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The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

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The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

by Andrew Joseph White

Narrator Raphael Corkhill

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Length 10 hours 44 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“One thing about Andrew Joseph White books - they are not for the faint of heart and they turn me ABSOLUTELY FERAL. The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is White at the height of his visceral, shocking, beautiful, monstrous, tender, transgressive powers. I could not stop reading - though I did occasionally have to put the book down to audibly gasp and/or allow my stomach to resettle. One of the best books of the year, hands (scalpel-wielding and bloody) down. In an alt-Victorian England, violet-eyed girls born with the forbidden ability to open the Veil are prized for their potential to birth male mediums - but despite appearances, Silas is a boy-trans, autistic, and an aspiring surgeon, not an obedient wife for a Speaker. Sent to an asylum to 'fix' him, Silas encounters mutilated ghosts, disappearing girls, unexpected allies, and stomach-churning horrors inspired by the truly haunting history of medical experimentation and the inspiring true story of a successful trans surgeon of the Victorian era. **Check content warnings for this one!**”
— Megan • Underground Books

Summary
About the author

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

A blood-soaked and nauseating triumph that cuts like a scalpel and reads like your darkest nightmare.

New York Times bestselling author Andrew Joseph White returns with the transgressive gothic horror of our time!

Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old trans, autistic Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium. When the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its guts to the world—so long as the school doesn’t break him first.

Featuring an autistic trans protagonist in a historical setting, Andrew Joseph White’s much-anticipated sophomore novel does not back down from exposing the violence of the patriarchy and the harm inflicted on trans youth who are forced into conformity.

Historical Fiction Fantasy LGBTQIA+ Fiction YA Fiction

Andrew Joseph White is a queer, trans author from Virginia, where he grew up falling in love with monsters and wishing he could be one too. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University in 2022 and has a habit of cuddling random street cats. Andrew writes about trans kids with claws and fangs, and what happens when they bite back.