This self-deprecating, mordantly funny horror novel explores medical trauma through Irish folklore, asking Can a sick woman ever be trusted?
Brigid--that's the Irish Breej, not Bridge-id, though it's not like she'd correct you--has had a rough go of it. Her mother abused her when she was little, her best friend (and secret crush) is too busy chasing some blonde to answer Brigid's calls, and she lost her job thanks to chronic pelvic pain with no identifiable cause. As a self-doubting, disabled adult, she's certain that everything that has happened to her is her fault. How could it not be, when every medical professional has dismissed her pain as anxiety, and her dearest Mammy has reminded her time and again that she's an ungrateful bitch?
Now Mammy has gone missing and Brigid's only option is to move back into her childhood home in the idyllic Midwestern town of St. Charles, Illinois. Soon the uncanny begins: A particular crow that once harassed her reappears, following her everywhere. A painting of Jesus keeps coming back, no matter how many times she throws it away. Frozen body parts show up in places rubber band balls and door stoppers ought to be. Every night the same nightmare repeats: her real Mammy is dead and decaying in the closet, and the identical Mammy who raised her is not her mother. But it's all in Brigid's head. It's all her fault. It must be. What other explanation could there be?
After all, since when can a sick woman be trusted?
Copper City's bloody history is steeped in ghost stories and whispers of serial killers, but three girls have caught the attention of something far more sinister.
A grandmother tormented by visions tried to warn the town, but no one listened. Now, a haunted inheritance has passed to her granddaughters, Audrey and Mara. When Mara's body is discovered in the old mine, Audrey fears her grandmother's premonition is manifesting.
The nightmare begins as Mara's spirit returns-lurking under Audrey's skin, hellbent on vengeance and desperate to rekindle things with her former girlfriend, Zadie. Willing to hijack Audrey's body to get what she wants, Mara drags them both into a deadly pursuit.
When another girl in town goes missing, Audrey, Mara, and Zadie know the killer has struck again. In a fight to solve Mara's death and uncover the mystery of disappearances in Copper City, the girls soon find themselves at war with each other. How do you survive long enough to hunt a murderer on the loose if the person inside you might kill you first?
In this propulsive thriller, master of crime and suspense fiction You-Jeong Jeong, author of The Good Son, takes us to the Korean countryside in a domestic nightmare centered around the life and goals of Yuna Shin: wife, mother, sister--and covert narcissist.
Everyone in Yuna's life knows to tread carefully in her presence. Her husband dreads the moment that they'll reunite after their latest fight. Her daughter Jiyoo obeys her mother's rules even when Mischievous Mouse, the naughty voice in her head, urges her otherwise. And wicked sister Jane, of whom Yuna has always been jealous, avoids Yuna at all costs. But then little Jiyoo begins to talk feverishly about the loons at the Half Moon Marsh, the loons that won't stop calling, and Jane is forced to reckon with her sister's deadly history.
With unparalleled psychological precision and a fine literary sensibility underlying its achievement as a thriller, Perfect Happiness is the story of one narcissist's drive for complete happiness, told through the eyes of her family members. Will they ever be the same--or even make it out alive?
So what if Sadie hears talking dead animals and a strange, comforting male voice in her head? The therapist insists these are just symptoms of PTSD. It makes sense considering that she hid under the bed and watched as her best friends were slaughtered.
But the murders were seventeen years ago, back when her name was Sabrina. Now, she's Sadie: a perfectly normal 29-year-old. She works as a physical therapist assistant and lifts weights with her boyfriend, Lucas, who's the sweetest, most considerate man-as long as he's not angry. But when Lucas spontaneously agrees to join a couples trip to a cabin in the woods, the visions get worse, a strange figure stalks her during the night, and that male voice in Sadie's head keeps calling, asking her to do things she's never fathomed.
Sadie's not sure if it's her paranoia or something else entirely . . . But she is sure of one thing-this time, she's not going to sit idly by as everything starts to unravel.