Cats Luv Coffee Book Reviews

Review || Insatiable by Erica Ridley

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 19:38:12 +0000

Published March 22nd 2022 by Titan Books

A chilling Gothic horror novel set at a coed boarding school in Scotland, where a teen girl must not only fight against her monstrous male classmates but the monster growing within her after being cursed.

Every wish granted comes with strings attached. That’s how Catriona Cameron gets a scholarship to Floodbane Academy—an elite boarding school in the Scottish Lowlands she never applied to—where she’ll be one of only six girls to enter the castle’s unwelcoming halls.

As the carnage mounts, Catriona faces the possibility that she is becoming as monstrous as those she hunts. Ultimately, is vengeance worth the loss of her humanity?

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Wishes are dangerous. Anyone who has ever read a fairy tale knows this, and yet we keep making them anyway. Ridley leans hard into that particular brand of fae cruelty, and the result is one of the more satisfying YA horrors I've read in a while.

Catriona Cameron arrives at Floodbane Academy, an elite boarding school in the Scottish Lowlands, after such a wish. She is one of only six girls admitted to its halls, and its current students absolutely do not want them there. After a violent attack, those unseen dark fairies grant cruel wishes made flippantly against her. Catriona begins to change. She becomes more attractive, but cursed with an insatiable hunger to devour anyone who preys upon women. The fairies give, and the fairies take, and what they take is your sense of self.

It's a great take on the classic “be careful what you wish for”, and the inclusion of Scottish folklore and the baobhan sith adds an extra layer to the story. There is also a surprising amount of gore, but the violence works especially well alongside the female rage running through the story and the very real inequality these girls are dealing with. The boys are horrible people. They're cruel, entitled, and despicable, so watching them get their comeuppance was extremely satisfying.

However, Insatiable isn't a straightforward revenge fantasy with a gothic academic flair. As the carnage mounts, Catriona confronts the possibility that she is becoming as monstrous as those she hunts. Watching her grapple with wanting the hunger and fearing the hunger, but feeding it anyway, is tense in the best way. Ridley keeps the focus on that dilemma throughout the story. Where does the monster end and the girl begin? And is vengeance worth the loss of her humanity? That's the kind of moral weight that elevates horror from pure pageantry into something that actually sticks with you.

If you like your gothic horror with fae curses, female rage, questionable morality, and a generous helping of bloodshed, this one delivers. I had a great time watching Catriona turn “be careful what you wish for” into a problem for everyone else. Sometimes the best solution to misogyny is a curse, a monster, and a little creative violence.

This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming October 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 23:30:00 +0000

Looking for the best new horror books releasing this month?

It's October, the month the rest of the world joins horror readers in our natural habitat with all things spooky. Ya know...ghosts, monsters, murder, and things that definitely should not be making noises inside the walls.

Welcome. We've been expecting you.

It's also my birthday month, so I'm doubly excited that spooky season has arrived and is bringing an absolutely ridiculous number of horror releases with it. Haunted houses? Check. Witches? Check. Vampires, monsters, sinister forests, questionable lakes, things lurking in the dark, and multiple protagonists who could save themselves a whole lotta trouble by simply not going in there? Check, check, check.

October is busting through the door, "Here's Johnny" style, and your TBR may not recover. Go grab something suitably caffeinated and let's dig in.

Want to see what's coming for the rest of the year? Check out my This Year in Horror 2026 for the full list of upcoming horror releases.

OCTOBER 6

Find Me Where It Ends by Cassandra Khaw

For the women in Antigone's family, Death doesn't arrive with a scythe. It comes as a black dog.

So when Antigone finds her own black dog waiting at the front door, she does the reasonable thing and lets Death inside. What follows is a dark, intimate story about exhaustion, mortality, family, and deciding whether being ready for death is the same thing as being finished with life.

The House Built on Alligator Bones by Sophia Huneycutt

After her mother's death, Dartrine Beaumont discovers that she has wealthy relatives in Florida and, potentially, a share in the family's alligator farming empire.

Unfortunately, the Greer inheritance also comes with a hostile grandmother, vicious family competition, a potentially cursed alligator, and something creeping through the halls of the family's Gilded Age mansion.

What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne

At the edge of the City of the Void lies an enormous chasm filled with carnivorous plants, monsters, and treasure hunters willing to risk becoming lunch for a big payday.

Best friends Petra and Jade make their living guiding visitors into its upper levels. But when a job takes them deep into the mysterious Sixth Layer and Jade disappears, Petra has to descend farther than she ever dared to go.

And the darkness down there is very, very hungry.

Your Beloved Remains by Quinn Connor

Archivist Celia Kiel has devoted her life to preserving the legacy of scandalous nineteenth-century writer Beatrice Donahue. Then Celia's struggling college announces that it's closing and she discovers what could save it: Beatrice's legendary lost manuscript.

There's just one problem. Celia plans to forge it.

She recruits rival scholar Joan Harriot to help, and their academic deception quickly gives way to obsession, murder, and ghosts that seem increasingly unwilling to remain in the Victorian past.

Bruja’s Nest by Brenda LaTorre

Yolanda has survived poverty and abuse, and she's determined to claim a better life. When she becomes a servant on a wealthy estate, she turns to a local bruja and a fertility ritual in hopes of securing her place in the family.

The ritual works.

What follows mixes witchcraft, body horror, class, motherhood, Santa Muerte, and one extremely unconventional child.

Hear the Dead by Ann Dávila Cardinal

For more than forty years, Elena Altieri has tried to leave the tragedies of her punk-rock youth behind, including the death of her best friend, Sin.

Then Elena begins hearing something beneath the constant ringing of her tinnitus.

A woman screaming.

Convinced that she's somehow hearing Sin's murder, Elena is forced back into memories involving missing women, fractured recollections, and crimes that may have been waiting decades to be uncovered.

Amityville Awakens by Robert P. Ottone

You know the name.

You know the house.

Robert P. Ottone returns to one of horror's most infamous locations with a new story rooted in the mythology and terror surrounding Amityville.

Morsels by Abe Moss

Abe Moss brings readers another helping of unsettling horror where hunger, human nature, and the grotesque collide.

This one looks primed for readers who prefer their horror strange, nasty, and capable of making dinner considerably less appealing.

portrait of a haunting by madison tyler nelson

Tatum Alexander can see spirits, an ability she inherited from her mother, an infamous artist who murdered her lover and allegedly used his blood in her final painting.

Understandably, Tatum would rather not lean into the whole supernatural-family-legacy thing. But when a killer begins closing in, hiding from the dead may no longer be an option.

Love and Other Cures for the Recently Undead by H.J. Ramsay

Death apparently isn't always the end, which sounds romantic until the recently deceased start complicating everyone's lives.

This supernatural story brings love and undeath together with all the emotional messiness you'd expect when the person you're trying to get over has the audacity to not stay dead.

The Finalist by Faith Gladwin

Seven ballerinas. One secluded manor. And a whole lot of very suspicious accidents.

Eden is desperate to win the lead in legendary choreographer Leanora Karagianni’s new ballet, even as her unreliable body threatens to derail her dreams. But when her fellow dancers start dying in increasingly bizarre accidents, Eden realizes the competition has become something much darker. And the manor may have plans for all of them.

Quaint Folk by Bitter Karella
Jessica thinks moving to the remote island of Hasenhurst will give her family a fresh start. Instead, she finds a picture-perfect town full of quaint traditions, folk tales, and people who are very interested in making sure newcomers fit in.

As Jessica tries to become one of them, the island’s cozy facade starts to crack, revealing something much darker and far more rotten underneath.

The Chain House by J. H. Markert

J.H. Markert is back with another sinister house and another reminder that when a building has acquired its own ominous name, perhaps we shouldn't go inside.

Dark history, buried secrets, and violence converge around the Chain House, where the past hasn't finished with the living.

dive bar at the end of the road by kelley armstrong

Kelley Armstrong takes us somewhere that already sounds like the opening scene of a ghost story: a lonely roadside bar where travelers, strangers, and secrets intersect.

Because nothing terrible has ever happened after stopping at the creepy bar in the middle of nowhere.

the phantom reflex by fred tippetT ii

Troubled, teenaged Thomas Grant has long known that he has unusual powers, despite that no one else believes his claims. As an orphan in the care of abusive guardians, Thomas is given a choice—spend the summer with his guardians in New York City or with his loving girlfriend in Maple, her pristine upstate hometown.

He should have chosen The City.

Very quickly, Thomas finds himself trapped in Maple as a strange and sinister plot—a plot with him at its center—begins to unfold. People who try to help him or even befriend him disappear… or die. It all ties to a cult of demonists that worships an ageless, satanic force. A force with a destiny that Thomas slowly learns is horrifyingly intertwined with his own.

night of a thousand hells by intan paramaditha

After their youngest sister commits an unthinkable act of violence, two sisters are left searching for answers. Their investigation draws them into long-buried family secrets and their grandmother’s ominous prophecies, where the past feels anything but dead. Blending political horror with Asian folklore and the occult, Night of a Thousand Hells explores the ghosts that haunt families, cultures, and generations.

House Haunters by KC Jones

Desperate to save her career, Grace Wonderly sets out to film an eccentric ghost hunter who claims he can’t feel fear. What begins as a promising reality TV concept quickly becomes terrifyingly real, leaving Grace and her crew dependent on the one man who may actually understand the supernatural forces hunting them.

Carrying by Samantha Josephs

Martha has painstakingly created her perfect life, including keeping her identity as a trans woman secret from her husband and stepdaughter. But after a mysterious illness, experimental treatments, and increasingly disturbing cravings, she discovers she’s somehow pregnant. As her body transforms beyond her control, Martha must grapple with the terrifying possibility of losing everything she fought to build.

October 13

It Looks Like You in the Dark by Mathilda Zeller

Tapeesa knows the stories: the kushtuka can appear as someone you love, tempting you to follow it into the darkness. She never expected those warnings to become terrifyingly real.

When her sister vanishes amid the arrival of outsiders determined to exploit the land, Tapeesa sets out across the darkening Alaskan Arctic to find her, confronting both human greed and something ancient lurking beyond the safety of her village.

This B Just Won't Die! by Tanya Pell

Barbra Jacobs has spent twenty years trying to escape the scream queen label Hollywood slapped on her. A new horror docuseries could finally be her comeback, until fans start turning up dead in gruesome recreations of kills from her Mirror films. Now, with a killer impersonating the franchise’s infamous Mirror Man, Barbra must step back into the one role she never wanted to play again: the Final Girl.

The Woman of the House by Kate Mooney

Rose Crawley finally has the life she’s always wanted: a beautiful house by the lake, a devoted husband, and enough distance from the past she desperately wants to keep buried. But her new home has secrets of its own. Bloody scratches appear on her skin, reflections move when no one is there, and invisible footsteps stalk the halls. When Rose discovers the previous occupant vanished under mysterious circumstances, she becomes obsessed with finding out what happened.

As the haunting intensifies, one question becomes impossible to ignore: is the house trying to reveal the truth, or is Rose destined to disappear next?

Until the Last Light Goes Out by Courtney Gould

Twenty-five years ago, 183 high school seniors entered the luxurious Kaleidoscope Key resort in the Florida Keys and never came out alive. The five survivors have refused to reveal what happened that night. Now, on the massacre’s anniversary, Paige Keller is dragged back into its shadow when her former best friend disappears while investigating the abandoned resort.

Paige and the other survivors’ children venture inside to find her, only to discover that Kaleidoscope Key is still hungry, and the secrets their parents buried may be waiting to claim a new generation.

'Twas the Night by Kevin Johnson

Christmas is eternal in the picture-perfect village of Yule, Maine, where Santa isn’t just beloved, he’s worshipped. When skeptical reporter Halley Belanger notices that a string of child disappearances has mysteriously spared Yule, she heads there looking for answers. Behind the gingerbread smiles and snow-globe charm, however, something sinister is keeping the holiday spirit alive. The deeper Halley digs, the closer she gets to a horrifying truth: in Yule, Christmas comes at a bloody price, and Santa is anything but a saint.

Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife by James Tynion IV; Kiersten White

Monster hunter Erica Slaughter has one job: hunt the monsters children’s fears bring to life and kill them. But when a twelve-year-old is brutally killed in Badwater, Idaho, Erica can’t tell whether the culprit is human, animal, or something far worse. With a doomsday preacher whipping the town into a frenzy and another child’s fears potentially summoning a monster, Erica is running out of time. Because if she can’t uncover the truth first, the town and the Order may decide that killing the girl is the only way to kill the monster.

Look What the Cat Dragged In by Jason Rekulak

When Philadelphia cartoonist Penny Padgett agrees to pet-sit a strangely affectionate cat named Godfrey, she gets far more than a cuddly houseguest. Soon she’s plagued by violent nightmares, a horrifying insect infestation, failing health, and creepy changes in her own artwork, as if something unseen is guiding her hand. As the disturbances grow increasingly sinister, Penny begins to suspect Godfrey isn’t an ordinary cat, and whatever she’s welcomed into her home may be sinking its claws into her mind and body, too.

Monsters Unsettling Short Stories by Russell Smith

What makes a monster? In Monsters: Unsettling Short Stories, editor Russell Smith brings together fourteen writers from across horror, mystery, literary, and experimental fiction to explore that question from every disturbing angle.

Because sometimes monsters lurk in the shadows, sometimes they walk among us, and sometimes the monster is us.

Monstera by Delilah S. Dawson

After years under her controlling grandfather’s thumb, Lucy McClintock finally escapes into a dreamy Victorian apartment in Savannah, where she becomes fascinated by her mysterious downstairs neighbor, Saskia, and the lush, almost magical garden surrounding her home. But as attraction pulls the two women closer, Lucy discovers there’s something decidedly unnatural blooming beneath the surface.

In Monstera, desire takes root alongside something deadly, proving that the most beautiful things can have teeth.
The Exodontists by Drew Huff

The Exodontists are immortal, tooth-loving monsters with a surprisingly wholesome side: for decades, they’ve secretly run a free dental clinic from the abandoned warehouse they call home. But when Spirit Halloween moves in, their peaceful existence gets a whole lot messier. Sharing space with plastic skeletons and fake blood is bad enough, but a vicious employee soon turns the situation into an all-out grudge match. What follows is a gloriously macabre collision of monsters, molars, Halloween chaos, and very real bloodshed.

To Bewitch a Hunter by Luciano Lamberti

Julia has always felt like she doesn’t quite belong, so when a mysterious woman claiming to be her real grandmother reveals that her entire identity may be a lie, Julia goes searching for the truth. Instead, she uncovers a horrifying family legacy rooted in Argentina’s years of dictatorship, where disappearances, desperate bargains, and blood sacrifice blur the line between history and the supernatural.

What begins as a search for belonging becomes a nightmarish excavation of generational trauma, revealing that some family secrets don’t stay buried, and some birthrights refuse to let go.

The Creeps by Michael Paul Kozlowsky

In the shadowy Lower Alleys, the Creeps are a gang of delinquents fighting to survive, until Suffer discovers he can slip through the shadows and enter our world. At first, they’re little more than invisible ghosts, but their powers quickly grow, and so does their appetite for chaos. While Suffer dreams of escaping the gang and building a life with Andromeda, the others embrace their terrifying new abilities. But after their violence goes too far, the tables turn, and suddenly the ghosts aren’t the ones doing the haunting.

OCTOBER 15

I Am The Devouring Dark by Kimberly Lynn Hanson

Deep in the Norse woods, a hungry creature known as the Skratti survives on the human hearts offered by villagers in exchange for her protection. She remembers nothing of the woman she once was, until a thief named Rorik enters her lair and awakens memories of a lost life and a sister in grave danger. As the two grow dangerously close, the Skratti must choose between the monster she has become and the humanity she might still reclaim. But she isn’t the only thing lurking in the woods, and resisting her hunger may prove deadlier than giving in to it.

OCTOBER 20

Pretty Bird by Hilary Faktor

As a teenager, Maeve Whitman escaped an isolated artists’ cult, but getting out meant sacrificing her best friend and leaving behind the father of her daughter. Years later, she’s built a safe suburban life and buried the past, until the cult’s charismatic former leader tracks her down and sets his sights on bringing her daughter back to the farm. Forced to confront the people and secrets she thought she’d escaped, Maeve must decide just how far she’s willing to go to protect her family from the monsters of her past.

The Turning of Sally-Mae by Nuzo Onoh

After surviving a brutal injustice at the hands of a wealthy Texas family, Sally-Mae Jenkins is sent away to Africa, pregnant and determined to someday get revenge. There she meets Amara, an outcast healer whose terrifying gift comes from a powerful spirit known as Aja-Mmọ. When Sally-Mae’s unborn twins become pawns in a battle between ancient deities, they develop frightening powers that could finally give their mother the vengeance she craves.

