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Thursday, December 21, 2023

2023 Horror Book Highlights by Me via The LineUp

One of my favorite writing gigs is my 4x a year column for The LineUp. I love it because it is one of the only times I can write directly to readers. Just about everything I am paid to write is meant to be read and used by library workers. But 4x a year, I get to speak to voracious readers directly.

Two columns a year are my choice. In 2023 I did a preview of the first ever Middle Grade Stoker Award by highlighting the finalists and giving them adult readalikes in the Spring, and in the Fall I highlighted some of the best Horror cover artists.

My other two columns are wrap-up pieces. Every Summer I do a post about the Bram Stoker Award winners with readalikes, and that brings us to today and my piece for December. I love that this year end "wrap-up" is not another "Best" list. Instead, I pick 4 trends I saw over the year and pick titles that best present it.

Click here to read my brand new 2023 Horror Book Highlights. Or see below where I have reprinted my draft, plain text, but honestly, the version that Lisa Quigley put up on the site is much prettier and more fun to read, and it has the links to buy the books.

I am particularly proud of my final trend. Also one of the things I loved about the trends this year is that many of the books could have fit in multiple categories. One in particular makes me giggle every time I see my column because it would be a HUGE spoiler if I had put it in a different category.

For those who are interested, here is the link to all of my columns in one place. But you should be promoting The LineUp and the entire family of Open Road Media sites. Their focus is on readers and promotion of backlist titles. They also have A Love So True (Romance), The Archive (History), Murder & Mayhem (Crime Fiction), The Portalist (SF/FSY), and more. 

This is the last post here on the Horror blog for 2023. Have a safe New Year and see you on 1/11 with a #HorrorForLibraries giveaway of this book. Click here for the latest giveaway post with details on how to enter.

From the Haunted Stacks: 2023 Horror Book Highlights 

A detailed look at 2023's wide range of horror fiction, from the "library world's horror maven."
By Becky Spratford | Published Dec 21, 2023

While there are many best lists out there for you to peruse this time of year, in true librarian fashion, I thought I would give you a more nuanced look at the year that was by taking you on a walk through some of the most interesting Horror trends I have noticed accompanied by 2023 titles that illustrate them best.

Siblings Steer Some of the Best Stories of the Year: In 2023, many of the very best novels focused on sibling relationships, but not as the cause of the terror, rather as the very reason that the characters were able to triumph over the monsters, ghosts, or evil puppets.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due 

Jim Crow Florida, 1950. Gloria and Robbie Stephens Jr, 16 and 12 respectively, are left behind after their mother dies from cancer and their activist father is forced to flee North to Chicago. When Robbie kicks a local white boy in the knee to protect his older sister, he is sentenced to 6 months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory with a notorious history. Told in the alternating perspectives of Gloria and Robbie, readers follow the action, set over 2 weeks, as Goria works to set Robbie free. The timeline may be short but the history of the horror that imprisons Robbie is long and the ghosts who live on the school’s grounds are unwilling to wait any longer for justice. An engrossing and heartbreakingly beautiful story that speaks to all situations where injustice occurs and compels its readers to act.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Perennial bestseller Hendrix’s early 2023 release navigated the well worn haunted house trope, inserting fresh horrors into its pantheon (including a terrifying puppet), while also crafting an emotional and thought-provoking story about trauma and loss. Louise, a single mother, lives in California with her 5 year-old daughter Poppy, a continent away from her hometown, Charleston, SC. She has spent her life trying to keep as much distance, physically and emotionally, as possible from her family, especially her overly indulged brother, Mark. But when their parents die suddenly, Louise is forced to return home and reckon with the secrets that have been haunting their family for generations, secrets that not only may be responsible for her estrangement with Mark, but may also be actively trying to kill them.

The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton B.B. and Henrie, the Volt Sisters, are the last in the line of the founding family of Fowler Island in Lake Erie, macabrely famous for the mysterious disappearances of its female visitors. Opening in 2000, as B.B. contacts Henrie about the death of their father. Henrie agrees to return home with her mother, Carrie. Told in two time frames, 2000 and 1989– the year Henire and her mother escaped the island– and from the perspective of four realistically flawed women-- B.B. Henrie, Carrie, and the island’s museum curator, Sonia, readers will be immediately hooked by their voices, the place, and the dark, mysterious history that surrounds it all. Think Shirley Jackson channeling HP Lovecraft and you get an idea of what to expect. 

