Bluebeard's First Wife

By Ha Seong-Nan

A collection of quietly discomforting short stories, taking aim at a society that doesn't need ghosts and monsters to be a scary place for women.

Format: Paperback
Pages: 243

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A woman spends a night with her fiancé and his friends, and overhears a terrible secret that has bound them together since high school.

A man grows increasingly agitated by the noise from a young family living in the apartment upstairs and arouses the suspicion of his own wife when the neighbours meet a string of unlucky incidents.

A couple moves into a picture-perfect country house, but when their new dog is stolen, they become obsessed with finding the thief, and in the process, neglect their child.

Disasters, accidents, and deaths abound in Bluebeard’s First Wife. The paranoia-inducing, heart-quickening stories in Ha’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Flowers of Mold will have you reconsidering your own neighbours.

Read if your: idea of true horror is those few seconds when you think your pet's gone missing, before you realise it's just under the bed.