Blending African folklore, Wild West horror, occult magic, and supernatural revenge, The Turning of Sally-Mae proves that some wrongs don’t just demand justice. They awaken something far darker.

Lethal Kiss by Taylor Grothe

Marcella is a newly hired professor at Preston University with a small problem: she’s a monster who likes to eat her coworkers. But when a professor is murdered and Marcella isn’t responsible, she and assistant professor Lacie start digging into the university’s bloody secrets.

Soon they uncover something hungry lurking beneath the campus. As the bodies pile up, so does the attraction between them. Nothing says academic romance like murder, monsters, and whatever is festering under the marble floors.

Milkteeth by Caitlin Starling

Beatrice is a vampire broodmother, raising newly turned fledglings through the messy early years of their unlife. But when she takes in a strange third fledgling who’s part vampire, part ghoul, Beatrice starts changing too.

Her hunger turns toward forbidden flesh, her body begins to transform, and keeping control gets harder by the day. Desperate for answers, she risks exposing her coven by visiting a mortal doctor.

Because apparently motherhood wasn’t complicated enough already.

When the Night Comes Knocking by Katherine Daniel

Jane and her estranged brother Thomas stop at a remote convenience store in the North Georgia mountains, only to discover that a monster is hunting the people inside. The creature feeds on guilty hearts, and everyone has secrets they’d rather keep buried.

As the body count rises, the trapped survivors turn on each other, desperate to figure out who summoned the beast. Jane and Thomas will have to confront their own past before the monster decides they’re next.

The snacks are questionable, the company is worse, and something outside wants to eat your soul.

Needlemouth by K-Ming Chang

Three cousins, Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy, are spending a stifling summer at their grandmother’s house when Cindy begins waking with strange objects in her mouth. Then Needlemouth arrives, a starving demon with a needle-thin mouth who demands the girls complete a horrifying task to satisfy her hunger. Pulled between the human world and a nightmarish demon realm, the cousins are forced to confront their family’s buried grief and generations of violence.

Grotesque, surreal, and ravenously strange, Needlemouth turns coming of age into a monstrous question: what happens when you become the monster instead of defeating it?

The Haunting of Lavender House by Natalie Kikic

Petra travels to a remote Croatian island after discovering that the grandmother she thought was dead is actually alive and still living in their ancestral home, Lavender House. But the house comes with a family curse, terrifying nightmares, and rumors of a bloodthirsty mora from Croatian folklore.

More than a century earlier, Magdalena arrives at Lavender House to heal its ailing matriarch, only to fall for the son of the man who ruined her reputation. As Petra digs into her family’s past, the two timelines begin to reveal the dark truth behind the house, the curse, and the monster haunting them both.
Angel Country by Alex T. Singer

In an alternate 1904 where angelic infestations have kept America from expanding westward, scientist Ada Franklin wakes up in her own grave to discover her research partner tried to kill her and stole her life’s work: a device capable of communicating with, and potentially controlling, angels. Ada joins forces with her former lover, now grotesquely transformed by the celestial beings they once studied, and sets off to reclaim her invention before it falls into the wrong hands.

Packed with body horror, cosmic dread, monstrous angels, and twisted alternate history, Angel Country asks what’s more terrifying: unknowable celestial creatures or the humans desperate enough to control them.

Tatratea by Alex Woodroe

Deep in the Transylvanian wilderness, the abandoned manor of Tatratea has been swallowed by nature, and something inside is sending out signals powerful enough to warp reality. Researcher Errata ventures in looking for answers, only to find the doors locked behind her and the surrounding flora determined to make sure she never leaves. Armed with little more than a voice recorder, survival gear, and protocols designed to keep her sanity intact, she must uncover what crashed inside the manor’s hedge maze before her grip on reality disappears completely.

Claustrophobic eco-horror meets cosmic dread in a story where the wilderness is alive, the house won’t let you leave, and reality itself is beginning to rot.

What the Forest Devours by Elaine Vilar Madruga

In a brutal Cuban rainforest where the forest is worshipped as a hungry god, survival comes with an unthinkable price: mothers must raise their children as sacrifices to keep it fed. On an isolated hacienda, generations of women have surrendered their bodies, their children, and their hope to this cannibalistic cycle. But when hardened newcomer Romina arrives, she may finally be the one willing to challenge the rules.

Bleak, visceral, and deeply unsettling, What the Forest Devours transforms motherhood and survival into nightmare fuel, asking what happens when the thing demanding your sacrifice is the very world keeping you alive.

The Witching House by John Everson

Angry and alone, Gianna decides to test a local urban legend by writing Madelyn’s name in blood on the mirror of the Witching House. She expects a scare, not an actual ghost answering back. At first, Madelyn seems like the friend Gianna desperately needs, but the dead girl has an agenda of her own: revenge for her murder. Now Gianna must find a way to stop the spirit she unleashed before Madelyn turns her bloody grudge against the entire town.

OCTOBER 26

One of My Patients is a Vampire by Abigail Moyer

In chocolate-town Hershey, Pennsylvania, disillusioned psychiatrist Ian Greyson dismisses a child’s claim that one of his patients is a vampire as ridiculous, until a blood-drained body turns up at his door. Suspicion immediately falls on Alexandra Abrams, his enigmatic new patient who was once acquitted of murder but never escaped the town’s belief that she’s a monster. As Ian becomes dangerously obsessed with her, the bodies keep coming, forcing him to wonder whether he’s protecting an innocent woman or falling under the spell of something truly monstrous.

Darkly funny, gothic, and deliciously strange, One of My Patients Is a Vampire mixes murder, obsession, and vampiric mystery into one bloody trip to chocolate country.

OCTOBER 27

She Isn't Herself Tonight by Hailey Piper

Rabbit was abducted by aliens at ten, then again at twenty, so she’s spent the last decade waiting for them to return on her thirtieth birthday. Instead, her boyfriend dumps her and kicks her out.

As Rabbit spirals into paranoia, her body starts changing in increasingly bizarre ways, and even her reflection seems to have a mind of its own. With reality getting stranger by the day, Rabbit has to figure out what’s happening to her before the aliens finally come back.

What Rough Beast by Mindy McGinnis

Ava is an outcast who finds comfort working at a wildlife rehabilitation center, while trying to forget the night that changed her life. Micah, the boy she blames, is haunted by his own guilt, and Hailey is determined to escape poverty by any means necessary.

When Ava accidentally awakens something ancient beneath the ground, the three teens are pulled together for one horrifying night. Something wants to be born, and it’s going to need a death to make it happen.

Scorpion Deep by CG Drews

Jonathan is desperate to escape the gloomy island of Kelcarrow, especially after his friends leave for college without him. So he turns to an ancient sea god, Scorpion Deep, and offers a blood-soaked tithe in exchange for a way out.

Unfortunately, the ritual works a little too well. As Jonathan’s body begins to change and the awakened god becomes terrifyingly obsessed with him, Jonathan realizes escape won’t come without a fight. And breaking free from a god always comes with a price.

Savage Lake by Nick Medina

After her estranged father dies, Nell returns to the family cabin at Torchlight Lake with her teenage son, Oscar, determined to fix it up and leave for good. But when the roads are unexpectedly barricaded, their quick trip turns into an unwanted extended stay.

Then the screams start, something begins watching the cabin from the woods, and Nell starts acting like someone Oscar barely recognizes. As he digs into his mother’s past, Oscar uncovers secrets that may explain what happened at the lake, and why the horror that haunted Nell has come back for him.

The Porcelain Sisters by Daryl Gregory

Ruth is a shy college student trying to save money while caring for her sister Isabel, who happens to be a haunted porcelain doll. When an accident badly damages Isabel, the sisters travel to Marseille to find the mysterious Dollmaker who can repair her.

Instead, they uncover a family secret involving witches, assassins, haunted dolls, and demonic animals. With enemies coming from every direction, Ruth must discover her own hidden powers while Isabel figures out how to grow up in a body that never can.

And there you have it.

October has apparently decided that sleep is optional and financial responsibility is a problem for November.

Whether you're in the mood for haunted houses, hungry forests, monstrous mothers, cursed inheritances, vampires, witches, alien abductions, eldritch sea gods, or whatever fresh nightmare is waiting at the bottom of the Void, there is plenty headed our way this month.

Happy spooky season, horror friends. Stay creepy, read something terrifying, and for the love of all things haunted, don't go into the basement alone.

← Previous Month | This Year in Horror 2026 | Next Month →

Review || The House That Eats The Dead by Max Doty

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 20:21:00 +0000

Published August 18, 2026 by Bantam

A family moves into their dream home—only to discover that it hides an insatiable hunger—in this dread-laced and darkly outrageous domestic horror novel.

The new house is a fresh start for Claire and her family. It's a move away from the cityscape of a declining San Francisco and towards the quiet suburban life she has craved since her turbulent childhood; a step up the corporate ladder for her husband, Tom; and a safe haven for their two children.

Yet as they unpack their boxes, she senses something is wrong. Fresh flowers dry up, store-bought eggs are inexplicably hollow, and her daughter's favorite toy disappears. Claire soon confronts a series of impossible The house is hungry. It's devouring anything that was once alive. And only Claire and Tom, the owners of the house, will remember that this "food" ever existed.

When Claire exploits the house's power in a moment of weakness, she and the house forge a fragile bond. But as its hunger intensifies and Claire loses control, she fears who else might be drawn to her home—and what sinister appetites they’ll bring.

Add to Goodreads

Give me a deeply questionable house, a family that should probably leave immediately, and increasingly weird things happening behind the walls, and I'm happy. I went in expecting creepy house shenanigans, and I got that from The House That Eats the Dead. The premise is fantastic; The house is hungry, and it consumes anything that isn't alive. But when the house feeds, something even stranger happens: everyone forgets that thing ever existed. Everyone except Tom and Claire.

At first, there's something almost absurd about the idea of a house making things disappear. It starts with flowers, pantry items, etc. The kinds of things that you think, "Oh, weird", but relatively harmless, right? Then it gets sad. Really sad. People don't just lose the things the house eats. They lose the memory of them, too. There's no grieving something you can't even remember having, and that opens the door to a moral conundrum. Is not remembering worth skipping the grief of loss?

This is domestic horror, but the house steals the show. It somehow has more personality than half the human characters. Claire is such a big part of why this works. She's dealing with an absolutely ridiculous situation, but instead of the story turning her into a helpless victim waiting around for the haunted house to do something, she tries to understand it. She observes its behavior, tests its boundaries, and basically starts treating the house like a problematic roommate that might eat her labeled food in the fridge if she's not paying attention. There's something wonderfully absurd about watching Claire attempt to establish some kind of relationship with a house that has the emotional regulation of a spoiled toddler and the appetite of a wood chipper.

It's such a fresh take on the haunted house genre. The house is kinda a cute pet that has adopted this family. It's weird but not really threatening, right? Not quite, because just when Claire starts to understand what the house wants, things get much more sinister. The question isn't only what the house is eating. It's who else might know about the house, who else is feeding it, and why.

The House That Eats the Dead is right up there with September House by Carissa Orlando for me. If you love haunted houses with a weird twist, and horror that can make you laugh while also reminding you that the house might eat your dog and then erase the dog from everyone's memory, The House That Eats the Dead is an easy recommendation.

Just don't get too attached to anything.

Looking for more scary reads? Browse all of my horror book reviews.

Review || The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:49:44 +0000

Published April 21, 2026 by Atria/Emily Bestler Books/12:01 Books

Follow the Rites...

Nothing less than the survival of humanity is at stake.

From Marcus Kliewer, a new “titan of the macabre and unsettling” (Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author), comes a supernatural horror about a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist, only to discover the position has consequences far greater—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined.

EXCITING OPPORTUNITY:

Caretaker urgently needed. Three days of work. Competitive pay. Serious applicants ONLY.

Macy Mullins can’t say why the job posting grabbed her attention—it had the pull of a fisherman’s lure, barbed hook and all—vaguely ominous. But after an endless string of failed job interviews, she's not exactly in the position to be picky. She has rent to pay, groceries to buy, and a younger sister to provide for.

Besides, it’s only three days’ work…

Three days, cooped up in a stranger’s house, surrounded by Oregon Coast wilderness.

What starts as a peculiar side gig soon becomes a waking nightmare. An incomprehensible evil may dwell on this property—and Macy Mullins might just be the only thing standing between it, and the rest of humanity.

Follow the Rites...

Add to Goodreads

I’m going to be honest straight off the bat about this book. I didn't understand the first thing about what was happening in The Caretaker. The rites? Weird as hell. The house? Completely bizarre. My understanding of what was happening? Hanging on by a thread.

The Caretaker is the kind of horror where (thankfully) you don't need all the answers. You just need to know that something is very, very wrong and keep reading as it gets worse. Kliewer piles on the weirdness, making the tension in this book so freaking good. I kept turning pages because I needed to know what fresh nightmare Macy was going to stumble into next.

Macy isn’t the clever horror girl who makes the right decisions. She's majorly the opposite, in fact. Annoying, but understandable. She’s desperate, grieving her father, and struggling financially. She knows the job is bonkers, but $9,000 is a lot of cash. The horror isn’t just that Macy is trapped in a house with these weird rituals. It’s that she feels like she can't afford to walk away, and she's very self-aware. It's what makes her more human and gives the story emotional consequence. Otherwise, this could have easily turned into two hundred pages of Look-at-this-creepy-house-doing-creepy-house-stuff.

It's not completely bleak though. Macy's relationship with her sister was actually one of my favorite parts and brought much-needed humor. The running horror-movie popcorn commentary in her sister's voice that Macy hears in her head, pointing out all the ways she's the dumb girl in the horror movie, was fantastic. You know, like running upstairs from the killer when the front door is right there. It was a good, if short, break from the weight of Macy's gloom.

Ultimately, the house gets creepier, the rites get stranger, and the tension keeps building as Macy races against the clock to complete the next ritual. Did I spend a good portion of this book thinking, "WTF is going on?" Yeah, most of it, in fact, but what I can tell you is I was completely hooked. I needed to know what was behind the next door, in the next envelope, what was going on with the rabbits, and exactly how catastrophic things were going to get.

The rites don’t need to make sense. They just need to be followed. What could possibly go wrong?

Looking for more scary reads? Browse all of my horror book reviews.

Feature Fiction || The Whisper of Death by Kevin Koelbl

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 22:49:13 +0000

Published September 1, 2026

Some doors are locked to keep you in. This one was sealed to keep the end of the world out.

Harvey Covington wakes with tubes in his arms, no memory of his name, and four strangers who know as little as he does.

They call their captor The Host. He restocks their food without ever being seen and leaves nothing behind but a note claiming they chose this life underground. None of them believe it.

As starvation sets in and the group turns on itself, Harvey discovers something waking inside him — abilities that shouldn't be possible, and a truth far worse than any prison. The memories they lost weren't taken to protect them.

They were taken to hide what he did.

Beyond that vault door lies a dead and gray world. Cities emptied. The infected roaming in place of the people they used to be, hollowed out like zombies by something ancient that Harvey set loose with his own hand.

It has a name. And it remembers his.

The Whisper of Death is coming for the last thing standing between it and eternal life — and Harvey is the only one who can stop what he started.

Kevin Koelbl is a fiction author and storyteller who spent eight years serving in the National Guard before trading the uniform for the page. His writing spans dark fantasy, sci-fantasy, and beyond — genre-bending stories built around morally complex characters, high stakes, and worlds that don't play by the rules. Kevin believes the best fiction doesn't stay inside the lines, and he brings that same restless spirit to every story he tells. When he's not writing, he's chasing new experiences across the globe, convinced that the best stories live somewhere between the places you've been and the ones you haven't found yet. The Whisper of Death is his debut novel.

Review || The House Built on Alligator Bones by Sophia Huneycutt

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 23:38:29 +0000

Published October 6, 2026 by Dutton

The Greers built their fortune on alligator bones.

Dartrine Beaumont believes her mother’s sudden death has left her alone in the world—until she learns of long-lost wealthy relatives living in Florida. Confused but delighted by the possibility of extended family, Dart travels to her grandmother’s stately Gilded Age mansion on Amelia Island for answers, just in time to stake a claim on an unusual inheritance: an alligator farming empire.

Her arrival at Greer House isn’t everything she hoped. Without warning, Dart finds herself in fierce competition with her grandmother’s arrogant heir-apparent, and tensions rise as threatening acts of vandalism escalate on one of the farms. More unsettling is her hostile grandmother’s fanatical belief that the danger stems from a curse; according to legend, a larger-than-life alligator hunted down by a bloodthirsty ancestor still haunts the family. Yet Dart can’t deny that the farm’s placid alligators hiss only at Greers, or that a shadowy figure creeps through the mansion’s halls, plaguing her with suspicions that the mythical alligator and monstrous, long-dead matriarch may have unfinished business.

