Man Eater - by Ally Wilkes (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the 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...

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.

Review Quotes

"A feverish jungle nightmare with an unforgettable antiheroine. I savoured every poisonous word."--Sam Beckbessinger, author of Femme Feral

"But what does a plant want? If a jungle had a voice, what might it say? Set in the feverish, immersive locale of the Amazonian forest, Ally Wilkes' MAN EATER is a gripping, propulsive read. A historical novel that is fiercely relevant, this is also a passionate, feminist critique of colonisation, marginalisation, and consumption. Minerva's intense journey will lodge in your brain like an insidious vine. Wilkes is the new voice of Tropical Gothic."--Tracy Fahey, author of Queens of the Crone Age, winner of the Rubery International Book Award

*PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF ALLY WILKES*

*The Writers Shaping Horror's Next Golden Age*-- "Esquire"

"ALL THE WHITE SPACES is a heady and haunting mix of historical fiction, polar survival horror, and a meditation on gender, identity, and the enduring mysteries of the self. You won't soon forget Jonathan Morgan and his trial by ice."--Paul Tremblay, author of A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS and SURVIVOR SONG

"Beautiful, brilliant writing about good men (and bad) facing the unimaginable. I was swallowed whole by Ally Wilkes' terrifying story of Arctic survival. Dare I say it's better than Dan Simmons' THE TERROR?"--Alma Katsu, author of THE FERVOR and THE HUNGER

"Harrowing and clawing with the iciest fingernails. The only thing harder to escape than the bloodthirsty sea is the longing and regret. WHERE THE DEAD WAIT proves that the frozen nightmare is the domain of Ally Wilkes; we're just left to survive it."--Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of QUEEN OF TEETH

"Haunting...Ominous."
--The New York Times Book Review


"Spectacular . . . a breathtaking achievement."-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"

"WHERE THE DEAD WAIT is a full-body plunge into nineteenth-century seafaring, Arctic survival, and the frigid darkness of the human psyche, in a setting as frostbitten and dread-inducing as the ghosts that haunt it. I was moved by Captain Day's inner war of longing and regret, and rewarded by the beautiful, immersive prose. With her second polar outing, Wilkes stakes her claim as the new ice-master of horror fiction."--Luke Dumas, author of THE PALEONTOLOGIST and A HISTORY OF FEAR

About the Author

Ally Wilkes, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of All the White Spaces and Where the Dead Wait, grew up in a succession of isolated--possibly haunted--country houses and boarding schools. After studying law at Oxford, she went on to spend eleven years as a criminal barrister. Ally now lives in Greenwich, London, with an anatomical human skeleton and far too many books about exploration, the weird and the macabre.