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 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?

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

"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

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