WINNER OF THE 2026 LOCUS AWARD - BEST FIRST NOVEL
NOMINATED FOR 2025 NEBULA AWARD - BEST NOVEL

'Slow, haunting and strangely beautiful' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
'Read it and be changed' B. PLADEK
'Beautifully told in rhythmic, singing prose' RORY POWER
'Masterfully crafted ... Theodoridou has an amazing talent for storytelling' ASSOCIATED PRESS

Something terrible has happened.

In a mysterious apartment filled with ghosts, our unnamed narrator attempts to explain this to her child - how do I talk about this? she wonders.

The truth must become something beautiful. We must begin with a fairy tale.

And so she begins to construct a beautiful fairy tale for her child - one that begins with a strange baby boy whose nails grow too fast and whose skin smells of soil. As he grows from a boy into a man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Tragedy strikes in cycles - and wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. These ghosts call out desperately to our narrator as she tries to explain, in the very real world, exactly what has happened to her.

And they all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin:

If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.

A debut novel as emotionally poignant as it is fiercely smart, Sour Cherry is an arresting debut examining toxic masculinity through its chorus of women - deconstructing the idea of what makes someone a monster.

"A murder ballad sung in a dark room - it's slow, haunting and strangely beautiful . . . Theodoridou's lyrical prose takes otherwise disposable lines and turns them into poetry . . . this hallucinatory novel is a sad, violent, horrible delight." - New York Times Book Review

"Masterfully crafted . . . Like a magic eye picture, Sour Cherry is a horror or thriller when viewed at one angle but, tilted ever so slightly, it's a myth, legend or bedtime story. It's a tale of buried pain personified as a curse, a beast, a pestilence that follows the family, the bloodline. The fairy tale style only serves to make the truths within it truer. Beautiful and harrowing . . . With a writing style that had me mesmerised from the first page, Theodoridou has an amazing talent for storytelling that's so effective that the ending - while predictable and maybe even unavoidable - still stunned me and moved me to tears." - Associated Press

"Haunting . . . simmers with dark enchantment and Gothic menace . . . The language is atmospheric and surprising . . . the characters are inventive in chronicling nested fairy tales and unsettling metamorphoses." - Foreword Reviews, ‘Starred Review’

"A scorching ghost story . . . This dark allegory will linger in readers' minds." - Publishers Weekly

"A modern fable masterpiece." - Chicago Review of Books, 'Our Most Anticipated 2025 Books'

"Theodoridou's prose is precise and impressively controlled, often hor­rific and dark . . . Bluebeard may seem to be all over the literary landscape these days, but I'm pretty sure you've never seen one quite like this." - Locus

"Atmospheric . . . a Bluebeard's Wife-esque fairy tale horror that questions monstrosity, masculinity, romance, and power . . . deeply affecting and unsettling." - Reactor, ‘30 SFF Titles to Look Forward to in 2025’

"Haunting and unforgettable." - Jump Scares, ‘2025’s New Horror Books’

"Sour Cherry is an ambitious gothic story that doesn't rely on the novelty of being a Bluebeard retelling to remain interesting. Between lush prose and textured characters, it kept my attention." - Las Vegas Weekly

"Wholly original and really gorgeous." - Polygon

"A vicious, beautiful piece of work that will cling to you like a ghost." - Den of Geeks

"If Angela Carter and Carmen Maria Machado were trapped in House of Leaves, you'd be holding this book in your hands." - Southern Bookseller Review

"Theodoridou's prose is beautiful . . . past and present, fairytale and reality, are woven together so tightly that the weave is impossible to pick apart." - PSYCHOPOP