'Butcher is vivid and compellingly drawn, its prose scalpel-sharp . Oates remains a master storyteller with her finger on the pulse of humanity, forever alive to its moral failures and flaw' iNews 'A blood-soaked, gothic nightmare . A triumph of style and brio. More than being just a medical thriller, it's closer in temperament to works of gothic body horror, from Frankenstein through to the contemporary work of Mariana Enríquez' Financial Times 'Examines the agency girls and women have - or don't have - over their own bodies amid the current political debates around reproductive rights in a post-Roe v. Wade world' Daily Mail 'Sounds like the perfect American novel, delving deep into the horrors of invention' Lit Hub, 'Most Anticipated Books of 2024' 'Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going' Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl 'Delightfully disturbing' iNews 'A master storyteller' The Times 'The writing faithfully mimics 19th-century texts. Littered with italics and euphemisms, it gives a sense of both authenticity and distance' Sophie Mackintosh, Literary Review Praise for Joyce Carol Oates: 'One of the greatest -- and most productive -- living American writers' Financial Times 'Oates is a massive literary heavyweight, and many earnestly believe she could knock the other contenders for the title of Great American Novelist' Guardian 'One of the greatest writers of our time' John Gardner, author of Grendel '[A] notoriously prolific chronicler of America's cracked, calamitous heart' Esquire 'America's preeminent fiction writer' The New Yorker 'Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going, as far as I'm concerned' Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl.