Beautiful New Bodies

Desire opened the door.For two years, widowed Emily Mercer has treated her body like a memorial - a place where grief is preserved and desire is kept safely buried.Then Jack and Mara Vale move into the immaculate house across the street. Emily's attraction to Jack is immediate, consuming, and impossible to explain. More unsettling still, Mara seems less jealous than pleased.Soon bruises appear beneath Emily's skin. Her reflection moves without her. Neighbours return from the Vales' home younger, happier, and subtly wrong.The Vales have come to Briarwood to feed. They awaken the hidden matter inside their victims and grow beautiful new bodies from every shame, longing, and memory people wish they could escape.To save the neighbourhood, Emily must decide what is more terrifying: losing the body that remembers her grief, or accepting one that may never truly belong to her.A seductive body-horror novella about grief, desire, and the terrible hunger to become someone new.-Arthur Ingrims