“With her latest novel, Breukelaar dives into dark fantasy with a horrifying yet accessible tale of finding your place in the world.”
Twin sisters Meera and Kai are just two among the many Mades—hybrid women bred in the Blood Temple cult by the Father. While Meera is saved by the storyteller Narn, Kai cannot escape the Fathers “unmaking”. Several years later after the cult is destroyed, Meera discovers a generous program and enrolls in college.
Filled with grief and guilt, Meera uses Narn’s stories to buy a free ride to a horror reading series, and there she finds herself finally made whole, free of guilt, and the darling of the lit set and her fellow students.
But Narn has lost a sister as well. And there’s a violent stalker on campus. Meera agrees to help Narn find her sister in exchange for Narn’s stories … stories that open Meera’s memories, secrets she’s never wanted, and the Father and Narn’s strange connection to the stalker.
Why we’re excited about this book:
Writer J.S. Breukelaar may call Australia home, but horror fiction fans worldwide know of her work. She is the author of the novels American Monster and Aletheia, and her short fiction has appeared in Black Static, Tiny Nightmares, Women Writing the Weird, Unnerving, Lightspeed, and is collected in Collision: Stories. With her latest novel, Breukelaar dives into dark fantasy with a horrifying yet accessible tale of finding your place in the world. Locus Magazine says: “Razor sharp opening hooks blending the literary, the speculative and the weird”, and Brian Evenson (Song for the Unraveling of the World) says: “A startlingly original novel that dizzyingly takes apart what it means to belong or not belong. Incandescent and deadly.”
Forthcoming from Meerkat Press 22 June 2021, The Bridge by J.S. Breukelaar is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA
