Morbid Curiosities - by S Hati (Hardcover)

About the Book

An ambitious teen enrolls at an elite science institute in Morbid Curiosities, a young adult thriller from author S. Hati.

Book Synopsis

An ambitious teen enrolls at an elite science institute in Morbid Curiosities, a young adult thriller from author S. Hati.

When the Institute's invitation arrived at my doorstep, it felt like it had been inked in my blood, sweat, and tears.

Aarya's life plan has been set for as long as she can remember: finish high school with a bang, attend the best college she can get into, then land a prestigious biology research job. Her ticket to this dream is a one-year program at the Elizabethan Institute, the preeminent organization for life sciences in the United States, currently on the cusp of revealing a major project that could transform the worlds of biology and medicine.

But as Aarya tries to settle in to a school with sky-high academic expectations and research cloaked in mystery, it becomes clear that someone doesn't want her there. As the scholarship student surrounded by rich, cutthroat peers who seem all too willing to torment her, she never expected to make friends, but the notes warning her to run rattle her to her core. She finds an ally in Sofia, a mysterious girl who claims to be the subject of closed-door experiments at the Institute and begs for Aarya's help in figuring out what the Institute is really working on.

As rumors of mutated flora and fauna in the nearby city circulate and a murder investigation rocks the Institute, Aarya will have to navigate Sofia's growing paranoia and her own increasingly unreliable memory to determine which classmates she can trust--and which would rather see her dead.

"A sharply intelligent, darkly fascinating academic thriller about unraveling the hard truths of who you are and who you want to be - and the final twist made me gasp out loud." --Andrew Joseph White, New York Times-bestselling and award-winning author of Compound Fracture

Review Quotes

Praise for Morbid Curiosities:

"Clever and thoroughly compelling, this is the perfect combination of academia, mystery, and darkly thrilling twists. The characters delivered a prickly academic-rivals-to-allies dynamic that I adored and each page had me hungry for more." --CG Drews, New York Times bestselling author of Don't Let The Forest In

"S. Hati delivers a dark academia-esque thriller that trades spells and secret societies for mutated creatures, secret experiments, and the haunting price of genius. Smart, eerie, and utterly gripping, this is the kind of book that gets under your skin and stays there." --Kalynn Baron

"S. Hati masterfully drops clues for readers to form hypotheses and test theories alongside Aarya, our brilliant and witty protagonist, as she pushes against the secrets of the Institute and hunts to discover the cause of mysterious changes in plant and wildlife around San Francisco. Morbid Curiosities weaves science and mystery into a twisty thrill ride." --Megan Davidhizar, author of Silent Sister

"Perfectly captures the unsettling feeling of a lab after hours, imbuing it with monstrous creatures, twisted schemes, and a heroine who grabs you by the heart strings and doesn't let go." --Elias Cold, author of The Duke Steals Hearts and Other Body Parts

"Hati thoroughly unmasks science as a weapon tainted by agendas of the powerful, with twists that made my jaw drop and my skin crawl. I was immediately gripped by the secretive institute, the intricate backstories, and the academic rivals at the center of it all. Seamlessly weaves humor, mystery, and scientific expertise into an unforgettable narrative." --Ana Davis, author of My Keen Knife

"Compelling, haunting and seriously entertaining, I was completely hooked by all of this novel's clever mysteries. With incisive class commentary and a true dark academia setting amidst creepy flora and fauna that shouldn't exist, Morbid Curiosities is The Secret History meets Frankenstein and absolutely brilliant." --Sian Gilbert, author of She Started It and I Did Warn Her

"Smart and unsettling in the best way possible, Morbid Curiosities is an absolute must-read. What begins as the story of an ambitious teen determined to prove herself at a competitive research institute mutates into a tale of dark secrets and paranoia. S. Hati exquisitely blends fascinating biology and eerie suspense -- a fresh and thrilling triumph of dark academia." --Channelle Desamours, author of Needy Little Things

About the Author

S. Hati is a speculative fiction writer, currently residing in the Bay Area. She holds a bachelor's degree in microbiology from UCLA and a master's degree in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University and pretends to use them both while working in health tech. She writes about brown girls in strange worlds that straddle the line between magic and science. Her adult debut And the Sky Bled (Bindery Books) released in 2024.