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Bodies to Die For
- Author
- Lori Brand
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 11 June 2024
- Run Time
- 9 hours 17 minutes
- Format
- x-book®
What to expect
“Bodies to Die For is a brilliant debut. Lori Brand has cleverly penned a timely, page-turning thriller that will leave you questioning the true cost of perfection. A personal favorite this year!” —T. J. Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Falling and Drowning
“Deliriously entertaining…The mix of top-notch suspense and gleeful social satire makes this sing.” —Publishers Weekly
“An entertaining story filled with surprising twists.” —Booklist
Perfect for fans of You Shouldn’t Have Come Here and None of This Is True, Bodies to Die For is a brilliant psychological thriller that will have readers wondering whether the perfect body really is worth dying for ...
Popular fitness influencer Gemma has transformed herself from a Before into an After, complete with washboard abs, thriving business, and gorgeous husband. But social media can be deceiving. Offline, the cutthroat world of bikini bodybuilding may just eat her alive. That’s if she’s not first devoured by the secret nemesis that lurks beneath her polished surface, waiting to destroy her.
Software engineer Ashley is fat and frustrated. Frustrated with failed diets. With a world that wants her to shrink. With biased doctors, online trolls, and even her own mother. Until Ashley falls in with a mysterious and radical sect of Fat Activists who are fighting back … by any means necessary. She’s never felt so alive, so full of purpose. She’ll do whatever it takes to ride this high, destroy Diet Culture, and win the approval of her charismatic leader.
Gemma and Ashley are on a collision course headed for the Olympia, the bodybuilding competition where futures are made. And lost. When Gemma’s toughest rival turns up dead, and more fitness girls fall like dominoes, it’s beginning to look like the body image war has gone too far.
With breakneck pace and keen insights, Bodies to Die For takes a hard look at social media, the $70 billion diet industry, and the war on women’s bodies—the wars we wage with each other, and with ourselves.
Critics Review
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“The most physically—and emotionally—healthy thriller I’ve read in some time.”
CrimeReads
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“Lori Brand’s debut murder thriller Bodies to Die For has it all: deliciously demented kills, side-splitting humor, and razor-sharp satire of the diet and fitness industry.”
Laura Picklesimer, author of Kill for Love
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“Bodies to Die For is a wild, twisty romp through the world of bodybuilding and murder. Brand does an excellent job of showing how diet culture really is hell—no matter the size of your body. A perfect thriller for any readers looking for Ruth Ware meets the podcast Maintenance Phase.”
Halley Sutton, USA Today bestselling author of The Hurricane Blonde
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“Bodies to Die For is a brilliant debut. Lori Brand has cleverly penned a timely, page-turning thriller that will leave you questioning the true cost of perfection. A personal favorite this year!”
T. J. Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Falling and Drowning
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“Twisty, surprising, and dripping with satire, Lori Brand puts the ‘die’ in diet in this strikingly original murder mystery set in the world of competitive bodybuilding. A fascinating cast of deliciously demented characters will keep you guessing who dunnit, and who’s next. I absolutely devoured it!”
Susan Walter, acclaimed writer and director
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“Brand takes you deep inside the fitness mania. She gives us a peek behind the Instafabulous curtain on how influencers’ lives are less than perfect, and way less than meets the eye; all in a contest where the stakes are literally life and death.”
Alberto Mansur, author of Only the Dead Know Peace
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“It’s BLOODY BRILLIANT! Punchy, ballsy, funny, uplifting, and so thrilling that I missed it whenever I put it down. In fact, I read the last quarter in one straight go, scrolling my tablet with my nose because I needed to get the washing up done, but didn’t want to stop! It has the acerbic humour and emotional punch of Physical. I literally cheered out loud at the line: ‘Then she drags her foot back. And kicks Craig in the nuts like it’s the Super Bowl.’ Followed by a massive laugh at ‘I zap him in the balls. As a precaution. I swear.’ It’s a dream of a book and WHAT A DEBUT! Never mind Bodies to Die For, this book is to die for.”
Imogen Church, award-winning screenwriter, actress, and novelist
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“Brand’s debut thriller doesn’t shy away from calling out the ways women are exploited by social media and the fitness and diet industries while simultaneously delivering an entertaining story filled with surprising twists.”
Booklist
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“In short, punchy chapters that alternate perspectives, Brand—herself a former bodybuilder—sets the two women on a deliriously entertaining collision course. The mix of top-notch suspense and gleeful social satire makes this sing.”
Publishers Weekly
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“With recognizable characters and a fast-moving story, Bodies to Die For is a book that readers will keep thinking about long after they’ve finished it…[A] compelling mystery that resonates all too well in today’s world.”
Marilyn’s Mystery Reads
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“Brand walks a careful line, showing the destructive sides of two competing movements while still telling a compelling story that left me quickly turning pages until the very end.”
Fangirl Nation
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“Fabulous…What a great message this one sends to women everywhere.”
The Open Books
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“Filled with murder and mayhem, this wildly entertaining novel obscures its healthy core—being both a cautionary tale and an extended metaphor for female solidarity—with its deliciously hilarious observations of modern society…Ms. Brand’s wisdom and empathy shine warmly through the pages of this remarkable debut.”
Criminal Element
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Lori Brand
- Narrator
- Joe Hempel, Chelsea Stephens, Jennifer Aquino
- Duration
- 9 hours 17 minutes
- Release Date
- 11 June 2024
- ISBN
- 9798212189088
- Format
- x-book®
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Thriller / suspense fiction, Fiction: general and literary, Humorous fiction, Narrative theme: Interior life
Synopsis
“Bodies to Die For is a brilliant debut. Lori Brand has cleverly penned a timely, page-turning thriller that will leave you questioning the true cost of perfection. A personal favorite this year!” —T. J. Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Falling and Drowning“Deliriously entertaining…The mix of top-notch suspense and gleeful social satire makes this sing.” —Publishers Weekly“An entertaining story filled with surprising twists.” —BooklistPerfect for fans of You Shouldn’t Have Come Here and None of This Is True, Bodies to Die For is a brilliant psychological thriller that will have readers wondering whether the perfect body really is worth dying for ... Popular fitness influencer Gemma has transformed herself from a Before into an After, complete with washboard abs, thriving business, and gorgeous husband. But social media can be deceiving. Offline, the cutthroat world of bikini bodybuilding may just eat her alive. That’s if she’s not first devoured by the secret nemesis that lurks beneath her polished surface, waiting to destroy her.Software engineer Ashley is fat and frustrated. Frustrated with failed diets. With a world that wants her to shrink. With biased doctors, online trolls, and even her own mother. Until Ashley falls in with a mysterious and radical sect of Fat Activists who are fighting back … by any means necessary. She’s never felt so alive, so full of purpose. She’ll do whatever it takes to ride this high, destroy Diet Culture, and win the approval of her charismatic leader.Gemma and Ashley are on a collision course headed for the Olympia, the bodybuilding competition where futures are made. And lost. When Gemma’s toughest rival turns up dead, and more fitness girls fall like dominoes, it’s beginning to look like the body image war has gone too far.With breakneck pace and keen insights, Bodies to Die For takes a hard look at social media, the $70 billion diet industry, and the war on women’s bodies—the wars we wage with each other, and with ourselves.
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