As Dart uncovers the truth about her violent birthright, she faces a terrible accept her place in her family’s grim legacy or forge a new path by slaying a different beast entirely.

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The premise of this one had me completely sold. Florida Gothic? A crumbling mansion? An alligator farming empire haunted by a vengeful spirit? The bones (ha!) of something genuinely great are here, and I really wanted this book to deliver. It didn't quite get there for me, and I've been chewing on why.

The MC: Let's start with Dart. I wanted to root for her: she's grieving, she's an outsider, she's walking into a family that doesn't want her there. But her desperation to fit in with the Greers drove me absolutely crazy! These people are hostile to her from page one, and she just keeps trying to ingratiate herself with them anyway. I get that she is starved for family and connection, I do, but at some point it tips over from sympathy into frustration, and I lost patience with her faster than I expected to.

The Horror: The central threat, Ironheart, the alligator spirit haunting the family, sounds like a wild, creepy concept. And there are flashes of atmosphere where the swamp and the mansion genuinely drip with unease. But the tension never really builds into anything. Every time the story starts to feel genuinely unsettling, it pulls back. The family curse storyline resolves in a way that felt tidy rather than terrifying, and I finished the book feeling like I'd been promised something that never fully arrived.

The Setting: The muggy ambiance is doing heavy lifting here, and it does it well! Huneycutt clearly loves Florida's particular brand of gorgeous, rotting strangeness, and Amelia Island is rendered with care and detail.

One thing I do want to flag loudly: there is a significant amount of animal harm in this book. Given that the story centers on an alligator farm, this isn't exactly surprising, but it's woven throughout and unavoidable. If that's a hard trigger for you, please go in prepared or sit this one out.

If you're a die-hard for Southern Gothic and you can vibe with a slow, more character-driven read, there's something here for you. But if you need the horror to solidify, you might walk away a little underwhelmed.

Looking for more scary reads? Browse all of my horror book reviews.

Review || Milkteeth by Caitlin Starling

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 20:56:38 +0000

Published October 20, 2026, by St. Martin's Press

From the bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence comes a new, genre-bending supernatural horror about a vampire broodmother fighting against her own monstrous descent.

Beatrice is a broodmother: a vampire responsible for nursing newly made fledglings through the first years of their unlife. She nests in an abandoned, isolated warren of office space beneath her patron's skyscraper, raising two fractious fledglings: Gorgeous—once a heartthrob, now to all appearances a living corpse—who longs for the return of the lover who made him immortal with all the fervor of a rebellious teen, and Fortunata, the scion of Beatrice's mistress, alien and ambitious in her desires.

But when Beatrice decides to take on a third fledgling, the product of an attempted siring gone wrong, teetering between vampiric purity and ghoulish depravity, Beatrice finds herself strained to breaking between the societal and physical demands of her position, her own ravenous hunger, and an obsessive need to discover what’s happening to her—because her body is changing too, transforming her into something even more monstrous. She begins to crave the taste of flesh, something anathema to all vampires, and to swing between desperate hunger and vicious power.

Desperate to master herself once more, Beatrice courts a mortal OBGYN who might be able to unravel the secrets of her unnatural anatomy. But soon their connection threatens the secrecy of her vampiric coven as well as the safety and development of her dependent nurslings… and the humans they stand to slaughter if left to their own devices.

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Motherhood in horror seems to be all the rage these days, but Milkteeth takes it in a brand new direction. Who knew vampires need mommy too?

Most vampire stories are focused on the change to vampire. Someone gets bitten by a vampire, dies, wakes up again, and bam, new vampire. Milkteeth takes it in a different direction and questions what happens in between life and undeath and life again. What steps have to be taken for a newly turned vampire to become a productive member of vampire society? What does feeding look like as a hungry newly undead? How does a fledgling learn to control its hunger so the world isn't littered with dead bodies?

As a broodmother, Beatrice does all that and more for newly turned vampires or "fledglings". However, while she's trying to keep her fledglings fed, teach them to control their hunger, and generally trying to keep them from becoming a menace, strange things start happening to her too. The changes become more and more concerning, and her hunger is getting worse, her body is changing, and none of it makes sense. Beatrice turns to a mortal doctor for help, which brings a whole other set of problems.

Instead of treating the fledgling as a finished vampire the second they rise from the transformation, Starling gives us the messy, prolonged, very physical process of becoming one. It made me look at her vampires as an entirely different creature instead of just a human with fangs. The broodmother angle brought something new and different, of course, but I think what I liked most about Milkteeth is that it made vampires feel weird again. Not sexy and brooding. Not tragic and moody. Just weird and very unhuman. I guess what I'm saying is that mothering made vampires less human instead of more. See? Weird.

Looking for more scary reads? Browse all of my horror book reviews.

Review || We Are For the Dark by Gretchen McNeil

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 23:49:00 +0000

Published September 1, 2026 by DAW

What starts as a missing person investigation morphs into something much darker when an FBI-agent-turned-Catholic-priest and a junior constable arrive on a remote Newfoundland island

This murder-mystery-turned-nail-biting-horror is perfect for fans of religious horror like The Possession of Alba Díaz and the cult-classic movie The Wicker Man.

An isolated town. A missing priest. An ancient, hungry darkness.

When Father Shane Ryan is summoned to a meeting with His Eminence Cardinal Jacobs, he’s confused. A recently ordained priest at a small Maryland parish, Father Ryan has no idea why His Eminence would want to meet him. When he arrives, the Cardinal opens by laying out Father Ryan’s past as an FBI analyst. It seems a priest has gone missing, and the case is…unusual.

Weeks ago, Constable Miriam Rideout from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary fielded a frantic call from a priest on a remote Newfoundland island. He begged for help, but then the line went dead, and no one has since been reported missing. When permission to perform a wellness check is denied by her superiors, Miriam takes some vacation time and books a ticket on the ferry.

Thrown together with friendly but cagey locals, Miriam and Father Ryan soon learn that something about the island isn’t right. There’s a fishing port without boats, a town with no stores and no cars, and strange, bulbous purple wildflowers are growing everywhere. The two don’t trust each other, but they begin to learn that an alliance, however uneasy, is a necessity. Because something evil lurks beneath the island—something ancient, eternal, hungry—and neither it nor the uncanny islanders have any intention of letting these newcomers leave.

A growing sense of dread intensifies until it explodes in this pulse-pounding supernatural horror.

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We Are for the Dark starts out feeling more like a mystery than a horror novel. Miriam Rideout arrives on the isolated Bale Island to investigate a disappearance, and between the creepy location, strange townspeople, and all the secrets floating around, I was fully expecting a cultish religious mystery. The island immediately has that feeling of a place where everyone knows something you don't. There are enough odd details and suspicious characters to keep you wondering where the story is headed, but it was so slow to get started.

The atmosphere is the best part of the book. Bale Island is isolated, weird, and full of people who appear to know more than they are saying. There's a constant feeling that something is off. The island itself almost feels like another character, with its isolation and history adding to the sense that Miriam has wandered into a place she most definitely should have stayed away from. The townspeople did nothing to help that feeling. There's just enough weirdness in the way everyone behaves to make you wary.

Eventually, the story shifts from mystery into horror, and there are some genuinely creepy moments. Miriam being followed by something she can't see was unsettling, especially because you don't know exactly what it is or what it wants. The scenes in the cave were another highlight. There's something about being trapped with no idea what might be lurking in the dark with you that works every time. These moments weren't exactly terrifying, but they did create some good tension and gave the story a much darker feel as things started to unravel.

While I enjoyed the atmosphere and the mystery, I never found myself particularly invested in the characters. The blossoming romance between the two just felt contrived. I don't mind romance in horror, but it felt stilted and out of place here. Instead of adding to the story, it pulled me out of it, especially when there was a perfectly good mystery and increasingly creepy island to keep me interested. In the end, it is very integral to the story, but it was annoying along the way.

Overall, We Are for the Dark wasn't a bad read by any means. I liked the setting, the strange townspeople, and the gradual reveal of what was really going on. It didn't completely blow me away, but the unsettling island and its people, along with a few genuinely creepy moments, made it a decent read.

Looking for more scary reads? Browse all of my horror book reviews.

Feature Fiction || Tide of Ebon Hollow by David Baldus

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 22:59:00 +0000

Published September 2, 2026

Ebon Hollow has always kept its secrets close.

When Jeni Michaelson returns to the rituals her family taught her as a child, the old rules no longer feel like superstition. Hold the threshold. Count the beats. Never answer what calls from the other side.

Then the house begins answering back.

As an unnatural tide approaches the isolated coastal town, Jeni and those closest to her uncover generations of hidden journals, forbidden rituals, and a secret buried beneath Ebon Hollow long before any of them were born. Something imprisoned beneath the island is waking—and it has spent centuries learning the voices of the people who keep it contained.

Every answer draws them deeper into a legacy built on sacrifice. Every discovery makes it harder to know whom they can trust.

David Baldus is a Marine Corps veteran and the author of Tides of Ebon Hollow, his debut novel.

After more than sixteen years of service in the United States Marine Corps, David traded military life for a career in recruiting—but never lost his fascination with dark stories, unexplained things, and the question of what ordinary people will do when faced with something they cannot explain or escape.

His fiction blends slow-burn gothic horror, supernatural mystery, family bonds, and atmospheric settings, with an emphasis on characters who feel human even when the world around them becomes anything but.

David lives in Oklahoma with his wife and family. Tides of Ebon Hollow is his first published novel.

This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming September 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:36:00 +0000

Looking for the best new horror books releasing this month?

September has arrived, which means fall is right around the bend and the horror shelves are getting ready for their busiest season of the year.

And apparently publishers decided that September needed everything.

We've got haunted houses, witches, demons, vampires, cursed forests, murderous weddings, folk horror, cosmic horror, gothic horror, body horror, haunted hotels, evil trees, terrifying children, terrifying adults, and at least one book where the title alone compels me to read it in a dark room.

So grab your TBR list, clear some space on the nightstand, and let's see what horror books are coming your way this month.

Want to see what's coming for the rest of the year? Check out my This Year in Horror 2026 for the full list of upcoming horror releases.

September 1
Scratch Moss by David Barnett
Five different time periods. One mining community. And something horrible buried beneath Scratch Moss Hall.

Spanning 1865 to 2025, this folk horror follows generations of people connected to a Yorkshire mining town where coal isn't the only thing lurking underground. As the community changes, the stories of Red Clogs refuse to disappear.

Night of the Blood Moon by J.W. Holmes
A mysterious drifter is arrested by the sheriff of a small town on the night of a full moon. His warning is simple: if he's still in custody when the moon comes out, everyone is going to die.
A full moon, a monster storm, and a stranger who says everyone is going to die.

Light Come, Light Go by N.L. CASTLE
In 1999, William Delaney arrives on Portland Island with his two daughters, hoping its six hundred years of secrets will inspire his next book. But the island has other plans.

Seven centuries earlier, the Black Death arrives with sailor Galfridus, followed by something much older and stranger. Now two families are being drawn toward the same stone, the same crack in the earth, and the same white-haired girl who refuses to stay dead.

Six hundred years of secrets and one very dead girl who refuses to stay that way.

The Nudge by Joseph Fink
From the co-creator of Welcome to Night Vale comes a strange new illustrated novella that proves sometimes the smallest little push can send your life somewhere very dark.
Sometimes you don't need a shove. A nudge is enough.

An immaculate deception by Isabella Livino
It's 1870s Brazil, and a pregnant young woman finds herself trapped in her lover's isolated family home.

Unfortunately, the family has made a deal with the devil, and their version of hospitality is about to become considerably less welcoming.

goodnight monsters by suzanne junered
Lia is pregnant, but she's not sure she wants to be a mother. Obsessed with death, she blackmails her way into a job at a forensic anthropology center known as The Body Farm, where her fascination with murder begins turning into something darker. Then someone she’s fantasized about killing turns up dead at the Farm, and as more people around her die, Lia can no longer tell where her murderous fantasies end and reality begins.

blacktail by scott hawkins
A wolf loses his mate to humans, and grief turns into a bloody quest for revenge.
But when Blacktail's fury catches the attention of an ancient feline witch, revenge becomes something much bigger. He may have the chance to awaken an ancient Forest God and help bring about the downfall of humanity.

Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison
It's the perfect destination wedding. Beautiful venue. Gorgeous weather. Love is in the air.
Unfortunately, Willa's ex-fiancé is there with someone else, and then the weekend starts repeating itself.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something bloody, something that keeps happening over and over again.

we are for the dark by gretchen mcneil
A missing-person investigation takes an FBI agent-turned-Catholic-priest and a young constable to a remote island off Newfoundland.

The two don't trust each other, but they're going to have to work together because something ancient, hungry, and very evil lives beneath the island.

assisted living by gianaclis caldwell
Margie Thermopolis just wants to survive her government job, retire with her four cats, and spend her days watching roller derby.

Instead, she's sent to inspect a fancy new assisted living facility built on the site where her little brother died fifty years earlier. Then an early blizzard traps everyone inside, and an ancient forest spirit decides it's time to settle some old scores.

September 3
suicide demon by c.w. anderson
The title pretty much tells you this one isn't here to play nice.

A supernatural horror story involving demons, death, and the sort of entity you really don't want answering when you call for help.

as the snow gathers by mere joyce
Aplin Shade is a remote Canadian town built on the bones of a settlement that vanished without a trace.

Dominic wants nothing more than to escape with Lex, the logger he secretly loves. But the forest is home to the Fanteur, shadowy beings who drain blood from the dead and return their bodies for burial. They've never attacked the living.

Until now.

September 8

Pictures of You by Josh Malerman
Emily wakes up in a beautiful room with no memory of how she got there.

A mysterious artist is watching. There's an empty picture frame waiting nearby. And Emily soon realizes she's become part of something she never agreed to.

All Hallows Eve
Nineteen original horror stories from some seriously impressive names in the genre, all centered around the traditions, history, and horrors of Halloween.

With stories from writers including Josh Malerman, Stephen Graham Jones, Garth Nix, John Langan, Nathan Ballingrud, and more, this is basically an entire haunted house full of nightmares in anthology form.

the raven by susan mccauley
A gothic horror steeped in mystery, darkness, and the lingering presence of the past.

McCauley's newest novel brings a supernatural edge to a story that promises secrets, danger, and the kind of atmosphere where you should probably avoid wandering around alone at night.

the exorcism of faeries by j. l. vampa
Faeries aren't always tiny winged creatures handing out flowers.

Sometimes they're ancient, dangerous, and very much in need of an exorcism.

This dark supernatural horror takes the familiar idea of faeries and gives it a much nastier twist.

our dark unraveling by margot mcgovern
Two roommates are devastated when their classmate and ex-boyfriend dies in a freak accident.

Then his ghost appears on campus.

As the haunting unfolds, the two women are forced to confront unfinished business, toxic relationships, and the things the dead aren't quite ready to leave behind.

the quiet resurrection of sister evelida livingston by nick wallin
Witchcraft was supposed to be a game.

Then teenagers start turning up dead.

When two teens are burned alive in a corn maze and ritualistic murders begin piling up, Sister Eve is called in. She can see echoes of the dead and glimpses of the future, which is probably not a particularly relaxing superpower.

darling by mercedes m. yardley
A dark Southern Gothic story filled with secrets, strange people, and the kind of beautiful darkness Yardley does so well.

This is one for readers who like their horror atmospheric, emotionally messy, and just a little bit wicked.

feed the tree by wendy dalrymple
In 1889 Florida, a young woman desperate to save her dying father turns to a swamp witch for help.

The witch can grant her wish, but there's one condition: she must lure unsuspecting men into the swamp and feed the tree.

Because apparently even magic comes with a payment plan

September 15
Rooted by Leopoldo Goût

Aurora returns to Mexico City to celebrate the return of stolen artifacts, including a mysterious statue of an Aztec god known as the Flayed One.
Then her memories start coming apart, reality begins to warp, and the god she thought was safely buried starts making its presence known.

Something of a Calling by Zoje Stage

Zoje Stage heads into ecohorror with a story that brings the natural world uncomfortably close to home.
When the investigation into a mysterious death pulls people into a world where nature isn't simply something to admire, the line between predator and prey starts getting very blurry.
Nature absolutely does not want you here.

A Thousand Monstrous Forms by Saratoga Schaefer

It's Bluebeard, but sapphic, gothic, romantic, and considerably more horrifying.
Artist Poppy Reed falls for wealthy art dealer Celia Marie Fox and moves into her lonely mansion, where the beautiful surroundings hide a very dark secret.
If your new wife has a creepy mansion and a mysterious locked room, maybe don't unpack your suitcase.

I Am the Monster Under the Bed by Emily Zinnikas

Something lives under Willa's bed.
As a child, that invisible creature taught her how to read. As an adult, Willa is a successful but reclusive painter and the controversial sole survivor of a massacre that killed six teenagers.
When she returns to her hometown, she finds the possessed forest that took her friends waiting for her.
September 22

our cut of salt by deena helm

Three generations of Palestinian women are drawn back to an ancestral home in Haifa haunted by secrets, ghosts, and a history that refuses to stay buried.
Marina returns to the house her grandmother was forced to leave, only to discover that the house remembers everything.
Some haunted houses are haunted by ghosts. Others are haunted by history.

Incarnate by Alma Katsu

Dorothy has spent her life wanting to be seen, so working for a company developing cutting-edge deepfake technology seems like a perfect opportunity.
Then she discovers that the company's technology can offer something far more dangerous than internet fame.
Think The Picture of Dorian Gray for the age of AI, with body horror and a Faustian bargain thrown in.
Be careful what you wish for, especially when the algorithm is listening.

kill your darlings by yuvashri Harish

Thulasi is babysitting on Halloween when a simple playdate accidentally summons a horde of monsters from a book of horror stories.
Even worse, the town's famous author, Addison Greer, has been summoned too, and she's got a revenge plan.
Now Thulasi and another unlucky teenager have until midnight to stop her.
in the woods they wait by carrie lee south

Fifteen years ago, Audrey's little brother disappeared in Devil's Den State Park.
Now she's a park ranger with expertise in wilderness search and rescue, and another child has vanished in those same woods.
The woods are lovely, dark, and apparently full of things that eat children.

Mazywood by Tananarive Due

In the 1920s, Mazelle Washington makes a wish for a friend and finds Scout, an extraordinarily intelligent dog who helps transform her into a Hollywood star.
Decades later, Mazelle's grandson Johnny takes his family to her remote California retreat, where the family discovers that fame, fortune, and wishes all came with a price.
Every family has secrets. Some families inherit monsters.

call off the dark by halliE shepherd

After her husband is murdered, Helen impulsively marries a near stranger and moves with him to an off-grid farmhouse in rural Washington.
She isn't exactly thriving in her new life, but then a mysterious stranger appears and starts disturbing the carefully constructed world she's built around herself.

crone by keith rosson

A father searching for his missing daughter finds himself pulled into a world of darkness that is both disturbingly human and something much worse.
When you're looking for someone you love, you don't always get to choose what you find.

insatiable by erica ridley

Catriona Cameron gets a scholarship to an elite boarding school on the Isle of Skye, where she's one of only six girls.
Then she's cursed with supernatural beauty, unpredictable powers, and an insatiable hunger for men who prey on women.
The more she feeds, the more powerful she becomes. Unfortunately, she's starting to wonder what she's becoming herself.

demonology for overachievers by lily anderson

Apparently summoning a demon isn't nearly as difficult as it should be.
All you need is a drop of blood, a birthday candle, and a name.
Which sounds like a perfectly reasonable extracurricular activity until the demon actually answers.

#vandeath by brian asman

A road trip, a van, and a hashtag that should probably have stayed offline.
This horror novel takes the increasingly questionable idea of documenting everything online and gives it a deadly turn.
sometimes i scare myself by jeneva rose

Three horror stories. A dinner party. A quiet house. A roadside stop.
In one story, a séance goes horribly wrong. In another, a family discovers their dream home has a terrifying history. And in the third, a roadside stop leads to something much darker than anyone expected.

hail mary by elizabeth urso

A horror story that takes a familiar phrase and sends it somewhere much darker.
Expect religious imagery, supernatural trouble, and the kind of situation where praying for help may not be enough.
roots & wrath by e.j. wenstrom

Once there were six witches.
Then they performed a secret ritual in the dark woods, and only five came back.
Eighteen years later, the death of their mentor forces the remaining witches together again, and they're bound to continue her work until their magical bond is broken by death.
Nothing brings old friends together like a dead mentor, unresolved trauma, and a magical curse.

September 26

it pierces by jack finn

Four Marine veterans. One hunting trip. One very pissed-off ancient evil.
When the men disturb something lurking in the Adirondacks, their weekend getaway becomes a fight for survival. Haunted by their violent past and hunted by a supernatural force, they quickly discover the woods remember what they did.

September 29

The Sisters of Crimson House by Melissa Anderson Sweazy

Charley Bryde comes from a long line of psychics, but she's the one woman in her family who didn't inherit the gift.
When tragedy leaves her responsible for Crimson House, she turns the family mansion into a haunted attraction and starts faking psychic readings to keep the family business alive.
Then something buried inside the house wakes up.

Nightjars by Michael Wehunt

A serial killer, vampire fiction, an unreliable narrator, and a man forced to confront the truth about his own life.
Wehunt's follow-up to The October Film Haunt promises something lean, nasty, and deeply unsettling.
Nothing says “I need to reevaluate my life” like realizing the monster might actually be you.

Something Followed Us Home by Cynthia Pelayo

This anthology of Latiné horror brings together stories inspired by folklore, superstition, legends, myth, fairy tales, and the things families whisper about when they think you're not listening.
Featuring writers from across the Latiné horror community, it's a collection about the stories that follow us, sometimes literally.
The Ship of Death by Kyle Winkler

Cole and Lorraine playtest board games for extra money, so when a mysterious tabletop game called The Ship of Death arrives on their doorstep, they figure it's just another job.
Then the game starts taking over their house, their minds, and eventually reality itself.
Told entirely through game reports, emails, journals, forum posts, and police reports, this is cosmic horror for anyone who's ever thought, “It's just a game.”

Jenny Will Eat You Now by Gillian Daniels

The title is a warning.
Jenny will, in fact, eat you now.
Beyond that, you're probably going to want to approach this one with an empty stomach and absolutely no assumptions about where the story is headed.
Trad Wife by Sarah Langan

The perfect domestic life can hide some very ugly things.
Langan takes the fantasy of the picture-perfect traditional household and turns it into something darker, sharper, and considerably more horrifying.
Nothing says “traditional family values” like screaming internally while pretending everything is fine.

Hollow Folk by Andrew K. Clark

Ethan takes a job as the night auditor at the aging Holloway Mountain Resort, expecting paperwork and a quiet paycheck.
Instead, mysterious lights appear over the Appalachian mountains, owl gargoyles come alive, every clock stops at 3 a.m., and Ethan realizes the hotel is actually a boundary holding something ancient in place.
Hotel California had nothing on this place. You can check in. Getting out is another matter.

the house of gardenias by Isabel Cañas

A gothic YA horror novel from the author of The Hacienda and The Possession of Alba Díaz.
A young woman returns to a house filled with family secrets, supernatural danger, and the sort of history that makes you wonder why anyone ever thought buying a creepy old mansion was a good idea.

And there you have it: a fantastic lineup of new horror books coming your way this September and we haven't even talked about October!

Which means there is absolutely no excuse for running out of things to read as we head into spooky season.

Whether you're craving gothic mansions, witches, monsters, haunted houses, folk horror, cosmic weirdness, slashers, or something that is going to make you stare suspiciously at your own basement, September has you covered.

Happy September, horror friends, and remember: if something in the basement calls your name, don't answer.

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Feature Fiction || The Bookmark by Eugene A. Stripe

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 23:08:00 +0000

Published August 16, 2026

What happens when a story refuses to end with the final page?

When a series of mysterious deaths draws Chicago detectives Andrew Hudginson and Ben Turner into an increasingly disturbing investigation, one object keeps appearing: a strange bookmark that looks different to everyone who sees it.

It reveals the reader’s deepest desire and seems to make it real. But every wish comes with a price.

As the investigation leads from present-day Chicago to the secrets of a British family and Damascus in 1330, Andy and Ben uncover the history of an object that has survived for centuries, waiting for its next reader.

Some books are meant to be read. Others are meant to find you.

Eugene A. Stripe writes psychological and supernatural thrillers where history is never merely background, the supernatural is never an escape, and every choice has consequences.

Review || All Her Ghosts by Cynthia Prith

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:22:00 +0000

Published July 7, 2026 by Union Square & Co.

Persephone Green doesn’t have a heartbeat. In a country where the dead has eerily lurked among the living for nearly two decades, even she knows its absence is not normal.

In place of her heart, something inhuman stirs, an ancient ocean she discovers twinned in the chest of Sebastian, the charmingly bizarre new student. When they’re together, they attract ghosts like a beacon, and when they kiss, white flowers bloom in the dead, autumn ground.

To exhume the truth, Persephone and Bas travel across the Midwest to the deserted facility where it all began. Pursued across state lines by writhing swarms of ghosts, militant government agents, and—maybe worst of all—her mother, they unspool a tangled web of conspiracies. At its center: a divine and devastating truth.

Forced to choose between an imperfect life that’s wholly hers or an otherworldly responsibility older than time, the echoes of Persephone's decision will alter the fates of all souls—living and dead—forever.

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I've read Cynthia Prith before and really enjoyed A Fairy Hunter's Guide for the Recently (Un)Dead, so I was excited to pick this one up.

The premise of All Her Ghosts is interesting, especially when Persephone discovers she has no heartbeat. The world-building was probably my favorite part. Ghosts aren't some rare, terrifying thing hiding in the shadows. They're just part of everyday life. People have figured out how to live with them, work around them, and use salt and iron to repel them. They even have Remnant Safety classes at schools.

Persephone comes across as a very sulky teenager. There are a lot of questions surrounding her and the world she's living in, and all the adults seem to be gaslighting her, her mom included. When she met Bas, her world brightened. The romance goes quickly from adorable to "I would die for you and also possibly die without you". I'm not a proponent of instalove romance, but there’s something sweet about the idea that these two always meant to find each other, especially when they’re both dealing with something so strange and isolating.

Once things get rolling, the pacing is very fast. There's no shortage of action, and some genuinely interesting ideas. While I was never bored, I did reach the end wanting a few more explanations. Overall though, I liked All Her Ghosts. The world-building and the idea of ghosts being an everyday part of life were unique, and all the secrets kept me curious. It wasn't a new favorite for me, but I had a good time with it.

Looking for more scary reads? Browse all of my horror book reviews.

Review || The Flesh King by Richard Kadrey

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 01:32:49 +0000

Published October 7, 2025 by Titan Books

Tilda, Ford and Neuland hit NYC to hunt a flesh-eating monster in this bloody, macabre and witty supernatural noir packed twists, turns, betrayals and showdowns. Perfect for fans of Cassandra Khaw, Nat Cassidy and Chuck Tingle.

Ford, Neuland and Tilda return home after the events of The Pale House Devil to try and make peace with the NYC crime syndicates. Then they’ll only be welcomed back if they take on a job for free – hunting down, and killing, The Flesh King, a gruesome killer who is stalking the city, leaving a macabre and bloody trail wherever he goes. Caught up in a twisted set of conspiracies and bloodletting, the monster hunters step up to do what they do best once more – take down the unstoppable evil.

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Richard Kadrey has never been an author I would describe as predictable. His books tend to involve strange people doing questionable tthings, an unhealthy amount of violence, and at least a few moments where I find myself thinking, What the hell did I just read? And that's exactly what I got with The Flesh King.

This is the second book in the Discreet Eliminators series, following The Pale House Devil, and Ford, Neuland, and Tilda are back. This time, they're hunting a killer who has been leaving a particularly nasty trail of mutilated bodies behind him.

I really like these three characters. They're such an odd group, and I enjoy the way Kadrey throws them together and lets their personalities bounce off each other. They're dangerous in their own ways, but they also have a weird sort of loyalty to one another that makes them fun to follow.

The investigation gets increasingly bizarre as the story goes along. Kadrey is good at taking something that starts out looking like a fairly straightforward murder investigation and turning it into something much stranger. There is plenty of blood and gore, naturally, but it's the strangeness that kept me interested.

My only real complaint is the length. This novella is tiny! The fast pace works for the story, but I would have liked more. More character development, more of the mythology, more time to explore the weirdness that Kadrey has created. I basically finished it and thought, Wait. That's it?

If you liked The Pale House Devil, you'll want to keep going with this series. It's dark, strange, bloody, and has the kind of twisted sense of humor I've come to expect from Kadrey. His books can be violent and bizarre without taking themselves too seriously, and The Flesh King is no exception.

Looking for more scary reads? Browse all of my horror book reviews.

This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming August 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Looking for the best new horror books releasing this month?

From gruesome creature features and terrifying haunted houses to gothic horror, vampire novels, supernatural thrillers, historical horror, and unsettling dark fantasy, this month's new horror releases offer plenty of ways to scare yourself silly.

So grab your reading list, lock the doors, and take a look at the horror books coming this month.

august 4

Meat Bees by Dane Erbach

Scarlett Sutton heads to the Smoky Mountains for a summer of family drama and a new job, but instead finds herself caught up in a true-crime mystery involving skeletonized corpses, missing coworkers, and a swarm of yellow jackets with a serious taste for human flesh. As Scarlett and her coworkers investigate a string of gruesome deaths, they discover that the mountain's biggest threat may be small, loud, and very, very angry.

the killing rules by bree despain

Harper Westbrook spends her summers like any normal teenager: cheering, falling for a boy, and killing terrible men with a throwing axe. As one of the Blood Bound, Harper has spent three years hiding a curse that gives her an irresistible bloodlust, but keeping her secret becomes much harder when the boy she loves starts investigating the mysterious death of his father, whom Harper killed in self-defense. As Grayson follows the clues into a hidden world of mythical beasts and monster-hunting men, Harper must stop him before he uncovers the truth and puts her family in danger.

august 11

Them by W.H. Chizmar

A government experiment designed to transport matter across the universe succeeds in bringing something back, but unfortunately, “something alive” turns out to be a very bad sign. When a mysterious shipping container crashes in New England, the alien creatures inside quickly turn humanity from the top of the food chain into a distant memory. Years later, a lone survivor travels through the ruins of the East Coast, searching for other humans while navigating a terrifying new world filled with monsters, isolation, and the ever-present question of whether there’s enough humanity left in anyone to save.

She Haunts Me Still by De Elizabeth

Mallory Webb heads to a former sanitarium turned college campus hoping for a fresh start, but instead finds herself cast as Juliet, haunted by the same blood-soaked wraith that killed her mother, and drawn into a mystery involving cryptic symbols, buried secrets, and a centuries-old bargain made during the New England vampire panic. As Mallory, her enigmatic director Ezra, and an understudy with an eerily similar past begin to uncover how their histories are connected, they find themselves caught in a tragic supernatural love story where Shakespeare's warning about violent delights may be less metaphor and more survival advice.

Saint Delilah by Isabelle Spotts

Delilah is dead, but she has one last thing to do before she can move on: find the man who murdered her and make sure he pays. Trapped between life and death, with terrifying creatures feeding on her suffering and her soul slowly slipping away, Delilah turns to Magda, a spirit medium, and a mysterious stranger who can see and feel her. Together, they must solve Delilah's murder before Halloween, when the veil between the living and the dead drops and she gets one final chance to walk among the living.

a plagued sea by kim bo young

When Mu-young boards a train toward an isolated seaside village during a massive earthquake, she thinks she is choosing the lesser of two evils. Three years later, that decision has left her trapped in a quarantined nightmare where an ancient plague has transformed villagers into fishy monsters, her niece is dead, and Mu-young hunts anyone who breaks isolation. But when a bureaucrat from Seoul arrives and starts stirring up trouble, the village's horrors begin to surface, forcing Mu-young to confront not only the monsters around her, but the question of whether she deserves to survive.

thorns by gregory bastianelli

When Dr. Monica Cucinotta is infected by a deadly contagion that causes thorns to erupt from the body, she is forced to leave the hospital where she has been fighting the pandemic on the front lines. As she crosses a darkened, devastated Italy in search of her loved ones, Monica encounters both the best and worst of humanity, forcing her to question everything she believes about science, faith, and survival.

august 18

Lights! Camera! Frendo! by Adam Cesare

Sabrina Alvarez goes from nobody to the star of a blockbuster movie about the Kettle Springs Massacre, stepping into the role of Quinn Maybrook, the ultimate Final Girl. But when she arrives in Kettle Springs, the town's violent history starts feeling less like movie material and more like a warning. With mysterious deaths piling up, an unhinged director calling the shots, and a community still fractured by tragedy and rage, Sabrina discovers that filming a horror movie in the town where the real horror happened might be a terrible idea.

