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A Novel
by Sarah Gailey
Sarah Gailey's Make Me Better is an eerily seductive look at the desire for community connection and self-improvement---and the darkest places inside us all. Urgent and yet timeless, this read is perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson, Ari Aster, and Patricia Highsmith.
An exclusive invitation.
A remote island infamous for its miraculous ecology.
A once-in-a-lifetime chance to fix everything that's broken.
But sometimes growth requires sacrifice....
Welcome to Kindred Cove.
Celia is so tired of being alone. All she wants is to have a family―to belong to someone. That's why she's going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. There is no grief at Kindred Cove, because there is no suffering. Nothing is ever lost.
Celia knows that, at that mysterious island surrounded by that impossible, ever-growing reef — she will find herself.
She's ready to be healed. She's ready to be transformed.
She's ready to believe.
"A crash course in how people can be manipulated by promises of purpose and belonging. The folk horror feel of Gailey's must-read novel might remind readers of Ari Aster's movie Midsommar, while others might read this thoughtful book and think of George Orwell's 1984." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Gailey does impressive work .....Readers are sure to be unsettled." ―Publishers Weekly
"Emotionally arresting, deliciously provocative, impossible to predict, Make Me Better is a singular novel by a singular artist. I loved it. Sarah Gailey--your mind!" ―Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of Sadie
"Make Me Better is a hypnotic tide pool of a novel, a habitat of horror teeming with all types of taxonomies of folkish frights. It is a dizzying display of unwell wellness, encrusted in the brine of belief systems unfamiliar and curdled, that sucks you right in and never lets you up for air." ―Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
This information about Make Me Better was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: ©Allan Amato 2019
Sarah Gailey is a Hugo Award and British Fantasy Award winning and bestselling author of speculative fiction, short stories, and essays. Their nonfiction has been published by dozens of venues internationally. Their fiction has been published in over seven different languages. They have written comics for Marvel, EC, and BOOM! Studios, including multiple original series. They are the editor and publisher of Stone Soup and Love Letters: Reasons To Be Alive.
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