To the residents of her small southern city, second-hand store owner Spyder Baxter is crazy. But her friends and followers know better. Something lives within Spder's brain. Something powerful. Something wonderful. Something dangerous. Pray it never escapes. "A remarkable novel; a powerful and disturbing story. Deeply, wonderfully, magnificently nasty." -- Neil Gaiman Caitlin R. Kiernan is the author of nine novels, including Silk, Threshold, Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, Daughter of Hounds , and The Red Tree . Her award-winning short fiction has been collected in six volumes, including Tales of Pain and Wonder; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; and, most recently, A is for Alien . She has also published two volumes of erotica, Frog Toes and Tentacles and Tales from the Woeful Platypus . Trained as a vertebrate paleontologist, she currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island.