Scary Movie Night by Miranda Smith

Tippi is ready for a fresh start after escaping her controlling ex, so what better way to celebrate her thirty-fifth birthday than with a lavish horror-movie-themed party in a secluded mansion? But when terrifying messages from her supposedly cross-country ex begin appearing and party guests start disappearing, Tippi realizes someone knows the secret she was determined to take to the grave. With deception closing in from every direction and the killer possibly hiding among her closest friends, Tippi must figure out who she can trust before the night ends.

The House That Eats the Dead by Max Doty

Claire thinks her family's new suburban home is the perfect fresh start, but the house has other plans. Flowers wilt, eggs are found hollow, toys disappear, and Claire soon realizes the impossible truth: the house is hungry, and it feeds on anything that was once alive. When she discovers she can use the house's power, Claire forms a dangerous bond with it, but as its appetite grows, so does the threat to everyone around her.

The Halls of the Dead by S. M. Hallow

In Victorian London, necromancer Irene Shallcross Haley has spent her life protecting forbidden magical knowledge alongside her undead husband, St. John. But when the woman she loves is hanged for witchcraft, Irene refuses to accept death as the end of their story and attempts the impossible: resurrecting Agnes. Unfortunately, Agnes returns with an appetite for raw flesh and a malignant ghost attached to her soul, leaving Irene to restore her lover's humanity while navigating complicated feelings, avoiding the man responsible for Agnes's death, and trying not to attract the attention of the authorities.

And the Sea Gave Up the Dead by William Friend

When Morwenna takes her family to visit her ailing aunt at a crumbling seaside chateau in France, she expects an uncomfortable week surrounded by grief, old family secrets, and a village convinced her aunt had something to do with her husband's disappearance. Instead, she discovers that the house is steeped in ancient magic, the land remembers what happened there centuries ago, and something that once died may be waiting to return. As the chateau begins to change her family, Morwenna must uncover the truth about her uncle's disappearance before the dark history of the house repeats itself.

sleeping sisters by jennifer givhan

Fortuna Miércoles has moved her family across the Rio Grande in hopes of escaping a generations-old curse, but the past is not so easily left behind. When a body turns up in her backyard and a killer known as the Reaper appears to be hunting women once again beneath the ominous Sleeping Sisters, Fortuna finds herself drawn into a deadly mystery alongside Detective Jeanette Palacio, who has spent decades pursuing the ghosts of the women she couldn't save.

these walls remember by del sandeen

When estranged sisters Mickie and Delilah inherit a house in Savannah, they plan to sell it, split the money, and go their separate ways. Unfortunately, the house has other plans, especially after the sisters ignore the ominous warning not to go into the attic. As the home's dark history begins bleeding into the present and Delilah's behavior grows increasingly disturbing, Mickie realizes selling the property is no longer an option. She must uncover what lurks inside 724 Hartford Street and save her sister before the house's hunger consumes them both.

tapeworm by a.p. thayer

When Victor heads to the isolated California desert town of Superstition for his friends' annual getaway, he hopes the trip will help him reconnect with the group and figure out who he is after separating from his wife. Instead, the friends stumble into a strange and seductive vampire infestation that feeds on their desires and threatens to turn their weekend of bonding into something much more sinister. As the town's mysterious Welcoming Committee draws Victor deeper into its orbit, he and his friends discover that Superstition's hospitality comes with a horrifying price.

a (dead) thing like me by e.g. young

Hot Dog is an invisible teenage ghost with a stitched-up mouth, a love of hot dogs with banana peppers, and a desperate desire to be seen as a real girl. When a Ouija board accidentally summons her to a Florida house party, she meets Logan, a grieving artist who can see her and wants to be her friend. But something sinister lurking inside Logan's house knows Hot Dog doesn't belong among the living and is determined to drag her back into the darkness.

back for blood: never whistle at night part ii

The team behind Never Whistle at Night is back with twenty-one brand-new stories from both established and emerging Indigenous writers, proving once again that horror is very much alive and ready to bite. From psychological terror and supernatural nightmares to gruesome monster hunts, Never Whistle at Night, Part Back for Blood explores both the horrors of the unknown and the everyday horror of living under colonialism.

Marla by Jonathan Janz

Every small town has a ghost story, but King's Branch has Marla Gorman. The reclusive young woman living in a creepy Gothic house is rumored to be a prisoner, a witch, or something even stranger. When two men are murdered and Detective Carl Lancaster spots Marla at the exact moment of each death, he becomes convinced she's connected to the killings. Meanwhile, a social worker with a mysterious connection to Marla and a lonely college student are drawn into her orbit, unaware of the terrifying truth about the woman at the center of the town's legends.

ghosts of chanterlands by catherine cavendish

In 1940, Pamela Courtney is evacuated to Chanterlands, the home of her Jilly and Bunny, expecting a summer away from the dangers of war. Instead, she finds a lonely ghost haunting the room where she sleeps and a sinister secret hidden in the neglected attic of the once-grand house. But as the summer unfolds, Pamela discovers that the greatest danger at Chanterlands may not be the war raging beyond its walls, but the dark history lurking inside them.

august 21

Candlelight by d. l. Tolin

In 1986, children across Beaumont, Texas, begin disappearing without a trace, lured away by the mysterious light of candles only they can see. When fifteen-year-old Matthew Dean accidentally tears open a gateway to the world of the fae, he brings something ancient and hungry back with him, forcing his secretive witch mother to confront the history she's spent centuries hiding. As a skeptical detective investigates the growing number of missing children, reality itself begins to unravel around him.

august 25

Blood Rising by Markus Redmond

Kwadzo Okoro has helped build a new Ramanga tribe and establish the Crimson Plantation as a haven for formerly enslaved Africans and their Native allies, but freedom is anything but secure. As powerful slaveholders rally the surrounding community against them, a sun-walking vampire builds an army of her own, and Kwadzo's own blood father turns against him, the fragile rebellion is pushed toward an all-out war.

The Burn Line by Jonathan Sims

London is sweltering, the Underground is unbearable, and five strangers on one unlucky Tube carriage are about to have a very bad day. When a horrific event leaves them with fractured memories and a shared connection they can't explain, a weary driver, disillusioned civil servant, ambitious trader, overwhelmed hotel worker, and unhoused young man must put aside their differences to figure out what happened before the heat, the city, and whatever is coming for them become impossible to survive.

The Unheld by Luke Larkin

Twelve-year-old Charlie is used to a lonely life in the woods, spending her days helping her unpredictable father skin the strange animals he hunts. But when the forest's already bizarre creatures begin growing even stranger and a nightmarish beast drags her father into the wilderness, Charlie sets out to find him with the help of an occult-connected Englishman and a disgraced Northern Cheyenne policeman. As the unlikely trio prepares to face the monster, Charlie must decide whether the father who has always kept her at arm's length is worth saving.

the woods by jessica hamilton

After the devastating death of her teenage daughter, Alice moves her family from the city to a secluded bungalow beside ancient woods, hoping a fresh start will help them heal. But the house comes with a horrifying history: years earlier, a woman murdered her family after claiming they had been replaced by imposters and that her real family had been taken by the woods. As Alice's family begins to fracture and strange figures appear outside, her husband disappears into the forest and returns hours later wearing different clothes with no memory of what happened. Soon, Alice must figure out whether grief and stress are playing tricks on her or whether something ancient and malevolent is reaching out from the trees.

The Devil Knows Her Name by C.N. Vair

In the isolated Appalachian town of Burrsville, Tess Wynne has spent a century protecting her wildlife sanctuary and the delicate balance between nature and humanity after making a deal with the devil to remain in the only home she's ever known. Every autumn, the devil returns with an offer of more power, and every autumn, Tess refuses. But when a new pastor arrives and begins turning the townspeople against her while setting his sights on her sanctuary, Tess is forced to push her ancient magic toward its darkest limits.

The I Scream Truck by I.M. Eerie

John knows curiosity can be dangerous, but that has never stopped him from poking his nose where it doesn't belong. So when the neighborhood ice cream truck suddenly changes from the cheerful Mr. Dandy's to the sinister Mr. Twisty's horror-themed vehicle, John can't help but investigate. Why did Mr. Dandy supposedly retire to Florida? Why is Mr. Twisty making mysterious deliveries to the neighbors at two in the morning? The deeper John digs, the more he realizes that this new ice cream man may be serving up something much more disturbing than dessert.

netherwood by jake arnott

After moving from London to Hastings in hopes of saving their strained marriage, Justine and Adam discover a bolted door in the basement that leads to a mysterious cave containing a witch bottle. Their curiosity draws them into the dark history of the house's previous owner, a chaos-magic-obsessed musician with alleged ties to blood magic and the occult. Despite warnings to leave ancient rituals alone, Adam opens the bottle, unleashing a sinister chain of events that sends his artistic obsession spiraling into something unnatural while Justine is haunted by screams from beneath the house. As she becomes pregnant and people in town begin disappearing or turning up dead, Justine must untangle the truth from the supernatural before the ghosts of the past, and a dark sacrificial ritual, claim them both.

the night pool by lauren lee smith

In the Gold Rush town of Coloma, California, three women from very different worlds are drawn together after witnessing something terrible lurking in the Night Pool. As mining men are brutally murdered one by one and violence threatens to consume the town, Clara, Mei, and Haloke must set aside their differences and join forces against the monsters and men endangering their lives.

The sunken, the adored by Donyae Coles

When Mercy arrives in 1700 Venice as the sole survivor of a slave ship, she carries little more than a letter, a mysterious camera, and a desperate need to build a new life. Her path leads her to an anatomist, a decadent aristocratic household, and an unexpected career photographing the dead, giving her a taste of freedom and a new circle of friends. But something dark and hungry has followed her across the sea and now stalks the canals of Venice, threatening everyone Mercy has come to care about.

So, which of these new horror releases will be joining your TBR? Whatever you choose, I hope you find something perfectly horrifying to read this month.

Happy August, horror friends. Keep the lights on, lock the doors, and absolutely do not investigate that weird noise upstairs.

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13 Body Horror Books To Make Your Skin Crawl | Scaredy Cat Reading Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:46:00 +0000

Few things are as terrifying as changing from the inside out.

Body horror is one of the most unsettling corners of the horror genre because it takes something familiar, our own bodies, and turns it into something frightening. These stories explore transformation, infection, mutation, obsession, and the terrifying possibility that the thing we trust most can become something we no longer recognize.

From grotesque physical changes to unsettling questions about identity and humanity, these thirteen books deliver nightmares that linger long after the final page.

Welcome to "Under the Skin" books for the Body Horror prompt in the Scaredy Cat Reading Challenge: a year-round horror reading challenge designed to help readers discover every corner of the horror genre.

Looking for the best body horror books? Check out 13 disturbing horror novels featuring mutations, parasites, transformations, and terrifying changes to the human body.

This post is part of the Scaredy Cat Reading Challenge, a year-round horror reading event featuring prompts inspired by monsters, subgenres, and spooky settings. Browse all of the prompts to discover your next terrifying read.

New to the Scaredy Cat Reading Challenge? You can join in at any time and complete the prompts at your own pace.

What Is Body Horror?

Body horror is a subgenre of horror that explores the fear of the human body changing, breaking down, or transforming in disturbing ways.

These stories often feature:

Mutations and physical transformations
Parasites and infestations
Deadly viruses and infections
Medical experiments gone wrong
Disease and decay
Monstrous anatomy

13 BODY Horror Books for the Scaredy Cat Reading Challenge

Nothing Tastes as Good by Luke Dumas

A miracle weight-loss drug promises a new body—because what could possibly go wrong?

Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle

A grave robber finds out that sometimes dead celebrities really do make comebacks.

youthjuice by E.K. Sathue

The secret to eternal youth is probably disgusting. This book confirms it.

wolfworm by t. kingfisher

The story blends classic Southern Gothic vibes with historical fiction and elements of folklore, oh, and botflies.

Afterbirth by Emma Cleary

Pregnancy is already body horror. This book asks: what if it got worse?

you weren't meant to be human by andrew joseph white

A deeply unsettling exploration of identity, transformation, and the possibility that “human” was never the right label to begin with.

Wife Shaped Bodies By Laura Cranehill

Fungal growths, forced conformity, and the horrifying realization that being a “good wife” may involve considerably more body horror than advertised.

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

One exhausted mom discovers that motherhood may be turning her into an actual animal.

Hazelthorn C.G. Drews

Gothic horror, unsettling transformations, and the creeping suspicion that everything is about to get significantly worse.

Itch! by Gemma Amor

It starts with an itch. Unfortunately, it does not end with simply scratching it.

Queen of Teeth by hailey piper

A woman grows teeth in places where teeth absolutely do not belong. Dentistry has officially entered its villain era.

Chlorine by Jade Song

Competitive swimming, mermaid obsession, and the desire to become something other than human.

Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison

A woman gets attacked by a mysterious creature and discovers that anger issues can be very literal.

Continue the Scaredy Cat Reading Challenge

Finished your body horror read?

Keep the scares coming by exploring more prompts from the Scaredy Cat Reading Challenge. From haunted houses and witches to ecohorror, gothic fiction, and creature features, the challenge is designed to help horror fans discover new books throughout the year.

Every prompt is another excuse to add terrifying books to your TBR—and another chance to find your next favorite horror novel.

You might also enjoy:

🧙 The Witching Hour — Witch horror featuring curses, covens, and dark magic.
🏰 Crumbling Castle — Gothic horror where haunted places hold terrifying secrets.
🌲 Grimm Dark — Fairy tale retellings that embrace the horror hidden in classic stories.
🌕 Howl at the Moon — Werewolf horror exploring the monster within.

This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming July 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 16:30:00 +0000

July is here, which means longer days, warmer nights, and a whole new crop of horror books ready to ruin your sleep schedule. Whether you want ghosts, monsters, dark fantasy, weird fiction, folk horror, or a little bloodbath with your summer reading, there’s plenty to keep your TBR pile growing.

So grab your sunscreen, lock your doors, and let's take a look at the horror books coming your way in July.

July 7
Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle

When fashion influencer and grave robber Poppy Stringer is tasked with retrieving the body of flamboyant rockstar and queer icon Eddie Michaels from the medical examiner’s office, things take a decidedly unexpected turn when the corpse wakes up.

From there? A blood-soaked trip through Palm Springs, supernatural chaos, and a whole lot of fabulousness.

Brokeula by Michael J. Seidlinger

James Sugre has lived for centuries, but he’s never been this broke. After bad investments, missed crypto trends, and spending most of his time in his coffin because he can’t afford to go out, this vampire is ready to try anything to escape capitalism. So naturally, he starts a business turning humans into vampires for cash. Immortality is forever. Unfortunately, so are the bills.

The Brides by Charlotte Cross

Before Dracula, there were the Brides. Told across two timelines through letters, diaries, and psychiatric reports, this gothic retelling puts the women at the center of literature’s most famous vampire story. As love, illness, nightmares, and a mysterious man in black draw four women toward Transylvania, one question hangs in the air: There were meant to be four.

The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley

Paris, 1869. A coven of vampires runs a theater, follows a strict no-killing-too-many-people policy, and has somehow managed to keep the immortal drama onstage. But with a witch, rival vampires, forbidden attraction, ominous visions, and revolution brewing in the streets, their carefully managed eternity is about to get very messy.

Caught in the In-Between by Alyson Hasson

Two friends. One Ouija board. One massive secret that threatens to tear everything apart.

Honestly, this is exactly why we should stop playing with Ouija boards. Yet somehow, we never learn, do we?

Fun Times at the Bloodbath by Jeff Strand

The most addictive video game ever made—and the only way to stop playing is to die. When Margo’s brother becomes one of the game’s victims, she sets out to expose the people behind it before the game launches nationwide. Unfortunately, Fun Times at the Bloodbath has other plans, and soon the entire country is playing. Game over? More like game over for everyone.

All Her Ghosts by Cynthia Prith

Persephone Green doesn’t have a heartbeat—but she does have something ancient and inhuman stirring where her heart should be. When she meets the equally strange Sebastian, ghosts begin swarming around them, flowers bloom from the dead, and the two are pulled into a cross-country conspiracy involving a deserted facility, government agents, and Persephone’s deeply inconvenient mother. A supernatural road trip, a love story, and a battle over the fate of the living and the dead? No heartbeat, no problem.

July 14

Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die by Mallory Arnold

Three women. One cheating boyfriend. One remote, snow-covered cabin. When their revenge plan ends with their shared ex dead, the getaway turns into a locked-room murder mystery—with the killer trapped inside. As suspicion, secrets, and the freezing wilderness close in, the women must figure out whether one of them is a murderer… or if something much worse is waiting outside. Couples' retreat? More like a killer retreat.

