Death's a Bitch

What if you could make a deal with Death to save the life of someone you loved?  With all the poignance and wit of Sally Rooney, and a plot as irresistibly outlandish as My Sister, the Serial Killer, twenty-two-year-old Eloise Rodger has delivered one of the year’s boldest and most captivating debuts

“Every night I checked on Marcie seven times before I went to sleep. Luckiest number there is, apparently. I looked into that kind of thing. Pressed my head into her mop of curly hair. Love you, mars. My very own planet. Where was my sister?” 

Death’s A Bitch follows eighteen-year-old Aggie in the quiet aftermath of a tragedy. Her little sister, Marcie, has been placed in a full-time psychiatric facility for a serious eating disorder. Now Aggie only gets to see her on Sundays in a room with stick-on flowers, padded table corners, and absolutely no shoelaces anywhere.

One evening, the Grim Reaper appears in the dim light of Aggie’s bedroom and everything changes. Death is not a hooded man with a scythe—but an elegantly-dressed and frustrated mother. And she’s got a favor to ask: if Aggie delivers on Death’s unusual demands, Marcie will come home safely. So, there isn’t much choice. She has to save her sister. 

Death’s a Bitch is a Faustian tale with a Gen Z edge; a love story between two sisters; an exploration of loss, sickness and siblinghood; and a novel about growing up, letting go and learning to live with your mortality.  A wickedly clever debut from a prodigiously gifted young writer.