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Hot Singles in Your Area

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

'Hot Singles in Your Area is a long joke, an experimental novel, and a conversation starter' Locus Magazine

'Shiveley writes like a ghoul living in the haunted house that is the internet' Meg Elison, author of 'The Road to Nowhere' trilogy

A biting, post-modern horror about day jobs and monsters – one of which will devour you whole, but perhaps not the one that you think.

Noah desperately needs a new job that involves less blood and piss than his current one. So, when he spots an ad for a newspaper with 'No experience preferred', he puts on his good shirt and marches down to their average-looking office to unknowingly sign his life away.

Malachia is the only human left in the City of Silence and she spends her time wandering its empty, bone-filled streets. Until one day she finds a lone figure hunched over a typewriter, his fingers enmeshed with the keys. Could he be the answer to finding her missing girlfriend?

Propelled by their pursuits for rent money and truth, Noah and Malachia are pushed to their limits by a sinister media powerhouse. Will either of them survive the darkness that ensues?

Everyone's talking about Hot Singles in Your Area. . .

'Came for the body horror, stayed for the detailed world-building and pinpoint satire' – Reader review

'If The Hitchhiker's Guide and The Ministry of Time had a horrific baby with multiple rows of teeth' – Reader review

'One of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've had this year. It's unlike anything I've read before' – Reader review

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 2, 2024
      Debut author Shively has an eye for satire and an appetite for body horror, and both instincts serve him well in this striking if somewhat uneven splatterpunk novella. Luckless night janitor Noah Bezden is desperate for a better job. His search brings him to the eerie corporate office of Printed Matter, a mysterious free newspaper full of arcane imagery and unsettling personal ads. Elsewhere, a bone-worshipping priestess named Malachia wanders the abandoned but haunted city of Silence, searching for her lost lover. The plot follows these two characters as they’re drawn into the same web of supernatural intrigue and corporate doublespeak, encountering demons who are as obsessed with paperwork as they are with carnage. Shively’s work has a light and energetic tone, with plenty of sharp humor and clever jabs at both corporate culture and popular horror tropes. Unfortunately, it’s perhaps overstuffed with underexplored ideas and occult details that are frustratingly abandoned for an abrupt and disappointing climax. This shows personality and promise, but a lack of focus keeps it from achieving its full potential.

    • Booklist

      January 1, 2025
      This horror comedy shows what H. P. Lovecraft would write if he were forced to work as a temp in a modern office. Desperately looking for work, Noah applies for a job whose ad states, "no experience preferred" and finds the ad forgot to mention dealing with cosmic horrors. The last human in a dimension outside our own, acolyte Malachia wanders the empty City of Silence searching for her girlfriend and the truth binding her reality. Both are connected by a corporate entity with tentacles in both realities and with plans for both humans. Debut author Shiveley, aka @Dread Singles, seems less interested in plot progression and more interested in constructing surreal and twisted scenes painted by Salvador Dali, empowered by Lovecraftian entities, and influenced by the most brain-twisting horror of all: corporate bureaucracy. While both plots are light on events, Shiveley's descriptions, which blend eldritch horrors with workplace comedy, will keep fans of horror comedies like Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink's podcast Welcome to Night Vale laughing and cringing.

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
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Languages

  • English

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