Home Sick by Rhiannon Grist

After a violent incident at work, Tamsin escapes to a remote cottage for a fresh start. Unfortunately, her new home is actually semi-detached, and the unsettling woman on the other side of the wall seems to be hiding something. As strange disturbances begin in Tamsin’s house and locals share disturbing stories about the property, her paranoia starts to spiral. The perfect cottage getaway is just one thin wall away from becoming a nightmare.

Scary Movie Night by Miranda Smith

A horror-movie-themed birthday party at a secluded mansion? What could possibly go wrong? When Tippi starts receiving threatening messages from her supposedly cross-country ex and her guests begin disappearing one by one, she realizes the killer may be closer than she thinks—and the secret she buried may be the reason everyone is in danger. The call is coming from inside the house.

The Sea Hides Its Dead by Megan Bontrager

A group of academics descends into sea caves to study an ancient Cult of the Leviathan. Then the entrance collapses, trapping them underground with strange artifacts, scattered bones, and an ancient trial they never agreed to take. One by one, they’ll be forced to confront their greatest sins. Atone or die.

White Rabbit by Abigail Rose-Marie

Eleven-year-old Penelope is already haunted by her father’s disappearance and her mother’s grief when she moves into a yellow house once owned by Sylvia Plath. Then Plath’s ghost begins to appear. As poetry, memory, and reality start to blur, Penelope must figure out whether she’s being haunted by a ghost—or by grief itself. Sometimes the house isn’t the only thing falling apart.

Fear Files: Hide and Seek by Christopher Edge

Nobody knows who created the Darkive—a mysterious database of firsthand accounts documenting ghosts, paranormal entities, and unexplained anomalies. When Adam and his best friend, Sol, stumble into a strange abandoned town during a disastrous camping trip, they’re forced to play a game of hide-and-seek. The rules are confusing, the town is empty, and something is definitely hiding with them. Ready or not, here it comes.

July 15

My Monsters Ain't like yours by r.j. Joseph

Monsters are personal—but they’re also universal. This collection explores the ways horror helps us examine monstrosity, from who gets labeled a monster to what those labels reveal about ourselves. Because while our monsters may look different, our nightmares have more in common than we think. My monsters aren’t like yours. They’re worse.

July 21

Carry Me to My Grave by Christopher Golden

When Malcolm’s dying mother makes him promise to carry her body back to her birthplace in Maine, he expects a difficult journey—not a supernatural road trip through a world waking up to collect an old debt. As violence erupts aboard the train and ancient evils emerge from their hiding places, Malcolm and Violet must get Maggie home before everything buried comes looking for her.

Unnamed Bones by Lora Senf

Sixteen-year-old Harrow Lane travels to an island that shouldn’t exist to uncover the truth about her father’s death—and the curse he accidentally gave her at birth. Then the boat sinks, something in the darkness starts laughing, and Harrow discovers that the island has rules she doesn’t understand, creatures that don’t want her there, and absolutely no way to call for help. Add in emotions with human faces, a monster made of pure terror, and the possible end of the world, and you’ve got Inside Out in hell—with significantly worse coping mechanisms.

We Sent Them Down Singing by Libby Edwardson

Thirteen years after her mother vanished, Phinnie “Skinny” Caldwell is still haunted by nightmares of the last time she saw her alive. When the man responsible, Zell Dorsey, returns to their small West Virginia coal camp, Skinny is determined to uncover the truth. But behind Zell’s charming smile lurks something far older—and far more monstrous than the devil himself. Appalachian grief, dark secrets, and oil-slicked monsters? Pass the sweet tea.

The Winter Folk by Jen Julian

Moth knows the Winter Folk are dangerous. Her mother warned her. But when she’s broke, desperate, and offered a housekeeper’s contract at Deerhaven—a secret Appalachian lodge where every winter guest is something other than human—she signs anyway. Decades later, Moth returns to the place that banished her, haunted by memories of the antlered Mr. Oslin, the friends she left behind, and the obsession that may have cost her everything.

Funerals Are for the Living by Sami Ellis

After a car crash leaves Junie Daniels with a dead sister, fragmented memories, and a mother too checked-out to plan a funeral, the cheapest grave plot she can find is in a nearby town with a dark history and rumors of even darker magic. When strange things begin happening at the cemetery, Junie and her best friend Omari investigate, only to discover that Williamsville wants both Daniels sisters. And Junie will do anything to protect her sister—even if she’s already dead.

A Fate Worse Than Drowning by Sarah L. Hawthorn

A year ago, Elle made a deal with the devil to save her sister. Now she tends a lighthouse on a desolate island, luring ships to their destruction to pay the price. But when the devil demands more—and a mysterious woman washes ashore—Elle must choose between sacrificing another ship, breaking her sister’s heart, or losing her own soul. Turns out, the devil really does come with hidden fees.

July 28

A Penance for Crows by Shannon Morgan

On a remote Irish island ruled by the church and haunted by old superstitions, eccentric painter Grizela Urquhart has spent forty years as an outsider. Then a young priest is found dead with a diabolical symbol carved into his chest, crows darken the skies, and demonic whispers begin invading Grizela’s mind. As the island descends into hysteria, Grizela must protect the four young girls under her care while confronting the dark secrets lurking beneath Beanna Dubh.

It's Under the Deck by Jacy Morris

Phil discovers something dying under his deck emitting a horrid stench. When he attempts to remove the corpse, strange things begin to happen, and Phil descends into a strange pit of insanity.

The Séance Garden by Juliet Blackwell

The Hook: Professor Harper Grae studies ghosts, witches, and the occult, but she absolutely does not believe in any of them. Then a cheesy ghost tour leads her to a real murder at a nearly two-hundred-year-old mansion, where she sees something she cannot explain. When Harper discovers another woman was murdered beneath the same cypress tree almost two centuries earlier, she begins to wonder if the Perles Mansion is truly haunted. Turns out, the best way to ruin a skeptic’s day is with a murder and a ghost.

Hail Holy Queens by Chris McGinley

It’s 1887, and the nuns of an isolated Berkshire convent have enough prayers, hard work, and homemade Italian amaro to keep them busy. Then a pack of monstrous Gulo descends from the mountains and attacks the convent. After killing one of the beasts, the sisters decide the best defense is a good offense and head into the snowy wilderness to hunt the rest.

Luckily, they have help from the mysterious Long Nun, a warrior-saint from France who claims to have killed werewolves and other vicious creatures. She teaches the sisters to embrace their darker instincts and unleash their inner savages. Nuns with crossbows, monsters in the snow, and a holy war fueled by amaro? Amen.

July 29

Ripped Up the Middle in Two by Viggy Parr Hampton

New mom Sadie is already struggling with the loss of her identity, autonomy, and sleep when a walk with her three-month-old daughter reveals a secret trail in the woods. At the end is a tiny door surrounded by tiny bones. The trail only appears when Sadie is alone, and something is waiting on the other side. Because apparently motherhood needed one more terrifying thing to worry about.

Calliope Street by Josh Hanson

Jack and Avery think they’ve found the perfect fixer-upper. The strange collage of pornographic clippings in the basement is weird, but probably just part of the house’s quirky charm. Then the house wakes up. Now the walls are bleeding, the house is alive, and it demands homage. Nothing says “dream home” like a sentient house with artistic ambitions and a taste for blood.

July 30

The Wetworks Miracle by Caleb Sierra

Humanity escaped a dying world through a mysterious gate, only to end up dependent on the Root, a strange plant that provides the food they need to survive. Then a bloody accident creates a new kind of person, and suddenly the Root has something to say. It wants to give humanity a miracle, even if that miracle means transforming their bodies in ways they never asked for. The Root is listening. The Root is whispering. And apparently, the Root has plans for your body.

The summer of 2026 is bringing a seriously eclectic lineup of horror. We have ghosts, witches, vampires, Ouija boards, haunted homes, folk horror, body horror, sea monsters, mysterious bones, and at least one thing hiding under a deck.

In other words: the horror TBR is thriving.

Happy July, horror friends. May your month be full of good books, bad decisions, and absolutely no mysterious figures at the foot of your bed.

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Review || I Am The Monster Under Your Bed by Emily Zinnikas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:34:00 +0000

I Am The Monster Under Your Bed by Emily Zinnikas
Published September 15th 2026 by St. Martins Press

Something lives under Willa’s bed. As an adult, her fondest childhood memories are of the invisible entity under her bed who taught her how to read. Now thirty-two, Willa is a reclusive but successful painter until a bombshell news report exposes her identity as the controversial survivor of the unsolved Rapture Mystery Slayings, a small-town tragedy that splashed across headlines during her senior year of high school. Six teenagers died in the woods while Willa walked free, and everyone thinks she killed them.

When an old classmate calls about a funeral, Willa reluctantly travels to her sleepy hometown, where the possessed forest that stole her friends looms. The trees whistle for her attention, but she knows better than to listen. And the unexplained knocking from the shadows in the basement of her decaying childhood home is honestly the least of her problems.

As her past pulls her back to the place where she swore she’d never return, Willa is drawn toward the monster she left behind—and becoming the villain her hometown has always believed her to be.

Add to Goodreads

I Am the Monster Under the Bed is an ambitious debut that dreams big, and Zinnikas has some nightmares to share.

There is a lot happening here: multiple plot threads, timelines folding in on each other, flashbacks woven throughout, and there are definitely moments where it gets in its own way.

Willa is an unreliable narrator with survivor's guilt. She's impulsive, possibly a little bonkers, and has childhood trauma dragging her down as well. I actually liked her a lot.

The supernatural elements left me wanting more. The rules of the monster-verse, in particular, were fuzzy. I kept wanting Zinnikas to slow down and really let the weirdness breathe. Maybe that filling-in-the-blanks is why it works in the end though. (I'm also leaving this review a little vague to not give anything away.)

It has the kind of finale that makes you sit with the book closed for a second because you didn't see it coming, but it lands exactly right. Surprising, yet satisfying in equal measure, which is pretty difficult to pull off for a debut novel.

Despite the chaos of the middle, even the monster under the bed thinks the ending was worth the wait.

This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming June 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 22:53:00 +0000

June is bringing us zombies, vampires, serial killers, sinister fairy tales, and weird westerns to keep the TBR pile growing at an irresponsible rate.

Whether you're looking for something bloody and brutal, something really strange, or a book that makes you wonder why you ever thought the woods were a good place to visit, June has you covered.

Here are some of the best new horror books coming your way this month.

June 1

Grief Eater by Emma Osborne

When Kristina rises from her violent death, she's no longer the woman her family abandoned. She's angry, powerful, and very, very hungry. Her undead road trip takes her across Australia's scorched landscape as she searches for vengeance, answers, and perhaps a little closure.

A gory, queer zombie novella about grief, rage, found family, and what happens when the dead decide they're not finished yet.

Try Not to Die: In Slattery Falls by Brennan LaFaro

Welcome to Slattery Falls, home to a haunted house that has been watching, waiting, and feeding for years.
This interactive horror adventure puts you in the driver's seat. Every decision matters, and most of those decisions will probably get you horribly murdered.
There are more than a dozen ways to die, but only one path to survival.

June 2

Backstabbers by Eliza Jabore

When three best friends get lost in the woods, they discover that surviving the wilderness might be easier than surviving each other. Backstabbers puts friendship under the world's most stressful pressure cooker: a slasher movie.
Expect blood, bad decisions, shifting loyalties, and the uncomfortable realization that your best friend knows exactly where to stick the knife.

June 9

The Sourdough Compendium: Dark and Dangerous Fairy Tales by A.G. Slatter

If you've read A.G. Slatter before, you already know her fairy tales aren't exactly the sort you'd want to read to children at bedtime.
This collection gathers stories from the dark gothic world of The Sourdough universe, featuring witches, assassins, pirates, monsters, and all manner of terrible people.
Basically, it's fairy tales for people who prefer their happily-ever-afters with considerably more bloodshed, like all the good fairy tales do.

It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo

Set during World War I, Wendy Darling is now an adult working as a teacher and helping soldiers returning from the Western Front. But when children begin disappearing again, Wendy starts to suspect that the nightmare she thought she'd escaped as a child has returned.

Peter Pan meets It in this dark, bloody reimagining of Neverland.

June 16

Women of the Weird West edited by KC Grifant

Women of the Weird West brings together stories from women and marginalized-gender authors, taking the classic Western and giving it a supernatural makeover. Expect ghosts, monsters, fae, magic, strange worlds, and plenty of women who aren't interested in playing the damsel-in-distress.

June 19

Teeth by Dana Isaly

Poe has moved into her mother's old house in the Appalachian mountains, hoping to sort through her belongings and finally move forward.

Instead, she finds strange journal entries, disturbing photographs, warnings, and the growing feeling that something in the woods is watching her.

And apparently the number one rule of this particular nightmare is: if you hear something, no you don't.

June 23

Tillinghast by Clare Cavenagh

Stutley Tillinghast is a quiet minister living in rural Rhode Island.
He's also been killing people and burying them in his cellar for decades.

When a desperately ill nineteen-year-old woman arrives claiming to be related to him, Stutley discovers that she has symptoms eerily similar to his own. Suddenly his carefully isolated existence gets considerably more complicated.

A slow-burning literary vampire story with gothic atmosphere, family secrets, and one very reluctant monster.

The Infested by Renée Lake

The American frontier wasn't won. It was surrendered to the monsters.
In 1900, a cursed stretch of the American frontier is crawling with ghosts, monsters, and ancient things that should have stayed buried. Desdemona's family has survived there for generations behind magical wards.
But after her mother's death, her father's disappearance, and the arrival of a mysterious shadow creature, their safe little sanctuary starts looking considerably less safe.

Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume Four edited by Alex Woodroe

The fourth volume of Brave New Weird brings together twenty-three stories showcasing some of the strangest, most inventive horror around. Expect speculative horror, genre mashups, grotesque ideas, experimental storytelling, and plenty of things that don't fit neatly into a little genre box.

June 26

Crater Girl by Polly Schattel

Polly Schattel returns with Crater Girl, a genre-bending novel mixing dark fantasy, noir, and horror with a distinctly Southern flavor.
It's a strange, satirical look at the modern South, and Schattel describes it as a "genre-inclusive" novel.

June 28

The Echo of Monsters by David H. Rankin

The Echo of Monsters promises another dive into the darker corners of horror, making it one to keep an eye on if your preferred reading material involves things that probably shouldn't exist and definitely shouldn't be making noises in the dark.

June 30

Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay

Julia Flang is a former professional gamer who gets hired by a massive tech company to escort a man in a vegetative state across the country. The catch? There's an artificial intelligence implanted in his head.
A near-future technological horror story that gets increasingly more uncomfortable the more you think about it.

The Summer of the Serpent by Cecilia Eudave

Welcome to Guadalajara in the summer of 1977, where children encounter ghosts, monsters, strange adults, a serpent girl in a carnival glass box, and all the little horrors that hide beneath ordinary life.

June is shaping up to be a seriously weird month for horror.

We've got angry zombies, murderous friends, evil fairy tales, haunted frontiers, vampires pretending not to be vampires, AI nightmares, and enough monsters to populate several small towns.
There's something weird here for everyone.
Happy June, horror friends. May your summer reading be hot, your drinks be cold, and your nightmares be someone else's problem.
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This Month in Horror: The Best New Horror Books Coming in May 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 May 2026 00:28:00 +0000

May is bringing us a respectable amount of bad news in book form.
We've got haunted places, human experimentation, sinister spirits, strange festivals, monstrous transformations, twisted fairy tales, gothic nightmares, and enough questionable life choices performed by unreliable narrators to keep the horror shelves fully stocked.
Here are some of the horror books I'm most excited about coming out this month.

If you want to see everything coming in 2026, check out my This Year in Horror 2026 release calendar.

May 5

She Waits Where Shadows Gather by Michelle Tang

Some places feel wrong before you can explain why. She Waits Where Shadows Gather promises the kind of unsettling horror where the shadows themselves may be the least of your problems.
If atmospheric, creeping dread is your thing, this one belongs on the May TBR.

I Know A Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy

Nat Cassidy is taking us on a road trip and he's not stopping by the World's Biggest Ball of Twine.
This collection brings together Rest Stop and a dozen other dark detours, sending readers through suspicious rest stops, creepy offices, haunted kitchens, bizarre apartments, and other places where you shouldn't be alone after dark.

Accumulation by Aimee Pokwatka

Tennessee Cherish thought moving into her dream house would be a fresh start. Cute house, new town, happy family.
The kids start acting weird. Her husband is never home. And the house has a few quirks, including a faucet that runs on its own, a creepy doll that keeps appearing in different rooms, and, a human tooth in the floorboards.
Then things get really weird. The family starts repeating everyday actions over and over, with each loop becoming more dangerous than the last.
Tenn needs to figure out what the hell is happening in her new home before the house finishes what it started.

