#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Casual by Koji A Dae

 Today I have an advanced copy of a book, out next month, from a solid small press that appeared on Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 list. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American 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 for the previous giveaway. Our winner was Michelle from IA. Now on to this week's giveaway.

I regularly get ARCs from Tenebrous Press. I have been able to review a few myself, and I have passed some on to my editors so others can read and review as well. 

Awhile back, I received a review copy of Casual by Koji A. Dae. It looked good but I did not have time to review it. However, Booklist was able to assign it and a review will be in the magazine soon. 

In the meantime, the book also showed up on Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Book of 2025 list! They only picked 291 books total for the list and this was one of them. 

It comes out in February so this, the last giveaway of January seems like a greta time to alert you to it.

From the Tenebrous site:

Valya’s neural implant is amazing.

Its game-like app, CASUAL, has managed her depression and anxiety, stabilized her mood, and helped the infertile Valya get pregnant. But new laws forbid her from using the device when she's sole caregiver for her infant. Her gaslighting ex won't help her, and she can't afford a nanny, so her obstetrician insists that Valya wean off CASUAL before giving birth.

Despite a will to quit and a supportive new love interest in her birthing class, disabling CASUAL turns Valya's anxiety into full-blown panic attacks. Her psychiatrist offers to enroll her in a controversial clinical trial that would place a tandem implant in the baby and allow Valya to keep hers active. Valya must decide whether she should attempt parenting without CASUAL or install a minimally tested device in her vulnerable child.

Casual is a stark and cutting glance at a near future that looks uncannily like our present, exploring themes of bodily autonomy and the struggle for mental health in a world increasingly divided. 

Click through for more information about this book and how to order a copy for your library. 

Thank you to Tenebrous for the great, timely, and terrifying books and for working to get your books into the library market.

Get on this one and all future giveaways because if you enter once, you are entered going forward.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: A Finished Paperback of Boys in the Valley by Fracassi

Today I have a book that was one of the top reads of 2023 and to celebrate its paperback release I have a copy you can add to your collection immediately. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American 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 for the previous giveaway. Our winner was Joshua from IL. Now on to this week's giveaway.

Philip Fracassi's Boys in the Valley made quite a splash in 2023 garnering a blurb from Stephen King and being called, "The most frightening novel of the year," in Esquire. To celebrate the paperback release, Tor sent me a copy to give away to one of you. 

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, here is the publisher description of the book:

St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys. 

Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania. 

Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future... a family. 

Then, late one stormy night, a group of men arrive at their door, one of whom is badly wounded, occult symbols carved into his flesh. His death releases an ancient evil that spreads like sickness, infecting St. Vincent's and the children within. Soon, boys begin acting differently, forming groups. Taking sides. 

Others turn up dead. 

Now Peter and those dear to him must choose sides of their own, each of them knowing their lives — and perhaps their eternal souls — are at risk. 

The Exorcist meets Lord of the Flies, by way of Midnight Mass, in Boys in the Valley, a brilliant coming-of-age tale from award-winning author Philip Fracassi.

I would also highly recommend this title for book clubs. Now that it is in paperback, it is easier for you to buy or borrow more copies. 

Enter today for a chance to win this copy and you can put this paperback into your collections right away. Also, after you enter, go check your collections and make sure you own it. If not, order a copy or two.

Thanks again to Tor for the copy to provide this giveaway.

And good luck to everyone. 

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: 2 Books for 1 Winner, Including One of the Best Books of 2024

Today I have 2 books for one winner-- an ARC of a novella collection that I reviewed in this month's LJ and an ARC of one of the best short story collections from last year. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American 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 for the previous giveaway. Our winner was Christopher from CA. Now on to this week's giveaway.

First up is Dead Writers by by 

Jean Marc Ah-Sen, 

 

Michael LaPointe, 

Cassidy McFadzean, 

 

Naben Ruthnum

From my Library Journal draft review:

 Four Canadian writers of dark literary fiction were brought together to make a single volume of novellas, using the prompt of “a bargain.” While each story is very different in plot and narrative style, they are united by the underlying sense of dread that permeates each tale, and as a result, the entire volume. From a haunting tale of a woman hired to write a complicated writer’s biography after he commits suicide to a found historical document about the atrocities at an Indigenous school to a vacation that provides anything but the peace and tranquilty promised in its title to a jarringly direct examination of the “deal with the devil” trope. These are works which contain no jumpscares but rather, their horror stems from the sense that something unavoidably uneasy weighs heavily on the “deals” the characters are offered. And then consider the anthology’s title alongside the fact that every narrator is a writer themselves, and you ratchet the fear up to another level. Verdict: A deeply unsettling and insidious anthology of four psychological horror novellas, feelings that will linger with readers after completion just like with Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Lima or the work of Samanta Schweblin.

