***A Best Book of the Year in HARPER'S BAZAAR, BBC, THE NEW YORKER, GLAMOUR, GAL-DEM and HUFFPOST*** 'Witty and thought-provoking' Stylist 'Blistering' Glamour 'Unusual, original and strikingly contemporary' Guardian 'Absolutely brilliant' Ruth Ozeki 'A gripping contemporary fable about embracing difference' The Times 'A wholly 21st century take on bloodsucking' Observer Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try sashimi and ramen, onigiri and udon - the food her Japanese father liked to eat - but the only thing she can digest is blood. Yet Lydia can't bring herself to prey on humans, and sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London - where she is living away from her Malaysian-British mother for the first time and trying to build a career as an artist - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated. If Lydia is to find a way to exist in the world, she must reconcile the conflicts within her - between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans. Before any of this, however, she must eat. 'It's Kohda's exploration of Lydia's inner world, the pain and longing she feels as an outsider, that makes Woman, Eating such a delicious novel' New York Times Book Review 'A profound meditation on alienation and appetite, and what it means to be a young woman who experiences life at an acute level of intensity and awareness' LISA HARDING 'What Stoker did for the vampire at the end of the nineteenth century, Claire Kohda does for for it in our own era' TLS

Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But Lydia can't eat any of this. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London - where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated.

Then there are the humans: the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men who follow her after dark, and Ben, a goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for. Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them.

If Lydia is to find a way to exist in the world, she must reconcile the conflicts within her - between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans. Before any of this, however, she must eat.