Born or Bread: the Fine Art of Losing My Mind

I Curated My Own Madness "Brutality is a hammer. Brutality is messy. What I do is a preservation project." To the elite of New York’s art scene, Vera is a rising star. She is a visionary curator, a wealthy Italian expatriate, and an immaculate portrait of high-society sophistication. But Vera has a private, far more exclusive exhibition. Disillusioned by a mediocre world and plagued by a lifelong sense of cold detachment, Vera has discovered the ultimate artistic medium: death. Using a meticulously cultivated strain of botulinum toxin, she turns the city's loudest, most arrogant elites into perfectly still, peaceful sculptures. Her delivery system? The charming, innocent lemonade stand run by the five-year-old twins next door. No blood. No struggle. Just pure, aesthetic biochemistry. However, masterpieces are rarely created without complications. As the NYPD and a sharp-eyed neighbour start connecting the "inexplicable" deaths, Vera must navigate a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse. Complicating matters is her new, twisted partnership with a clinical vampire—a deranged accomplice who consumes what she leaves behind. Told through a chilling blend of present-day investigations and the cynical, unapologetic pages of her personal diary, I Curated My Own Madness is the story of how a bored art student sculpted herself into the perfect psychopath.