I Am The Dark That Answers When You Call

I Feed Her to the Beast (Volume 2)

Out Now, US Paperback Coming August 26

A cluster of two book covers, for I Am The Dark That Answers When You Call by Jamison Shea. The covers have a colorful illustration of a Black girl screaming as she transforms into a monster hiding beneath her skin.

Monsters and mortals, rejoice! Acheron is back...

Though Laure has tried to close the lid on her ballet shoes and the feelings she once held for dance since the Palais Garnier incident two months ago, Laure is spinning out. Between partying, drinking, and avoiding anything and, well, everyone, she has no time to be anything but a monster. But when Laure stumbles across a mysterious dead body during one of her nights out, she’s forced to notice the cracks stretching beyond herself.

Below the streets of Paris, Elysium is dying, and Acheron and Lethe’s influence is spilling into the streets like a blight. Laure isn’t the only of Elysium’s beasts to rise from the ruins of Palais Garnier, and someone is mobilizing an army of monsters with plans greater than Laure, Andor, and Keturah could have ever guessed. While Laure is warring between her wants and Acheron’s ever-demanding appetite, she and her circle of monsters are left to reckon with a not-so-simple question: how do you save yourself from oblivion?

Jamison Shea’s sharp and unflinching voice will bring readers to terrifying new heights in this vicious sequel to the “relentlessly gory and almost euphoric in its embrace of the horrific” (NPR) I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me.

Content Warnings

Grief, death and dying, mourning a loved one, parental abandonment, and surviving abuse.

It also depicts gore–particularly blood, bones, corpses, and animal carcasses (due to natural causes)–as well as body horror, murder, torture, vomit, gaslighting and manipulation, heavy drinking, cannibalism, and forced confinement (being buried alive).

Where to Buy

Available wherever books are sold.

Praise for I Am The Dark That Answers When You Call

Beneath the viscera, the story underscores that the real horror isn’t the monsters we become in order to survive a cruel world, but the powers that try to bend and break us to commit atrocities for their benefit. This bold and bloody coming-of-age story is an enthralling page-turner."
– Kirkus Starred Review
Plenty of Parisian details and gracefully outlined dance scenes meld with graphic violence and intense emotions for a deep exploration of what defines and sustains true friendship and self-acceptance. A rewarding conclusion to an intricate and unsettling duology."
– Booklist