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Start giftingSacrificial Animals
A Novel
Narrator
Yung-I Chang
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Length
7 hours 40 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“Set on a gothic Midwestern estate, this novel follows younger brother Nick's cursed upbringing, disgraceful escape, and subsequent sojourn back to his ailing father's home. Wildly harried and vicious, juxtaposed with ancient Chinese mythology and midwestern grit, and poetically bleak, this novel is perfect for the lover of gothic horror. ”
— Lambie • Underground Books
Inspired by Kailee Pedersen's own journey being adopted from Nanning, China in 1996 and growing up on a farm in Nebraska, this rich and atmospheric supernatural horror debut explores an ancient Chinese mythology.
The last thing Nick Morrow expected to receive was an invitation from his father to return home. When he left rural Nebraska behind, he believed he was leaving everything there, including his abusive father, Carlyle, and the farm that loomed so large in memory, forever.
But neither Nick nor his brother Joshua, disowned for marrying Emilia, a woman of Asian descent, can ignore such summons from their father, who hopes for a deathbed reconciliation. Predictably, Joshua and Carlyle quickly warm to each other while Nick and Emilia are left to their own devices. Nick puts the time to good use and his flirtation with Emilia quickly blooms into romance. Though not long after the affair turns intimate, Nick begins to suspect that Emilia’s interest in him may have sinister, and possibly even ancient, motivations.
Punctuated by scenes from Nick’s adolescent years, when memories of a queer awakening and a shadowy presence stalking the farm altered the trajectory of his life forever, Sacrificial Animals explores the violent legacy of inherited trauma and the total collapse of a family in its wake.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
Kailee Pedersen writes haunted, unsettling speculative fiction. She graduated with a B.A. in Classics from Columbia University, specializing in ancient Greek. Kailee was adopted from Nanning in 1996 and grew up in Nebraska, where her family owns a farm. Her writing on LGBTQ+ and Asian American themes was awarded an Artist Fellowship by the Nebraska Arts Council in 2015. When not scribbling down her next book, you can catch her singing opera, playing video games, or working as a software engineer in New York City. Sacrificial Animals is her first novel.
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Reviews
"This novel presents a contemplatively paced supernatural horror tale, centering family, trauma, and revenge, with unease infused into every detail...the tightly coiled tension will eventually explode; when it does, [readers] will be left gasping in awe. Pedersen’s debut skillfully balances character and atmosphere." —Library Journal, starred review
"This incantatory debut builds menace from its opening phrase. The author is merciless. She writes with a rare acuity...few readers are likely to quit before the final chapter...An assured and bloody fable heralds the arrival of a gifted new voice." —Kirkus Reviews
"The mythic Chinese figure of the nine-tailed fox spirit goes Midwestern Gothic in Pedersen’s unsettling debut. Literary horror that isn’t afraid to show its teeth. Pedersen is sure to win fans." —Publishers Weekly
"A slow burning horror story...Pedersen provides a brilliant and unforgiving commentary on toxic masculinity and racism." —Booklist
“Kailee Pedersen explodes onto the scene with Sacrificial Animals! A weird, gorgeously written supernatural thriller about how the crimes of our fathers can cast dark and devastating shadows over innocent lives. Very highly recommended!” -Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of Cave 13 and The Dragon in Winter
"Sacrificial Animals is distinctly observant, and distinctly unsettling. It begins with one sort of menace and ends with another entirely, so that while the book barely leaves its little patch of acres, and the souls who occupy it hardly move an inch from the traumas that shaped them long ago, it leaves you with a feeling of immense distances traveled." -Kevin Brockmeier, New York Times Bestselling author
"An incandescent study of American masculinity with an unforgettable genre-busting twist." - Alex Landragin, author of Crossings
"Brutal and mesmerizing, Kailee Pedersen's Sacrificial Animals drew me in immediately. Easily readable in one sitting, this enigmatic family saga is better savored to appreciate the rhythm of the language and the growing sense of unease. Highly recommended." - Kendare Blake, #1 NYT bestselling author of Three Dark Crowns
"A delicately braided and unflinching tale of inherited family damage and revenge that walks a careful line between the realistic and the supernatural, crossing from one into the other before you--or the hapless characters--are fully aware. Sacrificial Animals reads like what might happen if Cormac McCarthy and Lafcadio Hearn were stuck waiting out a snowstorm in Nebraska and decided to collaborate." - Brian Evenson, author of The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell
"Kailee Pedersen employs the rich prose of early Cormac McCarthy, the bracingly vivid descriptive power of Willa Cather, and the doom-heavy fatefulness of Greek tragedy to create something very much her own: a deliciously gothic horror novel. The set-up is simple: an abusive father summons his two grown sons home for a deathbed reconciliation. But before they can bury the old man, the ghost of a crime from their collective past comes calling, seeking vengeance. Sacrificial Animals' final thirty pages will leave you gasping.” - Scott Smith, New York Times Bestselling author of The Ruins
"Kailee Pedersen's terse, tense, deeply unnerving debut novel mesmerized me from beginning to end. This is a young writer to watch!" -Dan Chaon, author of Sleepwalk