Myth meets death wish in this modern gothic clash between a fierce teen girl and the bloodsucking fiend who kidnaps her.

It’s 1996 and Lotte dreams of death. At almost seventeen she’s kidnapped by a fiend—a beguiling stranger with sharp teeth, charmed by her wit and strong will. Lotte fights feeling drawn in, compelled and conflicted by his intensity—worse, his simply listening, reflecting her back to herself and pushing her to breaking.

She’s never been challenged like this.
Neither has he.

After a few daunting nights of travel, Lotte wakes in a secluded compound with several other teens. The fiend drinks their blood—but not hers. He wants consent. What should keep her safe becomes perversely maddening, the closer they get, the darker they go, bound to unbearable ache—till neither are convinced she won’t give it, or take.

Can she coax Roy, the leader of the others, to share the harrowing past to prepare her for the worst? Can she persuade the fiend’s lover Gabe to own his shame and help her escape? Lotte is determined to conquer the fiend’s control and survive his devastating attention. But what if that means she must tame her terror, confess her own desire and fully, willfully, invite the fiend in?

Profoundly layered and lyrical, Born Bitten is coming-of-age dark literary fiction meets magical realism, feeling like a throwback yet deftly original—the vampire story the genre is undying for.