Make Me Better

Sarah Gailey

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Book cover for Make Me Better
Image for variant 9781250851758
Book cover for Make Me Better
Image for variant 9781250851758

Make Me Better

Make Me Better

Sarah Gailey

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Description

Sarah Gailey's MAKE ME BETTER is an eerily seductive look at the desire for community connection and self-improvement---and the darkest places inside us all. Urgent and yet timeless, this read is perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson, Ari Aster, and Patricia Highsmith.

An exclusive invitation.

A remote island infamous for its miraculous ecology.
A once-in-a-lifetime chance to fix everything that's broken.
But sometimes growth requires sacrifice....

WELCOME TO KINDRED COVE.

Celia is so tired of being alone. All she wants is to have a family--to belong to someone. That's why she's going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. There is no grief at Kindred Cove, because there is no suffering. Nothing is ever lost.

Celia knows that, at that mysterious island surrounded by that impossible, ever-growing reef -- she will find herself.

She's ready to be healed. She's ready to be transformed.

She's ready to believe.

Critical Reviews

"With a gloriously creepy atmosphere, unreliable narrators on every page, and a story that will hurt in the best way possible, this is absolutely Gailey at their finest." -- Katee Robert, New York Times bestselling author of the Dark Olympus series

"Emotionally arresting, deliciously provocative, impossible to predict, MAKE ME BETTER is a singular novel by a singular artist. I loved it. Sarah Gailey--your mind!" -- Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of Sadie

"Make Me Better is a hypnotic tide pool of a novel, a habitat of horror teeming with all types of taxonomies of folkish frights. It is a dizzying display of unwell wellness, encrusted in the brine of belief systems unfamiliar and curdled, that sucks you right in and never lets you up for air." -- Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

"Gailey does impressive work .....Readers are sure to be unsettled."-- Publishers Weekly

"...A crash course in how people can be manipulated by promises of purpose and belonging. The folk horror feel of Gailey's must-read novel might remind readers of Ari Aster's movie Midsommar, while others might read this thoughtful book and think of George Orwell's 1984."-- Library Journal, starred review

Praise for Sarah Gailey

"Gailey is one of those rare writers who jumps from genre to genre with virtuosic ease." --Emily C. Hughes, Vulture

"Sarah Gailey knows how to build the heck out of a world. Cooked right, science fiction and murder mysteries taste great together, and Gailey layers those ingredients together with a chef's kiss." -NPR

"Sarah Gailey has adroitly woven suspense into science fiction and fantasy... I love a thriller that engages with the current true-crime craze, especially when it calls out us readers for our morbid fascination."--Paste, on Just Like Home

"Gailey's Just Like Home represents ... the ultimate kindness of horror, where we're often allowed a chance to see outcasts find love and acceptance amidst the blood and viscera."
CrimeReads

"The Echo Wife puts a fresh sci-fi twist to a well-worn dramatic story about the cheating husband."--Cosmopolitan

"Sarah Gailey's The Echo Wife is a creepily personal rendition of what happens when a man in your life wishes you were a doll instead....It's gross, and totally engrossing." --Wired

Fans of Big Little Lies, The Island, Frankenstein and Killing Eve will love this gripping, skillfully told firecracker of a book.-- Bookpage on The Echo Wife

"For those familiar with Gailey's work, expect this one to offer familiar pleasures and some new surprises. And for those who aren't, well, get ready." --Entertainment Weekly, on The Echo Wife

"Gailey has done it again, creating an utterly unique sci-fi thriller. Equal parts unsettling and unputdownable, readers will cringe as they tear through this eerie tale, unable to look away from the ethical monstrosity that is The Echo Wife." -The Nerd Daily

"Somehow [Spread Me] is both terrifying and tantalizing... the true gift here, though, is Gailey's character work--[these fully-realized individuals] truly feel alive."--Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers

Publishing Information

Publisher: Tor Books
Pub date: 2026-05-12
Length: 432 pages

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