With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna's tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas, in search of a new home. But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. She discovers secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she's far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen, and no one is safe.

Nikolai: I have been a contract killer since I was a boy. For years I savored the fear caused by my name, the trembling at the sight of my tattoos. If you saw my eyes, it was the last vision you'd have. With her I am the mark, and I am ready to lie down and let her capture me. Opening my small, scarred heart to her brings out my enemies. I will carry out one last hit, but if they hurt her I will bring the world down around their ears.

Dominic Valetti is only interested in two things: getting paid and getting laid. He's a bookie for the Valetti crime family, and he knows his shit. Dom's busy doing business, no time to dabble in social niceties. The women that chase after him wanting more than a dirty, hard f--k are only gonna get their hearts broken. That is, until Becca stumbles into his office to pay off her ex's debt. A hot brunette who's just as guarded as he is and has a body made for sin...and for him.

In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.

Men ruin women...especially men like Chase Davis. Good looking, intelligent, rich, and powerful - I never stood a chance. When he entered my life, I was finally healing after having barely survived the men of my past. My soul sisters told me to take a chance, to let someone in. I let him in, and he surrounded me with a light so bright that I was blinded by the truth. Men don't ruin women. They devour them in every way that counts.