Thursday, March 4, 2021

"The Eighth Girl"

New from William Morrow Paperbacks: The Eighth Girl: A Novel by Maxine Mei-Fung Chung.

About the book, from the publisher:

One woman. Multiple personas. But which one is telling the truth?

Beautiful. Damaged. Destructive. Meet Alexa Wú, a brilliant yet darkly self-aware young woman whose chaotic life is controlled by a series of alternate personalities.

When Alexa’s friend Ella gets a job at a high-end gentlemen’s club, she catches the attention of its shark-like owner and is gradually drawn into his inner circle. As Alexa’s world becomes intimately entangled with Ella’s, she soon finds herself the unwitting keeper of a nightmarish secret as she follows Ella into London’s cruel underbelly. Threatened and vulnerable, Alexa will discover whether her multiple personalities are her greatest asset, or her most dangerous obstacle.

Electrifying and breathlessly compulsive, The Eighth Girl is an omnivorous examination of life with mental illness and the acute trauma of living in a misogynist world. With bingeable prose and a clinician’s expertise, Chung’s psychological debut deftly explores identity, innocence, and the fracturing weight that young women are forced to carry, causing us to ask: Does the truth lead to self-discovery, or to self-destruction?
Visit Maxine Mei-Fung Chung's website.

--Marshal Zeringue