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The Secret Lives of Zombie Wives

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The Secret Lives of Zombie Wives

By: Barbara Truelove
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About this listen

The Secret Lives of Zombie Wives is a horror novella that combines the perfect intersection between trad wives on Instagram and #girldinner. Both funny and fleshy, it unravels the layers of domestic perfection demanded of women to get to the rotten heart of societal expectations.

Patricia is a reformed zombie.

She’s also an influencer—the wholesome, homey, traditional values kind—a career built up with the help of her husband, Ralph. Cooking, shopping, and hanging out with her friends; most days, it’s easy to forget she’s even dead, so long as she takes her antifungal medication. But when a zombie horde starts approaching her fenced community, Patricia comes face to face with memories of an era of her life she thought she’d left behind.

Perhaps life with overbearing Ralph isn’t quite as perfect as she’d hoped, and maybe everyone kind of has the wrong idea about the zombie horde—they’re not frightening, they’re beautiful to Patricia, and they prompt her to embrace her true, authentic self.

Unfortunately for Ralph, this involves eating his brain on livestream.

Critic Reviews

“An ode to hunger and female rage like nothing I've ever read before.”—Cassandra Khaw, bestselling author of The Library at Hellebore

“Deliciously subversive!”–New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rozakis

The Secret Lives of Zombie Wives is like The Brady Bunch written by George Romero snacking on a Martha Stewart frozen dinner in a suburban bungalow on the edge of an apocalyptic wasteland. By turns funny and terrifying, Barbara Truelove tells undead Patricia’s story with insight and compassion.”—Richard Kadrey

“A perfectly timed, perfectly executed howl of rage against an era in which we’re all expected to act like everything’s normal, when in fact we understandably want to rip things apart. Truelove has given us an enthralling novella that's as easy to read as it is probing and biting.”—Nat Cassidy, USA Today bestselling author of When the Wolf Comes Home and Mary

“An emotional gut punch ensconced in deliciously dark humor and expert world building, this novella is an unmissable morsel of modern horror.”—Liz Kerin

“Here's Gloria Steinem's The Last of Us, here's The Walking Dead Housewives, here's a succulent slice of feminist fungal fury that we can all tear our teeth into. You'll be grinning between bloody gulps, trust me.”—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

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