Centering Love: Horror is a genre that purposely provokes terror in the reader. These are stories where terrible things can and do happen, but these three books excelled at invoking palpable fear while also allowing love, and the hope that stems from it, to blossom at the heart of these emotional tales. 

Lone Women by Victor LaValle 

The year is 1915. Adelaide Henry, 31 has lived her entire life in a California, Black farming community with her parents, but as the novel opens, Adelaide places her murdered parents in bed, burns the house down, and heads to catch a train to Montana, a territory that allows unmarried, Black women, the opportunity to claim a homestead. Taking only an overnight bag and a heavy, securely locked trunk containing her family’s curse, one that she is now solely responsible for controlling, Adelaide attempts to flee her past while still literally shackled to it. Readers follow Adelaide to the edge of civilization, Big Sandy, MT, to meet its marginalized and outcast citizens, feel the wide open, unforgiving landscape, and watch the captivating drama, both real and supernatural, unfold. This Horror-Western hybrid will grab readers from the start and threaten to never let them go. It is also my personal pick for the best Horror novel of the year.

A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper

If Neil Gaiman, Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson could birth a book baby, this stunning novel would be the outcome. Olivia, 18, lives in Chapel Hill, PA, the small town she settled in 3 years ago, after running away from home when her father caught her kissing a girl. Even though the town is not fond of outsiders, she has found her place living in best friend Sunflower’s orbit. As the novel opens, a fierce storm brings torrential rain and what sounds like human screams from the hills. Olivia is working at the Drive-In as an angry monster emerges from the ground and most of the townsfolk enter a zombie-like trance. Olivia runs for her life, looking for Sunflower, trying to save them both, but what exactly is she running away from, and where is she running to? Olivia is about to have the longest night of her life; one that will change her world forever.

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle 

Rose, a senior in high school, is a member of the Kingdom of the Pines, a church with deep ties to her local community and a national reputation for running Camp Damascus, a LGBTQ conversation camp with a 100% success rate. While hanging out with friends, Rose sees a decaying woman at the edge of the wood, wearing a red polo and nametag, staring straight at her. Engaging, curious, kind, and proudly neurodiverse, Rose carries the story as Tingle meticulously introduces distrust and confusion, even going so far as to sew unease with single word choices. As Rose’s situation gets more dire, she gathers her found family, embraces love, and fights against the monsters threatening to destroy everything Rose holds dear. 

Dazzling Debuts: While an author could write many books over their career, they can only have one first novel. Some are good, some meh, and then there are those that shine so brightly, it is hard to believe this is their first go at it.

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

Henley’s Edge is that kind of small New England town where everyone knows each other, but it is also a place where evil, both human and supernatural, has taken hold. Senior women have been disappearing without a trace. The local cop, Malik, is unable to find any leads, while simultaneously facing violent, homophobic attacks in his own home. Heart Crowley is a rich, funeral plot salesman who wants to help people find everything they are looking for in this life, if only they will go into his basement first. And then there is Ghost, an unlikely hero, a young man grieving a huge loss, literally stalked by guilt. LaRocca doubles down on everything that has made his shorter works a viral success, enhancing the dread with scenes of palpable fear, deep-seated trauma, and visceral villainy, using his expertly built, messily realistic characters to move readers through every possible emotion.

Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede

Maeve spends her days performing as the famous ice princess at “the happiest place on earth,” while her nights are spent brazenly murdering people and hiding her crimes in plain sight. But when Maeve meets her best friend’s gorgeous brother, she begins to question everything she thought she knew about herself. Unapologetically dripping with graphic sex and violence, Leede is actively working every angle in an attempt to disgust and disturb her readers, balancing extreme scenes with dark humor and Maeve’s engaging narration. As sympathy builds for Maeve, readers will squirm even more, realizing just how much they are enjoying this illicitly alluring tale.

Chlorine by Jade Song

Speaking from adulthood, Ren recounts the pivotal year, when she exchanged her life as a good Chinese daughter, working hard to get into a top college, competing as an elite swimmer, for a life without terrestrial concerns, as a mermaid. No longer human, Ren shares her memories with a direct, confessional narration, effortlessly drawing readers in from the first lines. As Ren struggles with the pressures of her sport, the obsession of her coach, her feelings for her best friend Cathy, and her experiences as an immigrant, the rawness and pain are familiar, but it is Ren’s insistence on becoming a mermaid, where this tale leaves a lasting mark. Full of contractions, magnificently balancing and remarkably sustaining wonder and dread, magical realism and harsh reality, this is a story that will hold readers in its thrall, squirming with discomfort, yet, unable to look away from the page. This first novel is also one of the most spectacular novels I have read in recent years.

WTF For the Win: Maybe it is because we have all lived through some wild times recently, but this past year, there were a handful of books that took a left turn, sending the story down a path that, in less talented and imaginative hands, could have been disastrous. Instead, in these novels, it is exactly the authors’ willingness to take those risks that made them some of the most memorable reads of the year.

The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey

 Kadrey, Urban Fantasy mainstay, and Khaw, a Horror rising star, team up for a cinematic and immersive “eldritch whale” of a duology opener. Julie, 29, is starting to feel the aches and pains of her job, using her small, magic packed body to help keep NYC clear of monsters. She recovers with booze and drugs, barely making enough money to cover the rent. But when an old flame, the head of “Excision” for one of the top Wall Street firms, comes asking Julie for help, she starts a chain of events that threatens to eat up the whole world in its wake. Filled with monsters, action, and situations that are bonkers in all the right ways, this is a crowd pleasing, visceral, Cosmic tale worthy of a wide audience.

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus 

One of the most beautiful and moving novels of the year is disguised as a riveting, cinematic, survival thriller. Jay is a high school senior dealing not only with the loss of his local hero and diving legend father, Mitt, but also his unresolved anger with their complicated relationship. In an attempt to come to terms with his grief, Jay attempts a dangerous, solo dive that is cut short when he is swallowed by a sperm whale. Told from Jay’s point of view in short, alternating chapters set in the present from inside the whale’s stomach with chapter headings that note how little air is left in his tak, and the past, mostly between 2015 and 2021. The pacing is relentless, the awe, astounding, and the tension, palpably constricting, even as Kraus takes time to add the necessary scientific details. However, it is Jay’s growth throughout the story where this novel shines, allowing its beauty to emerge, and leave its mark on all who encounter it.

What Kind of Mother by Clay McLeod Chapman

Madi, a palm reader in Brandywine, VA, may have just returned to town with her 16yo daughter, after fleeing as a pregnant teenager, but her roots run deep in the Chesapeake Bay region. While plying her trade at local farmer’s market, she sees her high school boyfriend, Henry, who has spent the last 5 years searching for his missing infant while mourning the suicide of his wife. When Henry, still a person of interest in these cases, gives his palm to Madi, she experiences disturbing images of the water and the boy, visions that have physical manifestations. Chapman immediately introduces suspense, hooking readers with Madi’s engaging but increasingly unstable narration, confidently and deliberately steering the tone from uneasy to weird to absolute terror with a twist so shocking, no one will see it coming. A disorienting, immersive, and thought provoking contemplation of hope, grief, and guilt, Chapman traps readers in a net of visceral Horror from which they cannot look away no matter how much detritus bursts forth. But beware, readers may never look at a crab the same way again.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Becky's Top Horror of 2023 w/ Links to a Few Other Major Lists

Today I have my official Best Horror of 2023. This is my personal best list with links to my review and a little more information as to why they made the list. But Tis the season for everyone's opinions and I wanted to make sure that I pointed you to 2 other great Best Horror of 2023 Lists.

Finally, before I get to my personal list, wanted to tease my 2023 Wrap Up Column for The Lineup Weekly which will go live tomorrow and I will post on both blogs because it is about trends as much as it is a "Best" list.

Here is Becky's Official, On the Record,  Top 10 (ish) Horror Books for 2023

These are in no particular order, but I will go on the record that if I had to pick a single BEST Horror novel of the year it is The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, which almost seems unfair to every other book because it was a masterpiece.

All titles link to my detailed review with plenty of appeal info and readalikes.

