A convicted murderer brought back to life in the electric chair. A woman stalked by her deceased ex-boyfriend. A siren, a mermaid, and a harpy imprisoned in a menagerie.

The women in the upcoming anthology A WOMAN BUILT BY MAN all find themselves in bizarre, challenging, and dangerous situations created by the male figures in their lives. And while some of the women do meet their grisly end, others survive. And then there are the women who are the danger.

Edited by S.H. Cooper and Elle Turpitt, A WOMAN BUILT BY MAN contains 21 stories written by women and femme-identifying people. While the entries all fall somewhere along the horror-science fiction spectrum, each one is engaging and terrifying in its own way.

The protagonist in “Every Woman Knows This” by Laurel Hightower likens the predator harassing her and following her down a city sidewalk to an anglerfish. Amanda Michele’s narrator in “Last Night I Was Having a Drink at the Slippery Nipple” recounts an urban legend-type story about a group of college guys who are slaughtered by a sex doll on Halloween night. A trio of researchers in a lab observes a skin-crawlingly grotesque ritual performed by a newly discovered arachnid species in Olivia White’s “Maddy Long Legs.” In “Genesis 2:22” by Denarose Fukushima, a woman draws inspiration from the myth of Adam and Eve to get the last word in after an argument with her misogynist husband.

The stories in A WOMAN BUILT BY MAN range from darkly funny to outright horrifying. They also range in how to-the-letter they are to the anthology’s theme. For every entry that features a woman who is literally designed and built by a man, there’s one that takes a more metaphorical approach.

As a whole, A WOMAN BUILT BY MAN is a fantastic read. Cooper and Turpitt clearly curated this anthology with a great deal of expertise, focus, and love. It’s entertaining and fun. But it also challenges the reader, particularly female readers, to confront some difficult truths. Truths such as you might be attacked by a man and it might be a man you know. And even if you fight back, you might be killed. And if you survive, you’ll be left with trauma that you’ll carry with you for the rest of your life.

Beyond that, this anthology will entice you to think critically about the ways that living in a patriarchal society has not only shaped you but informed the way in which you shaped yourself.

A WOMAN BUILT BY MAN features authors Laurel Hightower, Holley Cornetto, Tonya Walter, Lilyn George, Denarose Fukushima, Alexis DuBon, Gemma Amor, Michelle Tang, Lindz McLeod, Elle Turpitt, Regi Caldart, J.A.W. McCarthy, Hailey Piper, Nikki R. Leigh, Amanda Michele, Olivia White, Lea Storry, Jill Palmer, Joanne Askew, G.G. Silverman, and S.H. Cooper.

A WOMAN BUILT BY MAN will be released on February 17, 2022, through Cemetery Gates Media. Pre-orders are available here!