Man Eater: A Novel

Summary

“A feverish jungle nightmare with an unforgettable antiheroine. I savored every poisonous word.” —Sam Beckbessinger, author of Femme Feral

From the Bram Stoker–nominated author of Where the Dead Wait and All the White Spaces comes a feminist Gothic horror novel in which a botanist searching for a rare orchid encounters an inhuman presence lurking in the jungle shadows.

The jungle is alive, and it is…hungry.

1901. Minerva Sandford is an adventure-seeker, a botanist—and a reluctant wife. Part of a family of exotic plant-hunters, she chafes at the lack of autonomy in her chilly marriage and is horrified by her sole “purpose” being to produce a male heir. She leaps on the rare opportunity to accompany her husband Guy and cousin Dickon into the fevered Amazonian jungle, searching for the fabled “Man Eater” orchids. No matter what the cost.

As the search for the orchids—and the sinister tendrils of the rubber industry—drive the group deeper into the remote wilderness, Minerva begins to see things amongst the trees. A ghostly woman in green, impossible artifacts, plants moving in all-too-human ways…

Driven by her unquenchable ambition and guided by a secret map, Minerva draws the expedition into uncharted territory, only to encounter untold dangers from without and within. Under the canopy of eerie vines, her lifelong fight for control over her own body takes on ever-more horrific implications. The jungle is alive, and it seems…hungry.