By day, Maeve Fly is the beloved ice princess at the happiest theme park in the world, greeting children with a fixed smile and practiced sweetness. By night she prowls the dive bars of the Sunset Strip with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, modeling herself on the misanthropic literary antiheroes she idolizes and keeping the world at a careful, contemptuous distance. Her only real tethers are her ailing grandmother, a faded Hollywood star, and her best friend Kate.
When Kate's brother Gideon arrives in Los Angeles, something long coiled inside Maeve begins to uncoil. Untethered and emboldened, she sheds her performance of ordinary discontent and steps fully into a bolder, bloodier self — one that takes its cues from the pages of American Psycho and refuses to look away from what she is.
C.J. Leede's debut is a provocative, blood-soaked descent narrated by an unrepentant monster: a love letter to Los Angeles, a study of feminine rage and appetite, and an unflinching splatterpunk portrait that earned a Bram Stoker Award nomination. It is graphic, transgressive, and not for the squeamish.