Incarnate

By: Alma Katsu

From beloved horror maven Alma Katsu comes a terrifying reimagining of The Picture of Dorian Gray for the internet age.

Beauty doesn’t fade. It feeds.

Dorothy Wagner has spent her whole life wanting nothing more than to be seen. But after failing to make her mark (any mark, really) as an influencer, she takes a job at a company focused on cutting-edge deepfake technology. And there, in secret, is where she creates her salvation.

Isabella. An impossibly gorgeous girl who takes social media by storm. Dorothy's code is brilliant, and Isabella seems real. So real that she garners millions of followers. Brands beg to partner with her. Everyone wants to meet her IRL. The adoration—and the cash—flows in. Dorothy is finally happy. She's getting all the attention she ever wanted—isn't she?

Then the cracks begin to show. Dorothy can barely stay ahead of the partnership requests, and love letters and the rabid fans filling her DMs trying to track Isabella down. All this time working in secret with all this pressure is getting to Dorothy—she can’t tell where she ends, and her creation begins. And when someone gets a little too close to her secret, a violent confrontation sends Dorothy on the run, forcing her to confront what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her secrets.

A modern reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Alma Katsu’s Incarnate is an illuminating, haunting tale of algorithmic worship and beauty that can kill.