May 8

The Blood Year Daughter by G.G. Silverman

The Blood Year Daughter is a collection of fairytale horror stories filled with murderous brides, strange transformations, ghosts, witches, snakes, revenge, and women who are absolutely done playing by the rules.
Silverman's debut collection mixes horror, magical realism, and twisted fairy tales into something that sounds like it crawled out of a very dark corner of the Brothers Grimm.

May 12

Muntu by Eugen Bacon

Eugen Bacon brings her particular brand of unsettling speculative fiction to Muntu, a book that promises to be strange, atmospheric, and decidedly not interested in making you comfortable.
This is one for readers who like their horror with a literary edge and plenty of things lurking beneath the surface.

Abyss by Nicholas Binge

Joe always had potential. He just doesn't expect much from himself, so when he lands a low-key admin assistant job at a company he's never heard of, he's hoping it won't expect much from him either.
Then he walks into the offices of Ponos.
Turns out, potential is exactly what they're looking for.

Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun by Mónica Ojeda

Two friends head into the Andes for an eight-day music festival at the foot of a volcano. There's mysticism, underground music, altered states, an ancient landscape, and a girl who starts speaking in a voice that isn't her own.
Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun blends psychological horror, supernatural elements, psychedelic imagery, and Indigenous Andean traditions into something wonderfully strange.

Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey

Celia is lonely, grieving, and desperate to belong, so she heads to the mysterious Kindred Cove for its annual Salt Festival. The community promises healing, transformation, and a life without grief.
Sarah Gailey's latest sounds like the perfect combination of creepy island community, questionable self-improvement, and the horrifying realization that maybe becoming a better version of yourself has a price.

Femme Feral by Sam Beckbessinger

Is it menopause or lycanthropy?
Femme Feral promises a wild, vicious take on womanhood, transformation, and the things lurking just beneath the surface.

May 19

The Dorians by Nick Cutter

Five people are invited to a remote island in the Canadian wilderness with an offer that sounds almost too good to be true: stop aging. Maybe even reverse it.
The secret to restoring their youth comes from an ancient biological agent with one very simple goal: survive.
What could possibly go wrong?
I hope their aren't any turtles. IYKYK.

Decomposition Book by Sara van Os

Savannah retreats to her parents' empty lake house after a disastrous falling-out with her best friend. She's drinking, overthinking, and generally spiraling when she wakes up in the woods beside a dead body. Turns out she's the best friend Savannah could ask for.

The Temptation of Charlotte North by Camilla Bruce

In 1910, Charlotte North lives on a remote island where an ancient tower has been standing guard over something that really should have stayed imprisoned.
Then the tower collapses.
The Temptation of Charlotte North combines gothic horror, dark fantasy, an isolated island, a sinister spirit, and a woman discovering just how dangerous getting what you want can be.

Salomé by Leslie Baird

A dark, strange take on an old story? Yes, please.
Salomé puts a familiar figure into a horror setting and promises to give this particular tale some teeth.

Filth Eaters by Ito Romo

In 1849, vampire Radamés discovers that New World vampires get to live a little more like humans. They marry. They have children. They actually get to build lives. Naturally, he wants that for himself.
His search takes him to Mexico, where he falls for a member of the ancient Filth Eaters and fathers a new kind of vampire. From there, the story jumps across centuries, mixing vampires with empire, greed, climate change, and the very human need to find someone to love.
May 26

House of Margins by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Anaya Sebeya is a brilliant young writer who disappears after attending a prestigious writing residency at Günter Huis, an eerie colonial mansion on Devil’s Peak.
Years later, her sister Ranewa becomes obsessed with a true-crime podcast claiming to reveal what happened to Anaya. As she listens, she starts piecing together a much stranger and more horrifying story.
Because at Günter Huis, Anaya wasn't just struggling to write. The house was getting inside her head, twisting time and reality and demanding a story that apparently wasn't meant to be told.

Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen

It’s 1635, the Thirty Years’ War is tearing through Bavaria, and Ursula, a runaway nun, and Elsebeth, a peasant, are hiding from marauding soldiers in the forest.
Then they find a gilded saint’s skull.
Legend says that reunite the skull with the saint’s body and you get a wish. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones interested in the relic. A necromancer wants it, the saint starts whispering at night, and the magic comes with a price.

Teddy Bears Never Die by Cho Yeeun

A deadly cyanide poisoning kills Hwa-young's mother, but Hwa-young doesn't believe it was an accident. Determined to find the person responsible, she takes whatever work she can get to save enough money to hire a hitman.
Hwa-young is about to become the next victim when a grubby teddy bear starts talking to her.
Now the two team up to uncover the truth, take revenge, and bring the real killer to justice.

Between Nat Cassidy's dark detours, Sarah Gailey's creepy island, Mónica Ojeda's psychedelic festival nightmare, gothic spirits, twisted fairy tales, human experimentation, and several books that appear to have taken the concept of "gross" as a personal challenge, there's plenty here to keep horror readers busy.
Which is great news for us but not so great for our TBR pile.
Happy May, horror friends, and may your books be creepy, your coffee be strong, and your house remain suspiciously tooth-free.

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Feature Fiction || The Hematophages: Splatterings by Stephen Kozeniewski

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 22:03:00 +0000

Published March 16th 2026 by French Press Publishing

In a galaxy riven by paranoid greed, profane forces marshal to consume humanity…

- On an abandoned ice moon, broadcasts from a long-dead civilization warp both body and soul.

- On a bizarre medical asteroid, a deranged physician discovers a gruesome “cure” for parasitic infection.

- On a deep space derelict, time becomes utterly meaningless and suffering transcends infinity.

- And on Earth itself, a lake transforms into pure blood and becomes infested with the hate-filled, eel-like aberrations known as…

The Hematophages.

With this quartet of short stories, Splatterpunk Award winner Stephen Kozeniewski is delighted to welcome newcomers to the brutal universe Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer calls “the gold standard for the Space Horror subgenre.”

Meanwhile, veteran ink surfers will find a treasure trove of new material to broaden their event horizons, including extensive background information from the author and a never-before-published tale of alien terror.

So, strap on your boom suit, ready your eye spoon, and try to prepare yourself for…

Splatterings.

Stephen Kozeniewski (pronounced "causin' ooze key") is a Splatterpunk Award-winning author and two-time World Horror Grossout Contest champion. His published work has also been nominated for the Voice Arts and Indie Horror Book Awards, among other honors. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and their two cats above a fanciful balloon studio.

Review || Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:15:00 +0000

Published May 26, 2026 by Poisoned Pen Press

The year is 1635.

Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying the gilded skull of a saint.

It is said that if you reunite the saint's skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic's power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing the magic they seek comes at a cost.

At the journey's end, they'll face an impossible choice—one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.

Add to Goodreads

In Bone of My Bone, the Thirty Years' War is never merely a vague historical backdrop. From the opening pages, van Veen establishes the destruction, fear, and complete upending of ordinary life, giving the horror real weight. It's the kind of historical detail that sends you looking things up afterward.

When the horror elements are firing, van Veen absolutely delivers on atmosphere. The necromancy feels eerie and grounded, rooted in the superstitions and religious anxieties of the period, and the gilded skull is its unsettling grinning centerpiece. The Bavarian Forest setting drips with menace, and the threats surrounding it feel treacherous and urgent.

My issues were more with the characters and pacing. The opening pulls you in fast, and the premise is strong, but somewhere in the middle, the momentum just stalls out. It picked back up towards the end, but there were definitely points where I found myself reading more out of commitment than interest. I also wanted more from the characters. Ursula and Elsebeth just didn't click for me the way I wanted them to, so I never felt super invested in what happened to them.

Ultimately, this one hit differently than Blood on Her Tongue. The relationship between Lucy and Sarah was so tightly wound and emotionally raw that the horror felt deeply personal. The dread and the emotional stakes were completely inseparable, so even the quieter moments felt tense. Bone of My Bone has all of van Veen's signature atmosphere and remarkable sense of dread, but without that emotional core at its center, it didn't stick with me quite as much.

This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming April 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:06:00 +0000

April has arrived with a truly questionable collection of bad decisions.

People are going camping with ancient evils. Moving into haunted houses. Taking creepy Craigslist jobs. Getting followed by men in rowboats.

Here are the new horror books coming this month, for anyone who enjoys watching fictional people make choices we would never make ourselves. Or would we?

April 2

Monumental by Adam Nevill

A weekend of kayaking and camping goes spectacularly wrong when Marcus and his friends realize they've wandered onto private land. Their only way out is blocked until the tide changes, leaving them twelve hours to survive whatever is lurking in the valley. And apparently, an ancient evil hiding beneath some very bad local folklore wasn't on the itinerary.
Who doesn't like relaxing in nature?

April 7

The Boatman by Alex Grecian

The cruise ship Maria Calypso has a problem. A very elegant man in a white suit is following it in a rowboat. No matter how fast the ship goes, he keeps pace. And then the sinister stuff starts happening.

Bodies of Work by Clay McLeod Chapman

Winston Kemper is a lonely janitor with an unusual artistic hobby. He calls it the Butterfly Girls. Other people might call it murder. When the ghosts of his victims start whispering from beyond the grave, Winston's art project takes a very ugly turn.
April14

The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own by Gwendolyn Kiste

Sixteen stories filled with haunted houses, ghosts, body horror, strange women, queer antiheroines, and all sorts of supernatural nastiness. Basically, Gwendolyn Kiste looked at the phrase "home sweet home" and decided it needed more ghosts and considerably less sweetness.

Invasive Species by Ellery Adams

Cold Harbor has its share of monsters, but Mrs. Smith might be the worst. She's beautiful, mysterious, and has been feeding nine human sacrifices to herself in exchange for immortality. Meanwhile, Natalie is just trying to sell a house and prove she can have a career outside the home.
And her twelve-year-old daughter and the family's housekeeper are the ones who realize something is very, very wrong.

Morsel by Carter Keane

Lou heads into the rural hills of Ohio for a work assignment, hoping it'll help her escape generational poverty and finally get ahead. Instead, her truck is sabotaged, she's stranded in the Appalachian woods, and something out there wants to eat her.

These Familiar Walls by C.J. Dotson

Amber inherits her childhood home after her parents are murdered, so naturally she moves in with her husband and kids. Then her reflection stops blinking. A voice starts whispering from the shadows. And the house turns out to be hiding some very old family secrets.
Nothing says "fresh start" like moving into the house where your parents were murdered.

Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill

Nicole has spent her entire life being taught that the mushrooms growing over the women's bodies in her village are dangerous and disgusting. After marriage, she's sent to live with her husband in a decaying mansion where controlling her changing body becomes harder and harder.
Then another rebellious wife shows up.
Their connection starts cracking open the secrets buried beneath generations of unhappy brides. And Nicole may finally decide that following the rules isn't worth it.
April 21

The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer

Three days of work. Competitive pay. A house in the Oregon wilderness.
Sure, what could go wrong?
Macy takes a Craigslist caretaking job because rent and groceries aren't going to pay themselves. But the house comes with strange rules, stranger rites, and something inside it that may be a threat to humanity itself.
...at least the job posting was honest about the pay.

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker

Lee flees New York after killing his college roommate and heads to his father's mysterious house in Japan. The place has a few problems. No animals will go near it. The bedroom window isn't always a window. And a woman with a sword appears outside at night.
Meanwhile, in 1877, Sen is hiding from imperial soldiers in the very same house.
Two people. Two centuries. One haunted house. And one of them is a ghost.

April 28

Hex House by Amy Jane Stewart

Elly is pregnant, wearing a wedding dress, and running from the man she's supposed to marry. Luckily, there's a mysterious house in the woods where lost girls can find refuge.
What starts as a safe haven becomes something much darker, turning wounded women into vessels for revenge.

How to Survive Camping: The Lady in Chains by Bonnie Quinn

The campground rules are back, and this time things are getting even worse. Dormant monsters are waking up, the Lady in Chains has returned, and the harvesters are still busy sacrificing people.

Molka by Monika Kim

Dahye's whirlwind romance turns into a nightmare when a spycam video of her and her boyfriend spreads across the internet. Then she discovers the creepy IT guy at work has been secretly filming women too.
Her humiliation turns to rage, and rage turns to revenge.

April is not messing around. We've got folk horror, haunted houses, supernatural revenge, gothic nightmares, body horror, murderous ghosts, creepy camping trips, and enough questionable life choices to keep horror readers very busy.

Happy April, horror friends. Now fill up your coffee cup, pull up your TBR, and absolutely avoid accepting any suspicious Craigslist jobs.

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Review || What Stalks The Deep by T. Kingfisher

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:01:00 +0000

Published September 30, 2025 by Tor Nightfire

The next installment in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton investigating the dark, mysterious depths of a coal mine in America.

Alex Easton does not want to visit America.

They particularly do not want to visit an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a reputation for being haunted.

But when their old friend Dr. Denton summons them to help find his lost cousin—who went missing in that very mine—well, sometimes a sworn soldier has to do what a sworn soldier has to do...

Add to Goodreads

The third installment in T. Kingfisher's Sworn Soldier series sends Alex Easton somewhere they emphatically do not want to go: America. More specifically, an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a unsavory reputation. When their old friend Dr. Denton calls in a favor to help locate his missing cousin, who was last seen heading into that very mine, well, a sworn soldier answers the call.

I've loved following Alex Easton through the crumbling Usher estate and the fog-draped forests of Gallacia, so naturally I was eager to see where Kingfisher would take them next. And I have to say, the setting of What Stalks the Deep is its strongest asset. The darkness is absolute, the walls press in from every direction, and the silence of the mine is almost intolerable. Imagine being underground with tons of rocks between you and the surface. Kingfisher leans into the claustrophobia beautifully, and we experience it alongside Easton.

Kingfisher has always excelled at writing characters who feel lived-in and real, and that hasn't changed. Alex's particular brand of practicality bumping up against the inexplicable never gets old, and watching them navigate the landscape of rural West Virginia with acerbic bewilderment is funny. Angus remains a steadfast, grounding presence, and there's something quietly satisfying about the way these three have settled into each other. If you've come to love these characters across the earlier books, revisiting them is still a joy, even if the horror is light.

Where What Stalks the Deep loses a little steam, unfortunately, is in the horror itself. The monster at the center of this story never quite reached the level of wrongness that Kingfisher achieved with her possessed hares in What Moves the Dead — that specific, skin-crawling sensation of something familiar twisted just slightly out of true. Once the monster is revealed, it's almost...cute?

What Stalks the Deep is by no means a bad book. Kingfisher is too skilled a writer for that, and I'll pick up whatever Alex Easton adventure comes next without hesitation. But for me, the Sworn Soldier series has yet to top What Moves The Dead.

This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming in March 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 01:28:00 +0000

March is here, which means spring is technically happening, but horror authors clearly didn't get the memo. This month's releases bring witches, monsters, haunted roads, murderous mothers, parasites, and enough questionable life choices to keep your TBR pile deeply unhealthy.

So grab your coffee, shut the curtains, and let's see what nightmares are hitting shelves this month.

March 10

Cabaret in Flames BY Hache Pueyo

Guls are brutal creatures, and Ariadne knows that better than most. She lost half her body to them, but she's since turned her experience into a career, treating guls at the specialized clinic she inherited from Erik Yurkov, the mentor who rescued her as a child, taught her medicine, built her prostheses, and then mysteriously disappeared.

Enter Quaint, a charming, tattooed gul who claims to be Erik's oldest friend. Convinced that Erik didn't simply vanish, Quaint teams up with Ariadne to track him down, eventually leading them to Cabaré, an infamous Rio de Janeiro club frequented by the gul elite. As they dig deeper into Erik's disappearance, they uncover a conspiracy tangled up with Ariadne's memories, her complicated past, and the increasingly complicated feelings developing between them.

The Midnight Muse BY Jo Kaplan

A year after metal band Queen Carrion's lead singer, Brynn Werner, disappears in an Oregon forest, her bandmates return to the cabin where she vanished. They're hoping to remember their friend and figure out how to move forward. Instead, they find strange messages in the guestbook, a pale figure moving through the woods, people in gas masks, and a suspicious fungus growing in the basement. Then Brynn's voice starts echoing through the forest. And when something that looks exactly like her emerges from the trees, the question becomes whether they've found their missing singer or something that has learned how to wear her face.

