Doll Seed
Available Now!
If you’re a fan of Octavia Butler, Dean Koontz or Kelly Link you’ll enjoy this debut short story collection by Michele Tracy Berger. Playful and provocative, these speculative stories cover a wide territory including sci-fi, contemporary fantasy, paranormal, horror and magical realism.
Fifteen stories invite you to get comfortable in the dark, to consider freedom and sacrifice, trust and betrayal, otherness, and safety. Marisol, an aspiring jewelry artist, is haunted by a fast-food icon. Chevella, a self-aware doll, finds herself in 1950s America playing a key role in the Civil Rights Movement. Lindsay, a Black girl in 1970s America “wins” an extraterrestrial in a national contest only to find her family’s life upended. Chelsea and Jessa, two sisters, fight about what a strange child means for their family. A meat grinder appears in a magical forest and chaos ensues. These are just some of the wondrous and imaginative tributaries Berger explores.
If you like memorable female characters of color that have to navigate ruthless physical and psychic obstacles written with exquisite tenderness, you’ll welcome this new voice.
Also available at your favorite independent bookstore and online everywhere.
Advance Praise for Doll Seed
Jen Julian
Author of Red Rabbit Ghost
Vincent Tirado
Author of We Came to Welcome You: A Novel of Suburban Horror
Julia Rios
Hugo Award Winning Editor
Reenu-You
What if a visit to the salon could kill you?
What if a hair product harbored a deadly virus? In Reenu-You, Kat is an out of work ski instructor who just wants to pack up her deceased mother’s things, leave New York, and return to Aspen. Constancia is a talented but troubled young woman who just wants to start her first semester of college. In different shops across New York City, they and hundreds of other women of color try a new hair relaxer called “Reenu-You.” Then things start to go horribly awry. Within days, they find themselves covered in purple scab-like lesions—a rash that pulses, oozes, and spreads in spiral patterns. They are at the epicenter of a mysterious virus spreading throughout the city. As the outbreak spreads and new cases pop up in Black and Latino communities throughout New York, panic, anger, and questions fill the streets. What is this virus and where did it come from?