The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a real monster.

Patricia Campbell's life has never felt smaller. Her ambitious husband is too busy to give her a good-bye kiss in the morning, her kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she's always a step behind on thank-you notes and her endless list of chores. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime and paperback fiction. At these meetings they're as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are marriage, motherhood, and neighborhood gossip.
This predictable pattern is upended when Patricia meets James Harris, a handsome stranger who moves into the neighborhood to take care of his elderly aunt and ends up joining the book club. James is sensitive and well-read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn't felt in twenty years. But there's something off about him. He doesn't have a bank account, he doesn't like going out during the day, and Patricia's mother-in-law insists that she knew him when she was a girl--an impossibility.
When local children go missing, Patricia and the book club members start to suspect James is more of a Bundy than a Beatnik--but no one outside of the book club believes them. Have they read too many true crime books, or have they invited a real monster into their homes?

Praise for Grady Hendrix:

“A fast-paced ride, firmly rooted in the pulp horror tradition…Hendrix’s darkest novel yet will leave readers begging for an encore.”—Booklist, starred review on We Sold Our Souls

“Hendrix is an indie horror legend, and We Sold Our Souls is one of his best.”—Book Riot

“If you see me in the wild and I'm reading a book that was written by Grady Hendrix, interrupt me at your own peril.”—Sarah Gailey, Hugo-Award winning author of Magic for Liars

“National treasure Grady Hendrix follows his classic account of a haunted IKEA-like furniture showroom, Horrorstor (2014), with a nostalgia-soaked ghost story, My Best Friend’s Exorcism.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Take The Exorcist, add some hair spray and wine coolers, and enroll it in high school in 1988 — that’ll give you My Best Friend’s Exorcism...Campy. Heartfelt. Horrifying.”—Minnesota Public Radio

“Terrific...Sharply written...[My Best Friend’s Exorcism] makes a convincing case for [Hendrix’s] powers as a sharp observer of human behavior, filtered through a fun genre conceit that doesn’t skimp on the spooky—or the bodily fluids.”—The A.V. Club

“Horrorstör delivers a crisp terror-tale...[and] Hendrix strikes a nice balance between comedy and horror.”—The Washington Post

“Hendrix conjures up some wonderfully gruesome imagery.”—Nerdist on Horrorstör

“An inventive, hilarious haunted house tale.”—Bustle on Horrorstör