Partially Devoured: How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World BY Daniel Kraus

If you've ever watched Night of the Living Dead and thought, "I could spend several hundred pages obsessing over every single frame of this," Daniel Kraus has the book for you. His nonfiction debut takes George A. Romero's 1968 zombie classic apart frame by frame, digging into its history, production, cultural impact, and place in horror history. But this isn't just film analysis. Kraus also weaves in his own story, including childhood trauma, rural isolation, and the way the movie helped shape his life and career. Basically, it's a massive love letter to one of horror's most important movies, written by someone who's seen it roughly three hundred times.

Spoiled Milk BY Avery Curran

It's 1928, and Emily Locke's final year at the isolated Briarley School for Girls takes a very unpleasant turn when Violet, the school's dazzling star and the girl Emily would do just about anything for, falls to her death on her eighteenth birthday. Emily and her uptight rival Evelyn agree on one thing: Violet was murdered. They turn to spiritualism for answers, hoping to contact the dead and figure out what really happened. Instead, Violet's ghost appears through Evelyn and delivers a warning. The danger at Briarley is only beginning.

Something is infecting the school. It starts with spoiled food and curdled milk before spreading into something much more sinister, leaving a growing body count in its wake. As Emily fights to survive, she has to question everything she thought she knew about Violet, Evelyn, the school, and herself.

So no, despite the title, this is not a horror novel about an aggressively haunted refrigerator and evil dairy.

You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom BY Vincent Tirado

Papi Ramon, patriarch of the wealthy Abreu family, dies and leaves his relatives one final family bonding exercise from hell. His will claims that one member of the family is el bacà, a demon he made a deal with, and orders the others to get rid of them before they're all damned. Naturally, nobody believes him. Then a storm traps the entire family inside the house, giving everyone plenty of time for secrets, accusations, violence, and murder. Xiomara now has to figure out which family member is possessed while also surviving the much more mundane horror of being trapped with her relatives. Honestly, the demon might be the easiest problem in that house.

March 17

Cold Snap BY Angela Sylvaine

The town of Demise, North Dakota, is still trying to recover from the Meteor Murders, a deadly disaster involving hundreds of deaths, alien worms, and a cover-up blaming everything on a doomsday cult. Nineteen-year-old Realene survived it and saved countless lives, but she'd really rather disappear from the world and grieve the people she couldn't save.

Unfortunately, when another piece of the meteor is discovered across the Canadian border, Realene's best friend Nate is suddenly in danger. So she's heading north to find him, where she'll have to contend with rampant alien worms, a covert military operation, and the coldest weather imaginable. Because apparently surviving one alien-worm apocalypse wasn't enough. Realene has to go back for a sequel.

If you like creature features with a healthy dose of 'oh no, not the worms again,' Cold Snap looks like a gloriously nasty time.

Innamorata BY Ava Reid

Once, an island was ruled by seven noble houses whose power came from the arcane secrets of necromancy. Then a conqueror arrived, burning their libraries, slaughtering their rulers, and wiping out their ancient magic. Now only the House of Teeth remains, with its beautiful heiress, Marozia, and her strange, silent cousin Agnes.

Agnes hasn't spoken a word in seven years, but she's carrying the family's most important secrets. Her mission is to recover the lost death magic, avenge her family's destruction, and arrange Marozia's marriage to the conqueror's heir so she can gain access to his forbidden library. There's just one problem: Agnes finds herself falling for the very prince whose family destroyed hers. Because apparently revenge is much easier when you aren't also developing inconvenient feelings for the enemy.

If you like your gothic fantasy packed with necromancy, forbidden romance, doomed families, and enough beautiful people making terrible decisions to fill a castle, Innamorata should be on your list.

Long Drives & Lonesome Roads BY John Evans

There are more than four million miles of roads in the United States, and apparently a disturbing number of them are trying to kill us. This collection brings together sixteen horror stories featuring ominous hitchhikers, devils, dangerous backroads, other dimensions, and all the other things you really don't want to encounter when you're already miles from home. The stories range from unsettling to macabre to darkly funny, making this one a good choice for readers who like their horror in bite-sized pieces. Just maybe don't read it on your next solo road trip.

Mother is Watching BY Karma Brown

Art conservator Mathilde “Tilly” Crewson is used to dealing with old paintings and their secrets, but The Mother is something else entirely. The recently discovered work, believed to be the fourth painting by a female surgeon-turned-artist, was damaged in a fire and seems to have a disturbing history of its own. Then Tilly discovers she's unexpectedly pregnant, and things start getting seriously weird.

Insect swarms appear out of nowhere. Her long-dead mother starts paying visits. And sinister whispers begin invading Tilly's mind. As her obsession with the painting grows, so does the horrifying realization that The Mother may be more than a painting. And if Tilly wants to break whatever bond has formed between them, she may have to destroy it before it destroys her.

Only Spell Deep BY Ava Morgyn

Judeth Cole has always had strange abilities, but after a childhood fire destroys her family, she spends seventeen years trying to outrun her past. Now living in Seattle as Jude Clark, she's barely holding things together when a mysterious invitation draws her into a secret magical circle. Their power comes from an imprisoned entity called the Fathom, but Jude quickly realizes that the group's enigmatic leader, Arla, wants that power for herself and is willing to kill for it. With the Fathom threatening to break free, Jude is forced back toward the seaside house she swore she'd never see again. Witchcraft, family secrets, forbidden power, and a creepy old house? Yeah, this one knows exactly what it's doing.

Crawlspace by Adam Christopher

Mission Lead Olivia O’Connor and her team from the Artemis Corporation are preparing for the first faster-than-light test flight, a mission that could change humanity's future and finally open up the universe. Unfortunately, their trip between dimensions comes with a few unexpected complications. Strange voices echo through the corridors, long-lost faces appear, mysterious symbols are carved into the hull, and something ancient is gathering outside the ship.

Now the crew has to survive the journey long enough to uncover the twisted truth behind the mission.

march 24

Wolf Worm BY T. Kingfisher

In 1899, scientific illustrator Sonia Wilson gets a chance to pursue her work when the mysterious Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his collection of insects at his North Carolina manor. Naturally, the isolated house comes with a few complications. Animals are behaving strangely, her predecessor has disappeared, locals are whispering about "blood thieves," and Halder's research is taking a very unpleasant turn. With the help of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that the doctor's entomological experiments involve parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh.

T. Kingfisher plus a title like Wolf Worm tells us to expect something deeply unpleasant. And probably fascinating.

Wretch BY Eric LaRocca

After the death of his husband, Simeon Link is drowning in grief and desperate for a way to feel close to the person he's lost. Then he discovers the Wretches, a support group offering an unusual and dangerously addictive form of comfort. Their mysterious leader, Porcelain Khaw, claims he can give grieving people one final intimate moment with their dead loved ones. There is, naturally, a price.

Eric LaRocca isn't exactly known for sending readers off to bed feeling warm and fuzzy. Wretch promises another nasty little descent into darkness for readers who like their horror bleak, brutal, and uncomfortable.

Another month of horror, another collection of reasons to keep the lights on at midnight.

Between alien worms, necromancers, haunted paintings, murderous boarding schools, interdimensional space travel, cursed cabins, sinister family secrets, and enough things crawling under the skin to make a person very nervous about leaving the house, March is clearly not interested in letting us have a peaceful spring.

Happy March, horror friends. Keep the coffee hot, the lights on, and the basement door very, very closed.

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Review || The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 22:21:00 +0000

Published July 22, 2025 by Tor Nightfire

A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and The Atlas Six who are hungry for something a little more diabolical.

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.

Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.

But there’s more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa’s class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school’s library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.

Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?

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I've made no secret of the fact that Cassandra Khaw and I have history. They have a permanent spot on my auto-read list, for better or worse. These Deathless Bones was my introduction. The Salt Grows Heavy was vibrantly weird. And then The Dead Take the A Train with Richard Kadrey showed up and proved that Khaw's particular brand of chaos only gets grittier with a collaborator. I think it's worth stating upfront that I came into The Library at Hellebore with some goodwill because I know anything by Khaw requires a certain mood and commitment.

The premise is pure, unhinged fun — a school full of the world's most genuinely dangerous kids who could end the world if left unsupervised. Anti-Christs, Ragnaröks, a boy who reads omens in his own entrails. Ya know, just your average kid. On graduation day, the eldritch faculty decide the student body looks delicious, and the school gets turned into a slaughterhouse. The survivors hole up in the library and try not to die while something ancient and hungry hunts them through the aisles. What follows is part melee, part dark academia fever dream, part Khaw being utterly themselves. It is exactly as chaotic as it sounds.

But the prose! I stand by everything I've ever said about Khaw being a lot. Dense vocabulary, long sentences, writing that demands you gnaw your way through it. Khaw writes like they're conducting a symphony with a chainsaw at a tea party. If you ever wanted to increase your vocab, it's here. Lush and sharp and genuinely strange, with a quality that makes even the most grotesque moments feel almost beautiful. It makes you feel slightly (okay, completely) unhinged for appreciating it.

As far as characters go, Alessa is a solid protagonist. Prickly, damaged, dangerous in ways she's still figuring out. The crew she ends up trapped with is where it gets interesting. This is very much a found family situation, except everyone in the family could unmake reality if sufficiently pissed off. I liked them. I wanted more of them, honestly, which leads me to the complaint. Khaw tells this story in fragments which is...not my fav. I wanted more space with everyone trapped in that library than the fractured timeline allowed. It's the kind of structure that warrants a reread... maybe. On the first pass, it just got in its own way.

If you've never read Khaw before, I'd start with one of the shorter stories to calibrate your palate first and decide if you're a fan. But if you already know, The Library at Hellebore is the kind of book that reminds you exactly why you showed up in the first place. It's bloody, it's weird, it's gorgeous, and it's absolutely convinced of its own feral vision.

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This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming September 2026

Aurora returns to Mexico City to celebrate the return of stolen artifacts, including a mysterious statue of an Aztec god known as the Flayed One.Then her memories start coming apart, reality begins to warp, and the god she thought was safely buried starts making its presence known.

Fifteen years ago, Audrey's little brother disappeared in Devil's Den State Park.Now she's a park ranger with expertise in wilderness search and rescue, and another child has vanished in those same woods.The woods are lovely, dark, and apparently full of things that eat children.

A father searching for his missing daughter finds himself pulled into a world of darkness that is both disturbingly human and something much worse.When you're looking for someone you love, you don't always get to choose what you find.

Apparently summoning a demon isn't nearly as difficult as it should be.All you need is a drop of blood, a birthday candle, and a name.Which sounds like a perfectly reasonable extracurricular activity until the demon actually answers.

A road trip, a van, and a hashtag that should probably have stayed offline.This horror novel takes the increasingly questionable idea of documenting everything online and gives it a deadly turn.sometimes i scare myself by jeneva rose

Three horror stories. A dinner party. A quiet house. A roadside stop.In one story, a séance goes horribly wrong. In another, a family discovers their dream home has a terrifying history. And in the third, a roadside stop leads to something much darker than anyone expected.

A horror story that takes a familiar phrase and sends it somewhere much darker.Expect religious imagery, supernatural trouble, and the kind of situation where praying for help may not be enough.roots & wrath by e.j. wenstrom

September 26it pierces by jack finn

The title is a warning.Jenny will, in fact, eat you now.Beyond that, you're probably going to want to approach this one with an empty stomach and absolutely no assumptions about where the story is headed.Trad Wife by Sarah Langan

A gothic YA horror novel from the author of The Hacienda and The Possession of Alba Díaz.A young woman returns to a house filled with family secrets, supernatural danger, and the sort of history that makes you wonder why anyone ever thought buying a creepy old mansion was a good idea.

Feature Fiction || The Bookmark by Eugene A. Stripe

Published August 16, 2026

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Published July 7, 2026 by Union Square & Co.

Review || The Flesh King by Richard Kadrey

Published October 7, 2025 by Titan Books

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Review || I Am The Monster Under Your Bed by Emily Zinnikas

I Am The Monster Under Your Bed by Emily Zinnikas Published September 15th 2026 by St. Martins Press

This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming June 2026

June 1

June 2

June 9

Women of the Weird West brings together stories from women and marginalized-gender authors, taking the classic Western and giving it a supernatural makeover. Expect ghosts, monsters, fae, magic, strange worlds, and plenty of women who aren't interested in playing the damsel-in-distress.

June 19

June 23

The fourth volume of Brave New Weird brings together twenty-three stories showcasing some of the strangest, most inventive horror around. Expect speculative horror, genre mashups, grotesque ideas, experimental storytelling, and plenty of things that don't fit neatly into a little genre box.June 26

Polly Schattel returns with Crater Girl, a genre-bending novel mixing dark fantasy, noir, and horror with a distinctly Southern flavor.It's a strange, satirical look at the modern South, and Schattel describes it as a "genre-inclusive" novel.June 28

The Echo of Monsters promises another dive into the darker corners of horror, making it one to keep an eye on if your preferred reading material involves things that probably shouldn't exist and definitely shouldn't be making noises in the dark.June 30

Welcome to Guadalajara in the summer of 1977, where children encounter ghosts, monsters, strange adults, a serpent girl in a carnival glass box, and all the little horrors that hide beneath ordinary life.June is shaping up to be a seriously weird month for horror.

This Month in Horror: The Best New Horror Books Coming in May 2026

May 5

Some places feel wrong before you can explain why. She Waits Where Shadows Gather promises the kind of unsettling horror where the shadows themselves may be the least of your problems.If atmospheric, creeping dread is your thing, this one belongs on the May TBR.

May 8

May 12

Joe always had potential. He just doesn't expect much from himself, so when he lands a low-key admin assistant job at a company he's never heard of, he's hoping it won't expect much from him either.Then he walks into the offices of Ponos.Turns out, potential is exactly what they're looking for.

Aurora returns to Mexico City to celebrate the return of stolen artifacts, including a mysterious statue of an Aztec god known as the Flayed One.
Then her memories start coming apart, reality begins to warp, and the god she thought was safely buried starts making its presence known.

Fifteen years ago, Audrey's little brother disappeared in Devil's Den State Park.
Now she's a park ranger with expertise in wilderness search and rescue, and another child has vanished in those same woods.
The woods are lovely, dark, and apparently full of things that eat children.

A father searching for his missing daughter finds himself pulled into a world of darkness that is both disturbingly human and something much worse.
When you're looking for someone you love, you don't always get to choose what you find.

Apparently summoning a demon isn't nearly as difficult as it should be.
All you need is a drop of blood, a birthday candle, and a name.
Which sounds like a perfectly reasonable extracurricular activity until the demon actually answers.

A road trip, a van, and a hashtag that should probably have stayed offline.
This horror novel takes the increasingly questionable idea of documenting everything online and gives it a deadly turn.
sometimes i scare myself by jeneva rose

Three horror stories. A dinner party. A quiet house. A roadside stop.
In one story, a séance goes horribly wrong. In another, a family discovers their dream home has a terrifying history. And in the third, a roadside stop leads to something much darker than anyone expected.

A horror story that takes a familiar phrase and sends it somewhere much darker.
Expect religious imagery, supernatural trouble, and the kind of situation where praying for help may not be enough.
roots & wrath by e.j. wenstrom

September 26

it pierces by jack finn

The title is a warning.
Jenny will, in fact, eat you now.
Beyond that, you're probably going to want to approach this one with an empty stomach and absolutely no assumptions about where the story is headed.
Trad Wife by Sarah Langan

A gothic YA horror novel from the author of The Hacienda and The Possession of Alba Díaz.
A young woman returns to a house filled with family secrets, supernatural danger, and the sort of history that makes you wonder why anyone ever thought buying a creepy old mansion was a good idea.

I Am The Monster Under Your Bed by Emily Zinnikas
Published September 15th 2026 by St. Martins Press

Polly Schattel returns with Crater Girl, a genre-bending novel mixing dark fantasy, noir, and horror with a distinctly Southern flavor.
It's a strange, satirical look at the modern South, and Schattel describes it as a "genre-inclusive" novel.

June 28

The Echo of Monsters promises another dive into the darker corners of horror, making it one to keep an eye on if your preferred reading material involves things that probably shouldn't exist and definitely shouldn't be making noises in the dark.

June 30

Welcome to Guadalajara in the summer of 1977, where children encounter ghosts, monsters, strange adults, a serpent girl in a carnival glass box, and all the little horrors that hide beneath ordinary life.

June is shaping up to be a seriously weird month for horror.

Some places feel wrong before you can explain why. She Waits Where Shadows Gather promises the kind of unsettling horror where the shadows themselves may be the least of your problems.
If atmospheric, creeping dread is your thing, this one belongs on the May TBR.

Joe always had potential. He just doesn't expect much from himself, so when he lands a low-key admin assistant job at a company he's never heard of, he's hoping it won't expect much from him either.
Then he walks into the offices of Ponos.
Turns out, potential is exactly what they're looking for.