Now available · Ugly Saints, Book One
Bed Bugs
Behind every perfect life lies a perfect lie.
A slow-burn psychological domestic thriller by Biale Drageo
A perfect marriage. A beautiful home. A woman who no longer trusts her own mind.
What is Bed Bugs about?
Bed Bugs is a slow-burn psychological domestic thriller about Layla, a woman with a perfect-looking marriage and home who begins to question her husband, her old best friend, her memories, and her own mind.
The Story
Perfect from a distance. Rotten up close.
Layla has the kind of life people envy from a distance.
A successful husband. A luxurious house. A son in college. A marriage polished enough to fool anyone looking in.
But inside that perfect home, something has begun to rot.
Her husband, Chris, is distant. Her old best friend is back in his world. Her dreams feel too vivid to be dreams. Small things in the house are wrong: a cup she doesn’t remember using, clothes moved, the television left on, a missing apple, a sound on the old landline that should not be there.
At first, Layla blames stress. Then jealousy. Then Emma.
Because Emma has history with Chris. Emma has access. Emma has always known how to stand beside him in ways Layla no longer can.
But the more Layla searches for the truth, the less she trusts herself. Memories blur. Desire turns dangerous. Friends become suspects. Lovers become strangers. And the beautiful life she built begins to feel less like a home than a trap dressed in silk and marble.
Perfect homes make excellent hiding places.
It does not rush.
It watches.
It waits.
Then it crawls under your skin.
Watch the trailer
Sixty seconds inside the house.
The trailer for Bed Bugs. Sound up. Lights low.
For readers who love…
- Unreliable narrator
- Toxic marriage
- Dark secrets
- Erotic tension
- Psychological suspense
- Betrayal
- Obsession
- Domestic fear
- Twist ending
- Slow burn
- Mature readers
For readers drawn to domestic suspense, psychological manipulation, unreliable memory, elegant settings, and intimate betrayal.
Read a preview
The opening, soon.
Bed Bugs is out now. Read the opening on Amazon, then come back for what crawls underneath.
About Bed Bugs
The long way back to the bedroom.
Bed Bugs first went out into the world in March 2024. It came back fast. The book wasn't ready, and I knew it before the first reader did.
So I pulled it. Then I sat with it. For almost two years I rewrote it in slow, ugly passes — one paragraph at a time, one bad decision at a time, until Layla's house started feeling less like a setting and more like a witness.
This is the version that earned its way back. Same bones. Sharper teeth. The story I should have written the first time, told by someone who needed the extra two years to learn how.
Stay close
The reader list
New dark fiction, ARC calls, and the next Ugly Saints book first. No noise.
Frequently asked
Reader questions
- Bed Bugs is a slow-burn psychological domestic thriller about obsession, betrayal, manipulation, infidelity, and the secrets hidden beneath a perfect life.
Want more stories about perfect lives going wrong? Read the guide to psychological domestic thrillers.