Japanese Gothic
The all-new haunted house Samurai horror from Sunday Times bestselling author of Bat Eater!
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 30 Apr 2026
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- 13,99 €
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- Pre-Order
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- 13,99 €
Publisher Description
Kylie Lee Baker returns with another addictive, gory, horror PHENOMENON
'Brilliantly inventive. A must read - I couldn't turn the pages fast enough' MONIKA KIM
'This book is a complete mindf*ck and I loved every minute of it' MIA BALLARD
'Audacious, surreal . . . An exquisite expression of human pain held tight across centuries' LEIGH RADFORD
2025
Lee can't remember exactly where he hid the body, but he can remember the blood. Hiding out at his father's centuries-old home in Japan, Lee knows something is wrong with him, and he knows it has something to do with his mother's disappearance almost a decade ago.
1877
A female samurai, Sen, stalks the borders of her home to protect her family from slaughter after the abolition of the samurai class. She's not sure how they'll ever survive, not without her father, who has returned from war with a different soul behind his eyes.
When Lee and Sen find one another through a door between their worlds, they're both looking for answers. But what they find in the creaking old house they share is beyond what either of them could imagine...
PRAISE FOR THE NEWEST VOICE IN HORROR:
🦇 '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 🦇
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Baker (Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng) creates a breathless collision of timelines, cultures, and destinies in this impressive horror outing. In 2006, troubled New York City college student Lee Turner turns up at his father's doorstep in Japan on the run from a horrific crime that he doesn't totally remember and hoping to finally get some answers about his mother's disappearance when he was a child. His father's ancient house is crowded with ghosts, including that of Sen of Shimazu, the daughter of one of the last remaining samurai families in 1877, who is snared in a time loop, perpetually training for a battle she will inevitably lose. Sen and Lee develop an uneasy rapport that illuminates for both of them the darkest parts of themselves. As Sen careens toward her brutal fate, Lee learns that the truths that haunt him might be better off staying buried. In wrenching prose, Baker renders her characters both deeply flawed and profoundly human. The unsparing, poetic voice propels the story to its bitter end while evoking the nightmare of feeling like an outsider even among family. It's as gruesome as it is un-put-downable.
