Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day
Birdie lost everything when her son died. Now, on track to rebuild her life, she has to evade her abusive partner Russ’s rage and manipulations while also worrying about a home-invading serial killer that has descended on her community. Told through multiple POVs, from a decomposing murder victim to Birdie’s day-to-day battle with domestic violence and grief to the horrific crimes of the killer, Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day will shock, disgust, and break your heart as the dark secrets unfold and Birdie does whatever she feels is necessary to protect the ones she loves.
“Of course you could use certain buzzwords like “brutal” and “shocking” to describe Emma E. Murray’s novel Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day. However, those words would immediately fail to capture the unflinching cruelty and viciousness layered within the pages of this brilliant and deeply unpleasant novel centered around abuse, trauma, and decay. Despite this richly textured nastiness, there’s also a distinct beauty, an attraction toward the grotesque and the undesirable woven throughout this masterful work. Emma E. Murray is one of the most original and fearless writers of new transgressive fiction.”
—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
There are some authors who I stand up and applaud immediately after reading their work and Emma E. Murray is one of them. Murray’s writing is beautiful, but brutal, psychological, yet spiritual. Her examination of society, and of people, their depths of despair, and the effects of the machinations of manipulations is heart-wrenching. Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day is a socio-psychological and gruesome analysis and reconstruction of what and who we are, how we became that, and why.
—Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Vanishing Daughters
“Everyone in this book is damaged, and Emma Murray is telling us how those wounds fester into diseased thoughts, the devaluing of human life, and the propagation of harm through rage and despair. Her portrayal of the willful adoption of delusion feels spot on, and she’s revealing sad truths about how abuse turns the body into someone else’s body–an instrument for someone else’s will–an alternate form of possession. What if the demon is really just another weak and lonely human whose access point is their willingness to accept your faults? There’s a pervasive loneliness throughout Murray’s story, because there are people whose regrets are such that only a monster would love them. A book for the hopeless and damned.”
—Charlene Elsby, author of The Devil Thinks I’m Pretty and Red Flags
Follow Birdie’s journey in SHOOT ME IN THE FACE ON A BEAUTIFUL DAY, coming August 26, 2025 from Apocalypse Party Press.
Part of the proceeds will be donated by the author to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. She herself is a survivor, so this is an issue close to her heart.