  • The Reformatory by Tananarive Due [engrossing, 360 degrees of fear, nuanced] 
  • Lone Women by Victor LaValle [pervasive unease, strong sense of place, masterfully paced] 
  • Whalefall by Daniel Kraus [harrowing survival thriller, moving character study]
  • Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones (which is EVEN BETTER now that I have read the final book in the trilogy) [multiple povs, fast paced, ingenious] 
  • How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix [terrifying, family trauma, evil puppets] 
  • The Shoemaker's Magician by Cynthia Pelayo [gripping, love letter to Horror, haunting] 
  • A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper [thought provoking, weird, small town Horror] 
  • Chlorine by Jade Song [Weird, wonder, extreme unease] 
  • Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle [neurodiverse MC, cinematic, religious cults]
  • Best Novellas: The first 2 novellas in Spin a Black Yarn by Josh Malerman and "The Beast You Are," the novella that closes out the collection by the same name by Paul Tremblay. Those three novellas are among the best Horror novellas I have EVER read.

Some of these books will end up on my Official Best Books I Read This Year list that will go up on the main blog on 12/28 at 7 am central in the regular blog.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: The Nighthouse Keeper [MG]

Today I have an ARC for a book that came out back in October but it is one that you need to know about. Details below, but first, here is how you enter:

  1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
  2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
  3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
  4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.
Click here to see the previous giveaway. Our winner was Kelli from Lewis & Clark [MT] Library. Now on to today's giveaway.

Last year, Lora Senf burst onto the Middle Grade Horror scene with The Clackity. This year readers got the chance to return to Blight Harbor with The Nighthouse Keeper:
Evie once again leaves her world behind to rescue Blight Harbor’s ghosts in this second book in the bone-chilling middle grade Blight Harbor trilogy that’s reminiscent of Doll Bones and Small Spaces.

Evie Von Rathe has been home for only a few weeks from her adventure in the strange world of seven houses when Blight Harbor’s beloved ghosts begin to disappear. Did they leave without saying goodbye, or has something gone horribly wrong? Soon Evie is invited to a mysterious council meeting, where she learns about the Dark Sun Side and a terrible secret.

Yes, the ghosts have gone missing. And that means serious trouble.

With the help of an eleven-year-old (or 111-year-old, but who’s counting) ghost named Lark, trusty Bird, and a plump ghost spider, Evie must find a way to defeat the vicious Nighthouse Keeper responsible for the missing ghosts, save her otherworldly friends, and find her way home from the Dark Sun Side before she’s trapped there forever.

I have read both The Clackity and The Nighthouse Keeper and not only do I recommend this series for all libraries and readers from kids to adults, I think book 2 is even better than The Clackity (which I loved) mostly because it builds so well off of the world she created in the first book and starts Evie on a fascinating path which will continue in future books.

This is the ARC I read for my work on the MG Jury for the Stoker Awards. Winners should read it for themselves and then pass it on to their Youth Departments to make sure they have the series in their collections and remind them that they can use this copy as a prize for a lucky kid.

This is the last giveaway of 2023. The giveaway will return January 11, 2024 with plenty of awesome titles, including some of my STAR review titles from the January 2024 issue of LJ.

Enter now and you are entered going forward.

Good luck! 

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

The 2024 Horror Book Release Calendar is Now Live With a Chance to Learn More

If you use no other resource for your Horror collection development -- including my LJ and Booklist reviews-- it should be Emily Hughes's constantly updated list of upcoming releases in Adult and YA Horror. 

As I write on my Horror Resources Page

Emily just made the 2024 list live here. As she says in the introduction, she updates the entire thing constantly. 

And new this year....Hughes herself is on the list in September with her book, Horror for Weenies! I already have an early ARC promised to me by Quirk!

Bookmark this page and use it to help you craft your Horror collections in 2024. Use the previous years' lists to see what you might have missed and fill in some gaps. And if you don't have any purchasing duties, use it as a way to see what is coming out, by whom, and what subgenres and tropes seem to be popping up with more frequency.

But wait, there's more. Next week, Hughes and I are meeting up with Robb Olson from the ARC Party podcast to record an episode where we talk about Hughes' list and the books we are most excited about for the first half of 2024. It will go live just after the New Year. We hope that by pairing the list itself with the three of us chatting about it and some of titles we have already read, we will help give you even more context to the great work Hughes does. And if you all like it, we can do it again in July for the second half of 2024.

