Kylie Lee Baker

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner. But the bloody messes don't bother her, not when she's already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train.

But the killer was never caught, and Cora is still haunted by his last words: bat eater.
These days, nobody can reach Cora: not her aunt who wants her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, not her weird colleagues, and especially not the slack-jawed shadow lurking around her doorframe. After all, it can't be real - can it?

After a series of unexplained killings in Chinatown, Cora believes that someone might be targeting East Asian women, and something might be targeting Cora herself.

Soon, she will learn . . . you can't just ignore hungry ghosts.

and other names for Cora Zeng

Bat Eater

Grace McCarter

But the problem is – has always been – that there are many things Cora does not want, and very few things that she does want.

The publisher's blurb describes this book very well.  There was a lot of gore, but the book descriptions make you aware that it will be there.  I think I would have liked this book better if there had been fewer gross descriptions and more actual tension built up.  I generally avoid books set during the pandemic, but this one was all right.  I think the protagonist being a germaphobe would have worked with or without the pandemic setting.  This is a story that most definitely is pushing a particular point of view about the pandemic and about anti-Asian racism.  If those things are going to bother you, the rest of the plot and the horror elements will not overcome that for you.  This was a really good concept, but average in how it was executed.  

Bat Eater and other names for Cora Zeng

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