Cover Launch: SLEEPING BEASTS by Sophia Zhao

Take your first look at the cover for Sleeping Beasts (US | UK), the debut horror novel by Sophia Zhao, coming August 2027!

The class subterfuge of Parasite meets the skewering of white supremacy in Get Out in this unmissable horror debut where a Chinese American woman who swindles her way into a white family’s home realizes she may not be the only threat in the house.

Nicky thinks she might be a bad person; others would call her a con artist. The only thing she’s sure of is that she’s always hungered for a life she could never have.

So when the opportunity arises to become a live-in tutor for six-year-old Caleb Bell, the adopted Chinese son of a wealthy white couple, Nicky doesn’t hesitate—even though she doesn’t speak a lick of Mandarin herself.

The Bells welcome Nicky into their Connecticut summer home, a lavish, vine-entombed manor filled with ancient ink paintings and relics from the Far East. When Nicky sees the Bells’ trove of Chinese art, she sets her sights on a much larger prize than tuition fees, and convinces herself she’s reclaiming stolen cultural treasure, not just committing petty theft.

She’s not the only liar in the house, though. At night, the manor’s byzantine hallways lead her astray, and strange visions plague her waking hours. The local townspeople look past her as if she’s already a ghost, even as the eyes of the Bell patriarch devour her every move.

But quitting might not be as simple as waltzing out the front door. If Nicky has any hope of escaping the bonds of her employment, she’ll have to confront the wretched legacy of her host family, and the trauma of her own shrouded past….

Steeped in Chinese folklore and legacies of colonial violence, Sleeping Beasts is a fever dream of a horror novel from a mesmerizing new voice in the genre.

Tags: Orbit News, Orbit Cover Launch