Kristi DeMeester Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Kristi DeMeester is a dark fiction author from Atlanta Georgia where she also works for “Loose Change Magazine” as a fiction editor.

She is best known as the author of the Word Horde published “Beneath” in addition to the short fiction collection “Everything That’s Underneath.”

Her short fiction has also been featured in publications such as “Black Static,” “The Dark,” and “Pseudopod” in addition to several anthologies such as “The Year’s Best Horror” by Ellen Datlow.

DeMeester has said that much of the inspiration for her work comes from growing up in the South where everything is hotter, slower, and more confused in the oppressive humidity which often leaks into her fiction.
Some of the best stories she remembers were from her aunt who told her about alligators that would rise up from the swamps of South Georgia to eat the legs of small kids.

Since religion is pervasive in the South and she was brought up in a fundamentalist family her childhood was full of religion.

She has listened to many preachers try to cast out demons and in her formative and very tender years, evil and the devil were very tangible things.

In this regard, it only seems natural that DeMeester would have both an aversion and a fascination with the darker things, which she usually makes integral in her writing.

Kristi DeMeester’s upbringing in a religious fundamentalist family where she was exposed to very little pop culture and television virtually guaranteed that she would become a reader.

Given that she did not have many things to keep her distracted, she turned to books. She was a voracious reader and hence stories have always been an intrinsic and deep part of her life.

Nonetheless, she was unlike most authors as she never attempted to pen her own stories. It was not until she was in her early twenties that she began writing since she had tried to read the stories she liked and found they were very scarce.
DeMeester really got into writing when she was doing her master’s degree which was an endeavor that took four years. She originally intended to make Beneath her debut novel as a possession story but it would become something else as she was writing it.

Kristi would ultimately publish her debut work in 2017 and the novel went on to become a bestseller. She is now a working mother who spends her time at a day job, and the evenings taking care of her kid and writing whenever she can.

“Beneath” by Kristi DeMeester is a work that comes with all the great elements of southern gothic horror fiction including language that encompasses dread, a pedophilic priest, and religious fundamentalism.
The lead in the novel is a reporter named Cora who is sent from Atlanta to the North Carolina mountains to report on a snake-handling cult.

Following years of having to deal with the pain of being assaulted in her childhood by a pastor, Cora is reluctant to take the job since she has an aversion to churches.
She is finally convinced to take up the job and arrives at the famed church just when a girl is bitten by one of the vipers during a rite of passage ritual.

According to the church, a person who gets bitten by snakes must have evil in their heart. In this instance, there is a far greater evil than any of the church members could think of.
The work is excellent in how it weaves in the different kinds of horror even though the very real one is sexual abuse which tends to impact people physically and emotionally throughout their life.
But there is also the horror of venomous creatures and religion gone horribly wrong that some people are forced to deal with even as children.

Kristi DeMeester’s novel “Such a Pretty Smile” is an emotional, disturbing, impact, riveting, and giant rebuke to the men who harm women in both small and large ways.

Lila and Caroline her mother make their home in a world in which “The Cur” is a prolific serial killer that kidnaps and mutilates women. Lila is a woman trying to find herself particularly when it comes to family, friendships, and sexuality.
Caroline seems to know all about The Cur since she encountered him many years earlier.

She is now trying to balance her precarious state of mental health and tightly concealed secrets with a need to protect Lila who is demanding more freedom as she becomes an adult.
Both women will realize that there is a lot at stake if they try to live outside of the parameters set for them by the world in which they live.

It is a world in which they are expected to follow rules on how silent to be about their experiences, fears, traumas, and desires, how loud their voices need to be, and dire consequences for refusing to follow the rules.
It is a world full of paranormal elements, horror, family drama, and murder mystery elements. It is a work that will have you feel a lot of emotion including rage at some of the terrible things that the women are subjected to.

“Everything That’s Underneath” by Kristi DeMeester has to be one of the most powerful collections of horror fiction stories. It comes with unsettling and weird tales that have been compared to works by the likes of Tom Piccirilli and Laird Barron.
Kristi DeMeester in “Everything That’s Underneath” takes you to the dark places which most people are too terrified to go to.

Some of these places include lust that will push you further with each passing moment and makes it possible for anyone to hear your cries for help, illnesses that twist your friends and family into people you do not recognize, and a hole in an abandoned plot of land.

Kristi pens 18 works of characters who are unable to run away from the haunting evil after them. They will need to accept the evil and become part of the terror or if not it will consume them and force them to forever live in fear.