✨ Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker ✨

Wow!!! This was absolutely phenomenal!!

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner in New York City at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has just lost her sister, the city is on lockdown and she is just trying to survive when she uncovers something that will change her life forever. The story is gritty, raw and visceral - making the reader ponder what is scarier…a hungry ghost or our fellow man?

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is so much more than a horror novel. It weaves mystery, horror and literary fiction while exploring racism and xenophobia. It deep dives into the harms of misinformation and vividly portrays the wrongful hatred spewed towards Asian communities during lockdown. It’s about family, friendship, love, loss, grief, survival and everything that comes after. Truly an amazing read!!

Method Read: 🎧 & 📖
Thank you so much to Harlequin Audio for the ALC!

⚠️ Be kind to your mind. Please check TW before reading.

Wow, wow, wow. Thank you NetGalley for the chance to listen to an advanced copy of the audiobook, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng! Haunting and heartbreaking, this book is a wild and thought-provoking ride that will stick with you. I didn't read the synopsis beforehand, so the first chapter took me by surprise and sucked me in. 

Taking place during Covid 19, Kylie Lee Baker really captures the strange feelings of isolation and paranoia. I truly enjoyed the Chinese folklore elements and learning about hungry ghosts. This book also gives us a real reflection on the horrific hate crimes towards the Asian community during Covid 19. The real-life and paranormal horrors in this book were truly horrifying

This was my first book set during the pandemic and it did not disappoint. Natalie Naudus is an exceptional narrator and I felt engaged the entire time!

Also, the author's note at the end. Read/listen to it.

What an intense book to read as someone who has lived through the COVID-19 pandemic. The author does a fantastic job of transporting you right back to where you were and how you felt in the early months of the pandemic. Do we need to wash the groceries? Are we wrong for going out for drinks, even if they are outside? All of these anxieties that I have not fully processed came right back to me, particularly through the main character's obsessive thoughts about cleanliness. That part alone made me really sit and think about how I have changed since March 2020. The horror of this book, however, does not come from living through a pandemic, but the horrible hate that grew through it. Cora, the titular character, experiences (truly not the right word but I do not want to spoil it for others) an anti-Asian hate crime that shakes her to her core and upends her life. She begins to unravel... or does she? Honestly I can't give you more than that without giving anything away. But this book sucked me in and kept me there right til the end. This book is gross -- even grosser than her book where a main character does bloodworking -- but it is intentional and necessary. I really enjoyed this and would highly recommend.

Natalie Naudus, you can do no wrong.

Set during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, in New York City, Bat Eater is an examination of the Chinese-American experience in the US at a time where xenophobia towards Chinese people was at a high. This books deals with a lot of that xenophobia in a very real sense when Cora Zeng’s sister is murdered in front of her by someone calling her “Bat Eater”, referencing the fact that Covid originated in bats and it’s used as a slur for Asian Americans regardless of ethnicity, and she and her co-workers as crime scene cleaners, figure out this is a string of murders and might be a serial killer.
The mystery central to the plot is quite compelling and the supernatural aspects related to Chinese myths of “hungry ghosts” is also really interesting and worked well to add to the horror aspects of the story. I found the character of Cora to be mostly understandable and enjoyable to read, though it was often hard to target her life and specific motivations in life outside the mystery. I found the concept of crime scene cleaners investigating a mystery that the police refuse to do, very interesting. My one downside here was that the ending did not hit quite as well as I would hope it did, it’s admittedly more realistic than what you’d expect but it’s also not quite as satisfying as it could have been I feel.
The “hungry ghosts” is a concept I was familiar with, due to studies of world religions in college, but I’d never fully examined it as I’d usually focused on spiritual topics in other parts of Asia. It’s execution here is really fun and I felt it was a unique concept that I had not yet encountered in western fiction.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and even enjoyed the ending despite finding myself wanting more. I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a quicker horror book that checks a lot of eastern mythology/religion and fantasy.

Four and a half stars.

I usually shy away from COVID-19 fiction but this book gave an honest and horrifying perspective of the pandemic through the eyes of a chinese american woman. Equally horrific and sad!

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Audio | MIRA for this ARC Copy!

I was so nervous to read this book because I did not want to lose any more faith in humanity, but seeing the reality that so many people experience every day is important, and this book is so well written and impactful that anyone who can get past the trigger warnings needs to read it. This story was so impactful and really gave such a tragic and raw insight about the abuse and racism that is still alive and well in America to this day. Seeing this through the eyes of Cora, who has so many internal struggles, had such a strong impact on the whole story.

