For Human Use

An unforgettable debut, For Human Use is a twisted tale of modern love that bends every genre, sears itself into your brain, and presents a horrific romantic comedy unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

★ “An utterly ingenious horror-romcom, darkly zeitgeisty, and unnervingly plausible—funny as hell, too. You will not forget this book.” ―Heather Aimee O’Neill, author of Read With Jenna book club pick The Irish Goodbye

Modern dating is dead.

Finding a human connection online has become impossible. Enter Liv: a dating app that matches people with dead bodies. Somehow, it has taken the world by storm. Millions of users are convinced that life with a corpse presents a better alternative to conventional relationships.

Flailing against Liv’s popularity, venture capital superstar Tom Williamson—whose company is funding Liv—isn’t buying it. Mostly because dating an embalmed cadaver, let alone monetizing it, is obscene.

Believing that Liv is the future, Auden White, the insufferable “visionary” behind the app begins demanding more and more funding, quickly making enemies with Tom.

It’s no secret that Tom struggles with people, dead or alive, but when he has a chance meeting with the woman who knows Auden (and his secrets) best, Mara Reed, he realizes everything is about to change for all three of them.

With Liv’s userbase growing by the day, the need for cadavers rapidly increases. Humanity might not want to connect with other living, breathing people anymore, but they do want to connect with something. What could go wrong?

★ “A wildly entertaining debut. Sarah G. Pierce cleverly skewers our modern era of disconnection and corporate overreach. But amid the horror and humor there is a deeply human love story at the heart of this book.” ―E.K Sathue, author of Youthjuice

★ “From Guillermo del Toro’s film adaptation of Frankenstein to Ryan Murphy’s Netflix reimagining of Ed Gein’s killing spree, romantic affairs with reanimated corpses seem to be all the rage among storytellers these days. Told through the lens of a venture capital superstar whose company is funding a dating app that encourages lonely, living singles to embrace the dead as a reasonable alternative to an otherwise grim dating pool, this debut lives at the intersection of corporate satire (which was very trendy in 2025) and an absurdist modern dating story (the most cathartic micro-genre for any listeners in their single era). After digging into an advanced reader’s copy, I have no doubt that the matter-of-fact, macabre humor at the heart of this novel will come to life in audio.” ―Audible, Most Anticipated Audiobooks of 2026

★ “With the rhythm of a sitcom, this book also has a similar feel to Mira Grant’s Newsflesh trilogy. Pierce manages to deliver genuine horror while also exploring questions about intimacy and relationships even as Liv increasingly takes over its users’ lives.” ―Booklist

★ “A razor-sharp satire of venture capitalism, online influence culture, and The Discourse, Pierce holds a mirror to an all-too familiar reality where the unthinkable becomes thinkable if there’s profit to be made and prestige to be gained. A human romance in a world gasping for human connection, this one goes places!” ―Bitter Karella, author of Moonflow View Less