The last few years have seen Horror grow in the mainstream of popularity. 2023 upped the ante as we saw some Horror titles make general best lists regardless of their genre. But you haven't seen anything yet. 2024 is going to be even bigger for Horror and with even better books to back it all up. Get ready now with Hughes' help.

Check back on the Horror blog tomorrow for my last giveaway of the year, and, teaser, it is one of the top MG Horror titles of 2023. And if you enter my #HorrorForLibraries giveaway now, you will be eligible to win many of those awesome 2024 titles before they even come out.

Click here to enter Hughes' 2024 landing page


Thursday, December 7, 2023

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird

 Today I have an ARC for a book that came out back in June but it is one that has made a handful of best lists, is by an author whose novel you probably own, and is a title you may have missed. Details below, but first, here is how you enter:

  1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
  2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
  3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
  4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.
Click here to see the previous giveaway. Our winner was Mary from Jervis [NY] Public Library. Now on to today's giveaway.

The Argentinian author, Agustina Bazterrica is well known here in America for her novel Tender is the Flesh which I shared my thoughts about when I first read it here.

Back in June, her story collection, Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird, which features many of her award winning stories, was released in English. From Goodreads:
A collection of nineteen dark, wildly imaginative short stories from the author of the award-winning TikTok sensation Tender Is the Flesh.

From celebrated author Agustina Bazterrica, this collection of nineteen brutal, darkly funny short stories takes into our deepest fears and through our most disturbing fantasies. Through stories about violence, alienation, and dystopia, Bazterrica’s vision of the human experience emerges in complex, unexpected ways—often unsettling, sometimes thrilling, and always profound. In “Roberto,” a girl claims to have a rabbit between her legs. A woman’s neighbor jumps to his death in “A Light, Swift, and Monstrous Sound,” and in “Candy Pink,” a woman fails to contend with a difficult breakup in five easy steps.

Written in Bazterrica’s signature clever, vivid style, these stories question love, friendship, family relationships, and unspeakable desires.

I received this ARC from the publisher last spring. Since the collection is showing up on year end lists, I wanted to remind everyone about it with a giveaway now. So, enter to win this copy, yes. Read it for yourself and then give it away as a prize. But also, everyone, go check and see if you added this to your collections when it came out, and if not, place your orders now.

Back next week with the last giveaway of 2023. 

Good luck!

Monday, December 4, 2023

Library Journal Best Books 2023: Horror

The Library Journal Best Books of 2023 portal is LIVE! From the landing page:

There are many ways to measure a year—in calendar days, school semesters, anniversaries, or birthdays; at LJ we measure the year in books. Our bibliometric datebook is marked by titles we look forward to for months, books we read in one big, delightful spree, and those we savor, re-read, and share. Every year we convene to ponder our top picks. We talk about what we’re reading, suggest titles to one another, and discuss, with growing excitement and anticipation, selections that we just know will be among our best books. Here are our choices: 149 titles across 15 categories; each a work we have treasured. We are excited that these books exist in the world, waiting to be found or read anew.

I am very happy to have been part of the team who looked at the year that was and prioritized the reading experience of these titles as we weighed their status as best. It is a refreshing way to look at the "best" tag.

As I went through the Horror selection experience over a couple of meetings with my editor and list mate, Melissa DeWild, the conversations we had about all of the titles we considered was enlightening.

Please note, this is the LJ Best Horror list. It it is similar to, but not exactly my personal Horror Best List for 2023. As we look at the genre, only titles that got a star in the Horror category in LJ can be considered. So there are titles I gave a star to in Booklist that did not get a star in LJ or, as is the case with Whalefall, it was a star but in SF.

The experience of working on this list is very fulfilling even when my absolute favorites are excluded. I also had the pleasure of writing all the annotations for the Horror list.

Below, I have reposted the list which lives here permanently. The links go to my reviews of each title. 

Also for ease of use, here is access to past lists, all of which I was involved with: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018.

Due, Tananarive. The Reformatory. Gallery/Saga. ISBN 9781982188344.

Set in Jim Crow Florida in 1950 and following Gloria and Robbie during the two weeks Robbie is (wrongly) sent to the Gracetown School for Boys, the horror in this story has a long tail, and the ghosts who live on the school’s grounds are unwilling to wait for justice any longer. A masterpiece of fiction, this novel speaks to all situations where injustice occurs, and compels its readers to act.


Hendrix, Grady. How To Sell a Haunted House. Berkley. ISBN 9780593201268.

