say that all of those expectations were met and then some. From the very first chapter, I was mesmerised by Kylie Lee Bakers writing, especially her use of descriptive writing and gore, which was incredibly well utilised and her exploration into anti asian racism during the covid 19 pandemic and beyond. As for the story itself, I was hooked by both the overarching mystery and Cora's own character arc dealing with her grief, relationships, exploration into the idea of belonging somewhere, experiences with racism in her life and her struggles with her mental health, it felt so sureal to see a character with such similar thought patterns to my own and follow her journey throughout the book. Bat Eater, at its core, is an extremely emotional book from the fear, grief, disgust, and empathy for the characters it enovked when reading to the point where I cried at several points. Bat Eater is so much more than your adverage run of the mill supernatural horror story.

Overall, I am very impressed with this book, and even though this year has just begun, I can safely say it's one of my favourites of the year.

I loved this so much!

The book starts with a bang and settles into a very lit-fic tone. The characters are well developed and we get a real feel for who Cora is, and for her life as a crime scene cleaner during the covid pandemic.

The horror creeps in and it’s wonderfully subtle and surreal, before escalating as the story progresses.

The themes of racism, belonging, and grief (amongst others) are well explored, and are woven naturally through the plot.

I don’t want to say too much because I went into the book knowing very little about it and I thoroughly enjoyed every new turn the story took, so I wouldn’t want to spoil that for anyone picking up this book.

It’s only my second read of the year, but it’s going to be a hard one to beat!

My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this advance copy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 4 stars
Thank you to the author for providing me with an eARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!
Bat Eater is a horror novel about Cora Zeng, a crime scene cleaner in New York City, set during the COVID pandemic, who watched her sister being pushed in front of a train and is haunted by her hungry ghost.

“The dead do not forget.”

I was so intrigued when reading what this book would be about, I really wanted to give it a try! I don’t normally read horror books, but still, I was glad I did read this one!
The book opened with a banger, reading about the murder and how it happened was a shocking opening and one that got me invested. At the same time it felt like the start was really slow and I did need a bit more to truly get sucked into the story.
The plot progression is subtle and it took me quite a while to really understand in which direction this book was going. I think the slow start didn’t help, despite the writing being super imaginative and descriptive. I think I just wanted a bit more clarity about the book and maybe a bit more about what to expect.
Cora is an interesting character. She washed blood and gore for a living and doesn’t really have anything going for her in life after her sister’s death. While is isn’t the most likable, the way she is written is beautiful.
The friendship blooming between Cora and the two she cleans up with was a light in the darkness of this story. Their bickering and friendship was quirky and fun and gave me the Ghostbusters vibe mentioned in the story as well!
The last part of this book is just absolutely brutal in every way! The rising dread that is wonderfully woven into the book really hits towards the end. I just couldn’t put this book down and was shocked by the direction this story went in the end! Very dark and heart breaking but so fitting to the book!
Overall, Bat Eater is a beautifully written dark horror story. Once you get halfway you won’t be able to put this book down!