Light Most Hateful

Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, The Worm and His Kings, Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, Benny Rose, the Cannibal King, and The Possession of Natalie Glasgow. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association, with dozens of short stories appearing in various publications. She lives with her wife in Maryland, where their paranormal research is classified. Find her on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays

LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST HORROR NOVELS 2023PASTE MAGAZINE BEST HORROR BOOKS 2023THE LINE-UP 2023 HORROR BOOK HIGHLIGHTSThrillingly original. Piper deftly stitches threads of vulnerability, existential anxiety, and complex friendship power dynamics into a feverish, nail-biting, writhing-in-your-seat nightmare. A juicy horror tale you'll want to sink your teeth into, before it sinks its teeth into you.—Rachel Harrison, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The ReturnHailey Piper's prose crackles sharply and thrums with the mesmerizing pulse of a passing summer storm. A vivid, imaginative, and chillingly tense novel, A Light Most Hateful cements Piper as one of the most spectacularly fierce talents working in horror fiction today. — Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last SpokeA Light Most Hateful is filled with mesmerizing language that breathes cosmic chaos, abandonment, loneliness, and desperation. Piper explores the fear of betrayal by those closest to us and of the meaning of friendship and loyalty in the face of disparity. This is a book where the landscapes are upturned and roaming, where memories come to life as nightmares, and beckons us with the question, what if you can control the act of creation and uncreation? Piper has fabricated a darkly glorious woven reality where everything might exist and unexist simultaneously. — Ai Jiang, Nebula and Locus award finalist, and author of LinghunEvery moment is earned, every monster deserving of its time in the spotlight. In short, it’s a perfect primer for the beautifully dark world of Hailey Piper’s fiction, as well as a must-read for longtime fans.—Paste MagazineIf Neil Gaiman, Mary Shelley, and Shirley Jackson could collaborate, this stunning novel would be the result.—Library Journal, Best Horror of the Year 2023The story twists reader expectations into knots, flipping genre conventions and connecting unlikely elements to make something truly singular. The result is an ambitious, genre-shredding novel that takes big swings and, improbably, lands every one... Piper’s prose crackles with energy and wit as it ties the novel’s wilder excesses together into a story at once comfortingly familiar in its themes and cosmically alien in its execution. — Publishers Weekly, starred reviewA stunning novel that purposefully plays with genre conventions and centers love, even as it actively terrifies readers to their core, much like recent novels from Victor LaValle, Rachel Eve Moulton, and Chuck Tingle. — Library Journal starred reviewIt is completely wild, a little ridiculous in a fun way [...] and plenty gross, too. Buckle up and enjoy the ride! — BookriotShades of Barker, Gaiman and King dance through A Light Most Hateful, but the horror is pure Hailey Piper. A devastating storm of unnatural origin? Check. A contagion of zombies infected with their own memories? Check. Nightmares begetting nightmares in a fractal convocation? Check. A friendship between two girls as opposite as they are alike, tested by fear and desire and destiny? Double and triple check! Piper envelops the reader in a tempest of terror from the first page to the last. It's as close to a thrill ride as you can get between two covers. Don't miss it! — David Demchuk, award-winning author of The Bone Mother and RED XPiper has spawned a slick mess of family dynamics. — Polly Hall, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Taxidermist’s LoverPiper's prose will leave you breathless in this stormy, jagged little pill of a novel about love and hate and acceptance in a world gone mad. A furiously compelling and propulsive read. — Gemma Amor, Bram Stoker award-nominated author of Dear LauraWhat has sprouted out from Hailey Piper's head is a fully-formed goddess of a novel, equal parts terrifying, awe-inspiring, and downright worshipful. I'm still scorched by A Light Most Hateful, even after closing its pages, blinded by its brilliance. — Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost EatersA LIGHT MOST HATEFUL begins with a scream, and that's appropriate given you'll be screaming your way through this swirling, phantasmagoric, unpredictable nightmare. Escaping the suburbs has never been so harrowing. — Nat Cassidy, author of Mary: An Awakening of Terror and NestlingsHailey Piper has whipped up a roiling tale of horror unlike anything I’ve ever read. Like a bolt of lightning, this story will leave an imprint behind your eyelids, to be revisited and relived every time you close your eyes, long after you’ve turned the final page. — Scott Leeds, author of Schrader's ChordWith A Light Most Hateful, we should all be hailing the new Queen of Cosmic Horror; Piper firmly cements her reputation of being one of the most electrifying and commanding voices in horror. — Ginger Nuts of HorrorFor previous works:Eerie and visceral, Piper combines the supernatural with the deeply human in a novella that explores the many faces of horror, at once haunting and familiar, yet utterly new.—A.C. Wise, Nebula Award-nominated author of Wendy, DarlingHailey Piper boards a starship where the most terrifying part of the voyage isn’t the cargo hold full of corpses, the tentacled creatures that stalk the pod bays, or their mysterious, otherworldly master, but the depths of the human psyche. An intriguing blend of b-movie scifi and incisive, soul-baring reflection.—Adam Cesare, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Clown in a CornfieldWith surgical precision, Hailey Piper’s stories slice through the skin, fat, and muscle of her characters’ lives, all the way down to the living bone and what is written on it. In terms of their prose. their wit, their insight, their compassion, their terror, these are the sharpest of stories. Read them, but be prepared for the cuts.—John Langan, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The FishermanEvery story has this incredible balance of being dark and scary but also wildly charming! It’s magic…—Rachel Harrison, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The ReturnA powerful, beautiful horror story.—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Readers ... will be in horror heaven with this mesmerizing, original, and breathtaking debut.—Library Journal (starred review)Hailey Piper is at the top of her game, literally machete-chopping through new territory—Cemetery DanceOne of the best horror books of 2021.—Rue MorgueA voice to be reckoned with.—Tor NightfireA veritable banquet—Cemetery Gates MediaBold, thoughtful, and beautifully written.—The Future FireThis is Hailey Piper’s best — a note perfect make-you-flinch novel that visits every aspect this genre has to offer.—Brian KeeneA Light Most Hateful will appeal to a wide swath of horror fiction fans — from devotees of Clive Barker to rabid Richard Laymon readers to fans of everyone from Poppy Z. Brite to Stephen King. It’s that good.—Briane Keene