Maeve Fly

By: CJ Leede

Narrated by: Sosie Bacon

Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

"This is gory and brutal and beautiful and painful and terrifying and a pure delight."—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author

“Leede’s words and narrator Sosie Bacon’s voice imbue Maeve with thought-provoking realism and earnestness, even as her violent acts become more savagely creative.”—Library Journal

A provocative debut that is both a blood-soaked love letter to Los Angeles and a gleeful send-up to iconic horror villains, Maeve Fly will thrill fans of My Heart is a Chainsaw and Caroline Kepnes’ You series.

By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child’s favorite ice princess.

By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes.

But when Gideon Green—her best friend’s brother—moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet.

Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho. Step aside Patrick Bateman, it’s Maeve’s turn with the knife.

"An apocalyptic Anaheim Psycho."—Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.

©2023 CJ Leede (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Leede’s bloody and gory debut will make readers clutch their metaphorical pearls in the best way possible. Horror fans who enjoy villain-origin stories, social commentary, terrifying female characters, and unreliable narrators will devour each deliciously morbid and shocking page.”—Booklist, starred review

“An apocalyptic Anaheim Psycho, a guidebook to the dead spaces of Los Angeles, a Hollywood black mass, an occult ritual that cracks the earth, Maeve Fly oozes enough anguish, alienation, and angst to drown the world.”—Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How To Sell a Haunted House

“This is gory and brutal and beautiful and painful and terrifying and a pure delight. Child of God has nothing on Maeve Fly. But I think they might be cousins. Just, let’s not let them Mickey and Mallory across the world, ok?”—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of My Heart is a Chainsaw

Female psychopath lead

The book was my first intro into the horror genre and I think I’m hooked. I love the female character and the ending was such a gut punch! Highly recommend!

femme fatale meets psycho killer

this book was only disappointing in that it mentions 'Story of the Eye' several times, but doesn't have quite the depravity equal to it.
I get that she wanted to celebrate the dark and dirty, but I wanted darker and dirtier. that being said, I loved Maeve and her Norman Bates-like relationship to her grandmother.
I was also disappointed in the lack of repercussions for Maeve. I wanted the manic panic we got in 'American Psycho' when Bateman freaks out thinking he will be discovered. What I got was a vague earthquake/realization moment? meh.
also, I really wanted more gore. this book was only mildly disturbing, and not the hyped up fear fest I was expecting.

What a ride!

That was awesome. It got a little slow in the middle but everything was fleshed out by the end and it was great. I didn’t see the ending coming at all and can’t wait for a sequel!

FANTASTICALLY GRUESOME

The daughter of all your transgressive heroes. I haven’t been so invested into a grotesque love story like this since Chandler Morrison’s Dead Inside.

Couldn’t stop listening

This book was by far one of the best i have listened to on audible in a while. I wish i could have more but where it ended was exactly right

I will read more from this author

Great homage paid to Bret Easton Ellis. The author does an excellent job of making a protagonist and antagonist out of the same character. Everything is a metaphor for the serial killer from the Disney princess, to Halloween, etc. I am surprised that some were shocked by the ending, as the author does a great job foreshadowing this, and the ending is inevitable. Very well executed story. Look forward to reading more from the author. Definitely recommend.

Twisted and wonderfully weird

I got this one on the recommendation of Rachel Harrison, one of my favorite horror authors, it didn’t disappoint! This story is original, creepy and wonderful. I couldn’t help but empathize with the main character and loved every minute of it, the narration is spot on.

tripped up at the close

A story of a girl who sees herself as higher than the faux world around her, and so ironically masks as the shy-stoic type. The idea of a woman becoming a serial killer only to have her cynicism constantly questioned and ultimately thrown back at her makes for a fascinating read, but it’s final moments are frustrating not in plot, but execution. The author had an ending in mind, and decided to force the characters to act against all we saw before to get there. I felt cheated. The ending works on paper, but how we were made to get there is the EXACT kind of contrivance I was happy to see this novel avoid — until then.

Original and outstanding horror.

I am still recovering from the mind explosion this book has caused. Phenomenal prose. Well developed characters. Compelling and thrilling narrative. And, very graphic horror. Despite the high intensity slasher element, this is smart horror. There are insightful moments woven into the narratives. Maeve, the protagonist, reads books that the general population probably isn’t aware of. For example: Georges Bataille’s The Story of The Eye. This was required reading for me during a college literature course. It’s a story that should not be read by the faint at heart. And, I’d say the same about Maeve Fly. As brilliant as this novel is, it will repulse many people who are uptight and easily disturbed. Seriously, you must have an open mind and a bit of a dark sense of humor to thoroughly enjoy this book. This defies formula, and has an ending that is as I said from the beginning, mind blowing.

Captivatingly Gory Debut

Maeve Fly is captivating and sucks you in from page one. I love that Maeve's Los Angeles adventures give a unique view to a city that is oftentimes overused in novels and the detail given to even the most mundane of LA attraction kept things fresh. You just can't help but fall in love with Maeve, the perfect sociopath.

As a reader of predominantly romance novels, I felt that this book was a good gateway into horror. The overall theme in the book is something that everyone wants for themselves; we all want to be seen for exactly who we are without the filter of others or society getting in the way. We all have wolves and monkeys pulling our strings. This is something that transcends genres and has left me with the worst book hangover I've experienced in quite a while.

Leede's writing is beautiful to read, even if it's simultaneously nauseating, and I can't wait to see what's next!