A murderous artist is haunted by the spirits of those he has killed in Bodies of Work, Clay McLeod Chapman‘s upcoming supernatural revenge novella for which we're excited to reveal the cover and an excerpt exclusively today.
Hitting shelves on April 7, 2026 via Titan Books, Bodies of Work is the latest from Chapman, the acclaimed author of Ghost Eaters and one of Jordan Peele's favorite horror storytellers working today. Perfect for fans of Joe Hill and Delilah S. Dawson, Bodies of Work has been described as “surreal and chilling”, with a full logline reading as follows:
At sixty-six years old, Winston Kemper has always been a nonentity. No one notices him. His simple existence barely registers for those who come into contact with him. Some call him feeble-minded. He is a janitor at the local church, a groundskeeper by default, and that’s it. No friends, no family. When he’s done with work, he returns home—a remote, single room apartment located above a garage—and that is where his true work begins.
Winston Kemper is a collector of voices, and his magnum opus—The Butterfly Girls—is a sprawling epic of untapped imagination. It has no single canvas, no particular frame. It is everywhere—scribbled on the walls, the floor, and countless notebooks.
Winston is creating a fantasia which exists in words, images and blood. As part of his ‘art' he has been murdering forgotten women. Poor souls who slip through the cracks of society, who no one’s looking for. Mothers, sisters, daughters to someone, but no more.
Winston takes their lives, their voices.
But now he can hear them. They whisper to him. They talk of revenge.
Winston Kemper might not believe in ghosts, but he is about to learn they are very real. And they are very, very angry.
Check out our exclusive cover reveal with art by Natasha Mackenzie, plus excerpt of Bodies of Work below, and keep up to date with Chapman's work on his official website.
