This B Just Won't Die!

A Novel

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About the Book

This humorous, heart-pounding, feminist slasher follows an ageing scream queen as she is pursued by a serial killer impersonating the antagonist of her films.

Former scream queen Barbra Jacobs desperately wants to break out of the box Hollywood has neatly packaged her in. Cast as the star of the Mirror horror franchise films twenty years ago, the breakout role that shaped her career has also destroyed her dreams of being taken seriously as an actress. Now forty, and still seeking the approval of everyone around her, she makes ends meet by signing old photos of herself and doing meet and greets at horror conventions.

So when a producer calls asking her to host The Monsters We Made, a hot new horror docuseries, she sees it as a step in the right direction. But when fans begin dying around her—and in ways that mimic the kills in her films—Barb is thrust back into a role she can’t seem to walk away from: The Final Girl.

Will she ever break out of the display-box-life she’s been imprisoned in, or will Mirror Man end it all in Barbie’s Scream House?

Appearances

OCT 10
12:00AM
In Person

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Southern Gothic Book Festival
TBD
Camden, SC 29020
OCT 15
7:00PM
In Person

In conversation with Delilah Dawson & Grave Tales Book Club host Annelise Jancula

Fred & June's Books
162 N Main St
Mooresville, NC 28115
OCT 17
12:00AM
In Person

Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival

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Lawrence Public Library
51 Lawrence Street
Lawrence, MA 01841
OCT 18
1:00PM
In Person

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Purple Couch Bookshop
350 Winthrop Ave
Unit 9b
North Andover, MA 01845
OCT 22
10:00AM
Virtual

Horror: In conversation with Becky Spratford, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Elle Engel, Eric LaRocca, Gus Moreno

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Library Journal - Day of Dialogue
OCT 24
12:00AM
In Person

In conversation with Andrew Clark

Belmont Bookshop
7 N Main Street
Belmont, NC 28012
OCT 31
11:00AM
In Person

BookHeart Book Festival

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Distro Beer Hub
2412 Distribution St.
Charlotte, NC 28203
NOV 2
6:30PM
In Person

In Conversation with J.R. Ward

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The Historic Artcraft Theatre
57 N Main St, Franklin
Franklin, IN 46131
NOV 6
12:00AM
In Person

Horror on the Hudson

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Windrose on Hudson
1 Shady Lane Farm Rd
Ossining, NY 10562
NOV 12
6:30PM
In Person

In conversation with Savannah from Itinerant Literate Books, Jules from the Midnight Terrors Podcast, and friend-of-the-store Jeremy

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Madra Rua Irish Pub
1034 E Montague Ave.
North Charleston, SC 29405

About the Author

Daniel Clark Cunningham

Tanya Pell is a narcoleptic horror author who drinks bougie coffee and lives in the American South. She is the Bram Stoker Award–nominated author of Her Wicked Roots, Cicada, and several short stories featured in anthologies like Mother Knows Best and Obsolescence.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Gallery Books (October 13, 2026)
  • Length: 352 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781668087411

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Raves and Reviews

“My new favorite slasher novel.” —Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and The Only Good Indians

"Barb Jacobs is a Final Girl for the ages, and Barbie Just Won't Die! is exactly the kind of slasher novel we've all been waiting for. Fierce, fun, and feminist, this is one book you absolutely don't want to miss." —Gwendolyn Kiste, Four-Time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Haunting of Velkwood and Everything Looks Better in Red

“GO BARB! An ode to feminine—and final girl—rage that is exactly what I needed.”  —S.A. Barnes, author of Death's Daughter and Cold Eternity

 

“Tanya Pell delivers a razor-sharp, unapologetic deconstruction of fame and female survival. Barbie Just Won’t Die! is darkly funny, unsettling, and emotionally incisive—a novel that turns the final girl inside out ('The final girl trope?' you ask. 'Or the actual final girl?' You'll have to snag a copy to find out!) and asks what happens after the cameras turn away and the screams fade. Bold, intimate, and bracingly honest, this is a novel that refuses unearned redemption or easy answers—and is all the stronger for it." —Christa Carmen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Daughters of Block Island and How to Fake a Haunting 

"Tanya Pell expertly frames this unflinching reflection of our cultural obsession with female trauma and toxic nostalgia while never losing sight of the fun and humor that horror has to offer. Barbie Just Won't Die! is the authentic final girl anthem that slasher fans have been screaming for." —Brian McAuley, USA Today Bestselling Author of Breathe In, Bleed Out

"Say hello to your new slasher obsession—a savagely smart and sapient dissection of Hollywood and its habit of putting women through the meat grinder. Barb is a brilliant Final Girl whose struggle for inner peace had me rooting for her all the way, and the pop-culture nods were the cherry on the top of a perfect pink cake. Feminist, frightening and fantastically funny. Fans of Stephen Graham Jones will eat this up." —Josh Winning, author of Heads Will Roll

“A wonderfully campy and self-aware feminist slasher… This meta-horror treat has a wicked aftertaste.” —Publishers Weekly

“Both a love letter to and biting satire of the final-girl trope, filled with all the parts fans will demand but including a ‘pink horror’ lens, the emerging subgenre of woman-centered stories that are deadly terrifying, fun reads that tackle the sexism of the genre and the world at large head on without missing a horror beat. For fans of meta horror like Grady Hendrix's The Final Girl Support Group and the scary, feminist horror of authors like Rachel Harrison and CJ Leede.” —Booklist

"This B Just Won't Die! is a wildly entertaining slasher that truly understands what horror fans love while delivering something fresh and meaningful. Pell wonderfully balances frights, dark humor, and thoughtful social commentary on aging, fame, and identity to create a story that feels thrilling and somehow relatable." Capes and Tights

“Pell’s narrative merges metacommentary on the seedy underbelly of horror fandom, women aging out of Hollywood, and the cost of pleasing others… A slasher-about-slashers deconstruction that resonates, with themes of girl power gone sour. For fans of My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones and Scream.” —Library Journal

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