Nymph - by Stephanie Lacava (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A thriller examining violence through its subversion and a love story about the inexorable nature of human entanglements

Not yet thirty, Bathory, or "Bat" to the few who know her well, has assembled a peculiar résumé model, sex worker, linguist, Latin scholar, and assassin. The last of these has been the family trade for generations. Growing up, Bat, her mother, and her father made an isolated, strange, and loving -- if very unusual -- family unit. Her lonely childhood games mimicked spycraft and wetwork, while her parents watched on and shared their arcane theories about love and death.

As a student in New York, her life changes on accepting a job at a dilapidated card shop in Manhattan. This is a front for an agency that allows her to put her inherited skills to use while pursuing romance in the city.

However, steering clear of attachment is as dangerous as anything else she does and means sidestepping a certain alluring figure from her father's past who turns up like a bad penny. She is equally intent on dying young, a less difficult proposition given her heritage, the company she keeps -- call girls, conflicted cops, and trustifarian hoodlums -- and the people pursuing her, including one mysterious figure with bright and terrifying eyes.

Will Bathory escape fate and family both, or does satisfaction or salvation lie only in their embrace?

Review Quotes

"A visceral, exorcism-like exploration of a body blunted to pain and a mind moulded by generational trauma, lust, and dysfunction ... sensual, slippery and stylish."
--Ana Cafolla, The Face

"A sharp critical vision lurches into focus: of culture as commodity, of suffering as currency, and of the female body as this agon's generalized battleground."
--Tom Mc Carthy

"I haven't read a book in a while that just pulled me in, and you're so immersed in the characters and in the world. It's quite a slice of life"
--Kaia Gerber, Vanity Fair

"La Femme Nikita meets Bridges of Madison County"
--Marlowe Granados

About the Author

Stephanie LaCava is a writer based in New York City. I Fear My Pain Interests You was released to global acclaim in 2022. Her debut novel, The Superrationals, was published by Semiotext(e) in 2020.