The Porcelain Sisters

A shy young woman and her deeply unpleasant—and literally porcelain—sister fight for their inheritance, taking on an impossible array of enemies, including a chain-smoking demon crow, an unkillable assassin, and a secret clan of French sorceresses. In his newest adventure, World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Award-winner Daryl Gregory (We Are All Completely Fine) delivers a dizzying, darkly funny, and surprisingly poignant romp through the horrors of sisterhood.


“Daryl Gregory’s fecund imagination conjures up another winner out of porcelain, dark magic and twisted humor in this intoxicating brew of delicious mayhem.”

—Lavie Tidhar, author of The Three Coffin Problem 


Ruth Winslow is trying to save up enough money to finish college while looking after her sister, Isabel—who happens to be a haunted doll. When an accident severely damages Isabel’s porcelain body, the sisters have to find the only woman who can fix her, the fearsome witch known as La Fabricante—the Dollmaker.


The big problem? The Dollmaker also heads the French witch mafia called Le Clan des Sorcières. The sisters head to Marseille, where they take on Chiffon, a red-headed, unkillable assassin; a collection of angry, haunted dolls; plus a pair of demons—one a cigarette-smoking crow, the other a black cat—and their human familiars.


Along the way, the sisters learn that they’ve been lied to their entire lives. Their mother wasn’t just a homemaker who died in a car accident, she was a legendary enforcer in the Le Clan.


While Ruth has to come out of her shell and deal with her own latent powers, Isabel has to grow up in a body that can’t grow. Together they’ll have to outwit and outfight everyone to claim their birthright.