This book reminded me in all the best ways of Stephen Graham Jones. Culturally specific roots? Check. Time and place specific, too? Check. Is this simply surreal, or is it horrific, moments that we live with the characters? Check. And Cora's willingness to blame herself, even when there's obviously a lot more in play, is also so reminiscent of Jade.

There were a few times where I wished things were more integrated, but Cora's journey is almost a slice of early pandemic life, and nothing was integrated then.

I wonder how well this book will hold up for people who cannot see themselves in the circumstances that Cora's describing, but for all of us who were worrying about how to make ends meet in Spring of 2020, this book is going to hit a lot of feelings and hit them hard. The fact that Baker expands this past just that shared experience to also reflect on the role of family, community, and societal bonds makes this more effective than any of the other books or memoirs that I've read that reflect on the pandemic so far.

ARC provided by Netgalley.

This was the perfect commentary of the COVID pandemic while bringing us tons of gore and body horror. If you want to read a horror book that gets you more mad and riled up about racism than afraid of boogeyman, then you need to pick this up.

As events ramp up in the story, Cora starts to lose her grip on reality a bit, which adds to the horror of Asian women being slaughtered across New York and as we find out who the killer(s) are, the fear is heightened.

Everything about this story was perfect. The character dynamics between Cora and her fellow clean up crew members were fantastic and everything felt too real. I am so glad this book was written. I am so glad it is coming out right now. It is the perfect time for this book, to be able to look back at the pandemic and the way our country handled things, through the lens of horror.

If you get the chance, read this via audiobook also. Natalie Naudus is the perfect voice for Cora Zeng and brings so much emotion to this story.

Thank you to @harlequinn and @htp_audio for the eARC and ALC. All thoughts are my own.

This was a good time. I know a lot of people who are not a fan of pandemic books, and if you are one of those people, I would avoid this one. Grief horror, but also something a little more gruesome. I think that the social commentary was done very well and was very effective. It was also much more gory than I was expecting, but that is not a bad thing. I like it and I would recommend! The narrator was also excellent.

Narrated by Natalie Naudus, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker delivers a chilling ghostly thriller. The story takes place in New York City during Covid that touches on horror, cultural prejudices and culture. Addictive and dark, you’ll want to grab this one!

I’ve been digging thrillers and horror stories of late and was curious to try Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng. I am glad that I did. This twisted tale filled with hungry ghosts and prejudice while navigating New York during Covid held me captive.

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner in April 2020. She enjoys cleaning despite the gore. After witnessing her sister being pushed in front of a train, nothing makes her squeamish. Her sister’s killer was never caught and at night she can still hear the last words he said as he pushed her… “bat-eater.”

Cora is going through the motions of daily life. She is haunted by her sister and despite friendships and even a caring Aunt; she feels like she is haplessly navigating rough currents. A series of unexplained killings in Chinatown gives Cora focus. She believes someone is targeting Asian women, and that someone is watching her. A ghostly, malevolent shadow follows Cora and believes it is her sister trying to tell her something. With the help of her friends and Aunt, Cora sets out to help.

I loved the cultural aspects of the Hungry Ghost Festival and their ideas regarding the dead. The story that unfolds was creeptastic. Horror fans will love the gore, and fans of ghostly encounters will be equally satisfied by this thriller.

Honestly, I couldn’t stop listening. The flow and prose were wonderful and the narration only furthered my enjoyment. Natalie Naudus captured Cora perfectly, as well as the tone of the story. She was perfectly suited for this well-written tale.

I liked this mostly. Induced strong feelings of revulsion which is what it wanted to do. Obviously I enjoyed the ghost stuff more than the hate crime stuff but it was tied together fairly well. Some may say it’s gratuitous or heavyhanded but so is racism.

Because I specifically had an audio arc copy, I do wanna say like up until very end I wasn’t sure how I felt about the audiobook specifically the levels (volume) and voice done for specific characters. There were a lot of emotional moments where the narrator would ratchet back and forth between a shout and a whisper, which I just didn’t enjoy. Didn’t affect the rating.

Overall, the book was good in the way of being fine. I did like the pandemic stuff. There were times where I found myself questioning my own memory and experiences. Like, is that how I felt at the time? Do I remember things being like this. We’ve certainly gone through a number of cultural shifts since the start of COVID and I appreciated being able to see the ways the author talked about it.

Soooo Good!! If you don't read horror, or avoid books set during COVID, make this book the exception! Especially if you're a thriller reader who's not easily squeamish, this is the perfect crossover for you.

Someone is killing young Asian women in NYC and wearing COVID surgical masks to conceal their identity. See why it has to be set during COVID? And that's without going into the larger picture of what spurs these murders to begin with. (Insert: Major plot element that I'm skipping over to avoid spoilers.)

