DuMort

Mrs. Mina Braithwaite has never quite fit into Mydalla's polite society. Her features are so different from the other noblewomen, more like the city's foreign workers, and she chafes at all the rules. Then there's the furious entity that has followed her for years, crawling from shadows to hurt her and staining every memory with fear. Desperate for help, Mina crashes a private gathering to see the infamous occultist Alexandre DuMort in action. She doesn't expect the pull of attraction towards the man, nor his invitation to join him in his work.
But DuMort has enemies, dangerous ones, and they dog his steps as closely as Mina's entity does hers. Mina must choose between her old life, and the angry spirit that stalks her, or follow the famed occultist down a new path, where even worse things might haunt her.
Like the truth.
Praise for DuMort:
"In DuMort, Tang uses language like a needle, stitching together patches of loneliness and longing until you're left draped in an ever-shifting quilt of tragedy. Our return to Mydalla is as thrilling as our first glimpse of the suffocating society. There's intrigue. Class warfare. Love lost-or worse, transmutated into something toxic, something cancerous. If all this wasn't striking enough, the final image of DuMort is one that'll stay with me for years to come."
- Christopher O'Halloran, author of PUSHING DAISY
"With DuMort, Michelle Tang delivers a stunning work of dystopian gothic fiction, honoring the genre's traditions while interweaving fantastic new threads. Tang conjures a world full of candlelit shadows and whispered secrets, and the novel is impeccably constructed, with lush, evocative prose. Fans looking for more of the eerie elegance of Nosferatu will not be disappointed."
- Jolie Toomajan, Shirley Jackson Award-winning editor of Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic
"Tang's dark, elegant prose is equally at home in the glitz of secret high society gatherings as skulking around the grime of nocturnal alleys in this haunting exploration of the price of regret, the pain of loss, and the lengths one will go to for forgiveness."
- Brett Mitchell Kent, author of Whisper of Apple Blossoms
"A haunting tale of loneliness, guilt, and monstrosity, DuMort deftly explores the complexities of diaspora identity and the unshackling of societal expectations. With gorgeous prose and a heart-stopping conclusion, Tang's debut novella is absolutely unforgettable."
- Kelsea Yu, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of Bound Feet and Demon Song
"To visit Mydalla is to experience a fully realized world of vindictive shrouds, whispered incantations, and barters of flesh. Truth, like the shadows of grief, are exposed by lantern light, as the silver chariots of an unjust society imprison the tormented. DuMort is Michelle Tang at her best, and solidifies her status as one of the best authors of speculative horror writing today."
-Timaeus Bloom, co-editor of Howls from the Scene of the Crime
"DuMort is an intriguing, attention-grabbing gaslamp horror fantasy. It evokes the dread and mystery of similar novels in the genre."
- Jim Doran, author of Forlorn Harbor