Sleep Alone
Published on 17. March 2026
192 pages
979-8-89732-011-0 (ISBN)
Description
Finalist for both the Shirley Jackson Award and the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
Includes a new bonus short story, "With Animals"!
"Instantly intoxicating. Sleep Alone thrives in a lustful, hungry ballad... A classic trinity of sex, blood, and rock and roll." ?Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth
For the past six years, Ronnie has worked selling merch for a perpetually touring band. Late nights, sweaty clubs, dingy motel rooms, endless roads?as rough as it's been, there is no other way of life for this band of hungry succubi leaving bodies in their wake.
Until she meets the enigmatic Helene.
Helene is just as restless, just as lonely, and just as full of secrets. With Helene in tow, Ronnie and the band make their way across the Pacific Northwest, trying to outrun not only their mistakes, but the mysterious disease stalking the band, a disease that devours succubi from the inside out.
The hunger is as endless as the road, but maybe Ronnie doesn't always want to sleep alone.
Includes a new bonus short story, "With Animals"!
"Instantly intoxicating. Sleep Alone thrives in a lustful, hungry ballad... A classic trinity of sex, blood, and rock and roll." ?Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth
For the past six years, Ronnie has worked selling merch for a perpetually touring band. Late nights, sweaty clubs, dingy motel rooms, endless roads?as rough as it's been, there is no other way of life for this band of hungry succubi leaving bodies in their wake.
Until she meets the enigmatic Helene.
Helene is just as restless, just as lonely, and just as full of secrets. With Helene in tow, Ronnie and the band make their way across the Pacific Northwest, trying to outrun not only their mistakes, but the mysterious disease stalking the band, a disease that devours succubi from the inside out.
The hunger is as endless as the road, but maybe Ronnie doesn't always want to sleep alone.
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J.A.W. McCarthy is a two-time Bram Stoker Award and two-time Shirley Jackson Award finalist and author of Sometimes We're Cruel and Other Stories and Sleep Alone. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including Vastarien, PseudoPod, Split Scream Vol. 3, The Dark, and The Best Horror of the Year Vol 13. She is a second generation immigrant of Thai and Slovak descent and lives with her spouse and assistant cats in the Pacific Northwest. You can call her Jen on most platforms @JAWMcCarthy, and find out more at jawmccarthy.com.