Cora Zeng is part of a 3-person team that dons hazmat suits to clean up murder scenes.

As you'd expect from horror, gore and ghosts make frequent appearances. But what came as a welcome surprise was how often I laughed out loud at the trio's dialogue and Cora's internal thoughts. The writing also had such a pleasing cadence to it. It's hard to put into words why/how it hits just right. You just know it when you read it.

I really hope readers step outside of their genre comfort zones and give this genre-defying novel a chance.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Truly a great read about taking such a historic event and taking your power from that narrative. I commend this author. Did a great job!

This book dealt with a difficult subject in such an interesting way. The story kept me so engaged that I just couldn’t stop listening/reading it. There were moments where I wondered where the situation was heading. Them towards the end everything seems to happen all at once and it’s so intense. The narrator really did a great job in giving Cora a voice.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC and ALC!

Cora Zeng: She Came, She Saw, She Confused and Consumed Us All

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is the literary equivalent of licking a battery and liking it. Cora isn’t just a character—she’s a fever dream wrapped in mystery, dipped in folklore, and sprinkled with a little “is she okay?” (Spoiler: she’s not. And that’s the point.)

Tuomainen—or perhaps some possessed, brilliant alter ego—gives us a protagonist who could eat a bat, rename your cat, and convince you to thank her for it. The names she’s called (and calls herself) are as bizarre and brilliant as the plot twists. One moment you're laughing; the next you're existentially spiraling—classic Tuesday.

It’s funny. It’s fierce. It’s feral. And like Cora herself, this book will haunt your brain and possibly rearrange your furniture.

This book was insane—in the best, most unsettling way possible. It’s horror that gets under your skin, not just with ghosts and gore (though there’s plenty of that), but with grief, rage, and the kind of fear that feels way too real.

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner in pandemic-era NYC, but she’s already living in a personal horror story—her sister was murdered right in front of her in a hate crime, and now everything in her world feels off-balance. The way the book blurs the line between supernatural terror and psychological trauma is so well done. You’re constantly questioning: are the ghosts real? Is Cora unraveling? Is it both?

The writing is sharp, gritty, and weirdly beautiful. One moment you’re laughing at Cora’s dark humor, and the next you’re choking on anxiety because something is lurking in the shadows—or in her mind. It’s also deeply rooted in cultural trauma, calling out anti-Asian violence in a way that feels visceral, raw, and necessary.

There are moments in this book that feel like a fever dream—bat carcasses, haunted crime scenes, and ghost festival warnings that Cora refuses to take seriously until it’s too late. But it never loses focus. It’s chaotic, yes, but also incredibly controlled. Every haunting, every strange moment, every bloody mess serves a purpose.

If you like horror that hits emotionally as hard as it scares, Bat Eater is it. Unforgettable, unflinching, and totally unlike anything I’ve read before. Don’t sleep on this one.

This was such an interesting read. It took me a while to get into it, but it really brought me back into the world of COVID lockdown. The fear, the racism, the loneliness, the isolation…they were all well encapsulated here. The writing style was extremely vivid, and my skin was crawling throughout reading. This is a fairly gory read, so be prepared for that going in.

This was a dark read - check trigger warnings before reading. While it took me a while to get into, I did find myself really enjoying the story and appreciating the messages.

𝑩𝒂𝒕 𝑬𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑵𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒂 𝒁𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒃𝒚 𝑲𝒚𝒍𝒊𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒆 𝑩𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒓 is narrated by Natalie Naudus who is a favorite of mine!
This came out this week from @htpbooks @htpbooks_audio and I've heard nothing but amazing things from @htp_hive about it! The raves were warranted. This is an intense horror story that follows Cora Zeng at the beginning of the pandemic and the horrific murder of her sister. She goes into a job cleaning crime scenes and must come to grips or find a way to escape a hungry ghost who won't give her peace.
This was a fantastic way to examine the way fear creates dehumanizing actions amidst a story of grief and family dynamics. I was riveted.
I really appreciated the way clear anti-Asian hate was shown in this story, from the brutal to the subtle. The afterward is also worth taking note and making a statement against hatred of any race is unfortunately a frustrating need still today.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book was amazing!! Phenomenal narrator that brought the story to life. I actually cackled at a couple of parts haha!! Absolutely 5 stars!

Wow, what a book! Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng reflected the horrors of the reality of Asian hate and racism that occurred (and still does) in the US during the pandemic. Cora experienced an unending amount of trauma, it was emotional. The imagery was incredibly vivid. I don’t read horror often, so the gore was a little jarring. I enjoyed the mix of paranormal and mystery. There were so many times I gasped out loud. The audiobook performance was incredible! Natalie Naudus did a great job with characterization.