After the sudden death of her parents, Louise must clear her family home, which is filled with creepy dolls and a terrifying clown puppet. Are the toys moving on their own? Why is the attic door clumsily barricaded? The only way for her to get out alive may require Lousie do the scariest thing of all—reckon with the secrets that have haunted her family for generations. Inserting fresh horrors into the haunted-house pantheon, Hendrix also crafts an emotional and thought-provoking story about trauma and loss.


Jones, Stephen Graham. Don’t Fear the Reaper. Gallery/Saga. ISBN 9781982186593.

Final girl Jade Daniels is back, but this time it is December, an epic blizzard is blowing, and serial killer Dark Mills South is on the loose in Proofrock, ID. Over the next 36 hours, Jade, armed with her horror-movie knowledge, indefatigable spirit, strong moral center, and trusted group of friends, will fight to save it all. Jones effortlessly blends bloody slasher action with contemplation of the genre itself; his novel honors its past while also plowing its own trail.


Khaw, Cassandra. The Salt Grows Heavy. Tor Nightfire. ISBN 9781250830913.

What if the Little Mermaid laid eggs, and her hatched children’s hunger laid waste to her prince’s land? Khaw poses this sinister question with a brutally visceral but seductive opening sequence. When the mermaid connects with a plague doctor, the unlikely pair go on an imaginative and thought-provoking journey told through lush language, innovative uses of the body-horror trope, and a captivating direct narration that will make readers contemplate what it means to be “saved.”

LaValle, Victor. Lone Women. One World. ISBN 9780525512080.

It’s 1915, and Adelaide leaves her California home as it burns down to head for a Montana homestead that accepts unmarried Black women. She carries an overnight bag and an extremely heavy, securely locked trunk containing the family curse that she is now responsible for controlling. Told with a pulp sensibility, LaValle’s story is a women-centered Weird Western that is at turns both utterly terrifying and heart-breakingly beautiful

Malerman, Josh. Spin a Black Yarn: Novellas. Del Rey. ISBN 9780593237861.

In this intensely unsettling, utterly original collection of five novellas, Malerman takes well-known horror tropes and twists them, pushing both readers and characters to the edge—and he’s not afraid to push everything over. Whether it’s a house that is only half haunted, a deathbed confession from a would-be serial killer, or a dark satire featuring an awful couple, his stories will be relished by readers new and returning.

Pelayo, Cynthia. The Shoemaker’s Magician. Agora. ISBN 9781957957104.

Polly, an expert in horror history, has always found comfort in horror movies and passed that love on to her autistic son, Bela. But after her Chicago detective husband starts investigating a brutal murder with ties to a famous occult film, it appears someone else is sharing ominous fables with Bela that connect the murder to their family, the history of horror films, and Chicago’s deteriorating movie palaces. Both a gripping narrative and a love letter to the genre.

Piper, Hailey. A Light Most Hateful. Titan. ISBN 9781803364209.
Olivia, 18, who came to the small, insular town of Chapel Hill, PA, as a runaway three years ago, has found a home living in best friend Sunflower’s orbit. As the novel opens, a fierce storm brings torrential, infecting rain that turns most residents into zombies. And where is Sunflower? If Neil Gaiman, Mary Shelley, and Shirley Jackson could collaborate, this stunning novel would be the result.

Song, Jade. Chlorine. Morrow. ISBN 9780063257603.

Ren, speaking from adulthood, recounts her final year of high school, the year she exchanged her life as an elite swimmer and perfect Chinese daughter for her current life as a mermaid. Told with a confidence rarely seen in a debut, this remarkable novel expertly balances the contradictions of wonder and dread, magical realism and harsh reality, beauty and discomfort, inundating readers in emotion and a tale in which they’ll willingly drown.

Tingle, Chuck. Camp Damascus. Tor Nightfire. ISBN 9781250874627.

Engaging, curious, and proudly neurodivergent, Rose belongs to a church that runs a popular LGBTQIA+ conversion camp with a 100 percent success rate. While out with friends, she spies the decaying body of a woman at the edge of the woods, wearing a red polo and nametag and staring straight at her. Confusion and disorientation build until it all bursts open with full-blown terror. This novel is chilling and thought- provoking, but what makes it remarkable is the immense love at its center.