Sister, Maiden, Monster

Product Information

Covid has come and gone pretty much and a new pandemic is taking over the planet. This book follows three women who are integral to the fate of the planet, Erin, Savannah and Mareva. NetGalley readers can request an advance digital copy of Sister, Maiden, Monster for review. E-copies will be available until the novel is published on February 21, 2023. Some years on from the coronavirus pandemic, the PVG virus has taken over the world. Since people more or less know how to manage pandemics, Erin continues to lead her regular life, making sure to wash her hands, wear a mask, carry on as best she can. One night, after her boyfriend sets up a romantic sushi dinner and marriage proposal, Erin starts to feel very unwell. Soon, she’s throwing up blood and stomach lining, and ends up in a secure facility for Type 3 patients of the PVG—the worst off of the ones effected, who are reliant entirely on mammalian brain matter to survive. What unfolds then is one of the more bizarre, gruesome stories in post pandemic horror fiction. Nope, I’m a burglar.” I hung my keys on one of the brass hooks below our coupon-plastered corkboard. “I’m here to steal your Funko Pops.”

Absolutely recommended for readers of the cosmic and gloriously horrific.” ―Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling authorA mutant hybrid of weird science and cosmic horror, Sister, Maiden, Monster is deliciously cerebral and unflinchingly feminist. Violently beautiful, this novel is a tale for our times. Resounding.” — Lee Murray, Bram Stoker Award-winner and author of Grotesque: Monster Stories

If you survive PVG, you could end up suffering from a ‘deficiency,’ leading to you needing ‘supplements.’ You could also remain infectious, even if your symptoms of the disease have faded. If you are unfortunate enough to require ‘supplements,’ you might be required to consume human blood… or worse still, brains. Told in three parts, Lucy A. Snyder's Sister, Maiden, Monster charts of the course of mankind's transformation through the eyes of three women. The first, Erin, is a recently engaged desktop support specialist who finds her body all but decimated by PVG. Savannah is a sex worker turned serial killer cannibal for the elder gods. Mareva's body, meanwhile, is prone to producing benign tumors even at the best of times, but in the face of PVG is forced to reconcile with even more horrific possibilities. Sister, Maiden, Monster is a visceral story set in the aftermath of our planet’s disastrous transformation and told through the eyes of three women trying to survive the nightmare, from Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lucy A. Snyder. Snyder has always been a trailblazer, and now she scorches the earth with the sheer audacity of her imagination.A hideously gory, kink-fueled, feminist cosmic horror apocalypse novel that should be on the top of everyone’s reading list.”— CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN, New York Timesbestselling author of Road of Bones A blood-and-brains splattered shotgun-blast romp through the apocalypse that will simultaneously excite and disgust readers with equal pleasure.”– PHILIP FRACASSI, author of Boys in the ValleyAbsolutely recommended for readers of the cosmic and gloriously horrific.”―Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author I blamed my exhaustion on stress and anxiety. Last week, the world had gotten the worst Valentine’s Day present ever: a new pandemic called PVG. Polymorphic viral gastroencephalitis. It had popped up in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Toronto, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City, and Mexico City at roughly the same time, which made finding Patient Zero (if he or she existed) a challenge. Nobody knew yet where it had come from, exactly how it spread, or what it was likely to do in the long run. All anyone knew for sure was that it was landing people in the hospital with scary symptoms. Snyder’s story follows three infected women; each is given a unique voice and perspective thanks to the vocal talents of Arielle DeLisle, Katherine Littrell, and Lindsey Dorcus."― Library Journal Reminiscent of early Poppy Z. Brite, razor-edged and compulsively readable, Sister, Maiden, Monster is the pandemic kink-thriller I didn’t know I needed.”

Lucy Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker award winning writer, whose new novel Sister, Maiden, Monster is a no holds barred look at how women are affected by a pandemic that is bigger, worse and more eldritch than anything the world has ever imagined. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was a zombie novel at the start, when Erin is told she has to live off brains, not be in crowds, and not have any close relationships with anyone. But this is not a zombie novel. It would be simpler if it were, but Snyder veers wildly into otherworldly territories, wild even as compared to an all out limbs flying, blood spraying, everyone dying zombie apocalypse.Unsettling and unexpectedly timely, Sister, Maiden, Monster is horror at its best. Lucy A. Snyder pulls out all the stops with this powerful and unflinching novel, dealing with the fallout of a pandemic and the omnipresent, creeping terror that can only come from your own body turning against you. Put this book at the top of your reading list immediately.”