Three Words That Describe This Book: themed novellas, deeply unsettling, psychological horror

Dead Writers will not get the wide coverage it deserves and I was happy to review it in LJ to help boost its visibility to libraries. Thank you to the publisher (Invisible Publishing) for sending me a paper ARC so that I can give it away to one of you.

I am purposely pairing it with a much more popular title, a short story collection that was a hit with critics and readers-- A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enríquez. From Goodreads:

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers' Favorite Horror (2024).

A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors” (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.

Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.”

This book is out already, but this is an ARC, so you cannot add it to your collections, but you can use it for a prize, or read it for yourself and pass it on.

Both books are going to 1 winner. Enter now and you are entered going forward.

Good luck!

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: When The Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

The giveaway is back and starting 2025 with a bang. Today I am offering one of the books to which I gave a STAR in my January 2025 Horror Review Column in Library Journal. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American 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 for the previous giveaway. Our winner was Sarah from WI. Now on to this week's giveaway.

This week my January 2025 column in LJ went live. In it is a STAR review of today's giveaway.

When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

After a particularly bad day at work at a 24-hour LA diner, aspiring actress Jess finds a young boy whimpering outside her apartment complex and brings him inside. But this is no ordinary boy, and the father who is looking for him is a monster who will stop at nothing to get him back. So opens Cassidy’s latest Horror novel (his best to date), as he consciously frames his story about “daddy issues” as an homage to classic pulp Horror and chase novels with clear Twilight Zone influences, but this description only scratches* the surface. Full of action, adventure, blood, and twists, the tale is anchored by the evolving relationship between Jess and the kiddo, who are the beating heart at its terrifying center. Reader beware, as the text warns, “No one will be spared,” but not in the way anyone will anticipate. The horrors encountered here will burrow much deeper, forcing a confrontation with the power fear holds over all.  

Verdict: Another winner from the “Stephen King of TikTok,” Cassidy’s original and thought-provoking take on the werewolf trope will appeal to fans of fast-paced horror featuring strong characterization like classic Dean Koontz (Watchers), books explored in Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell, or anything by Brian Keene.

Three Words That Describe This Book: the power of fear, immersive terror, pulp homage)

This is another winner from Cassidy, but this one is his best from top to bottom. I dare anyone to read this book and then stop thinking about it. The ending specifically is chilling. 

I am figuring most of you have this one on order already, but if not, get on it!

Enter now and be entered going forward into 2025. 

2025 First Half of the Year Horror Book Preview: a Podcast Featuring Me

As the final days 2024 wound down, I recorded with Robb Olson and Emily Hughes for what is now a 2x a year occurrence on Robb's podcast-- ARC Party. This time we previewed the first 6 months of 2025 Horror novels. We had a blast as usual. Here's Robb to set it all up.

2025 Horror Preview

With horror experts Emily Hughes and Becky Spratford

WELCOME TO 2025!!

This is the semi-annual Horror Preview episode, with my treasured guests Becky Spratford and Emily Hughes. Every six months, we gather to share with you all the extensive list of books we’re looking forward to in 2025. As is tradition, we talk about six months at a time, so I’m so excited to share with you all 36 books that we talked about in this episode, covering January to June of 2025.

Emily and Becky are the guests for these episodes because they are unrivaled in knowledge of horror literature. Emily as the legendary curator of her annual list of horror publications (CLICK HERE), and Becky because she’s the Horror Maven of the library world. She often hears about it first, reads about it first, and talks about it first. She’s no oracle, she works so hard to anticipate, read, and shout praise for all of the books that are changing the world of horror (CLICK HERE).

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Buy These Books

Preorder all of the 2025 Horror Preview books on Bookshop.org.

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The List

January

Witchcraft For Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

At Dark I become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman

Our Winter Monster by Dennis Mahoney

The Contortionist’s Handbook by Craig Clevenger

Metamorphosis by Ross Jeffrey

February

Listen To Your Sister by Neena Viel

The Poorly Made and Other Things by Sam Rebelein

Beauty in the Blood by Charlotte Carter

Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstein

The Pink Agave Motel by V Castro

Little Mysteries by Sara Gran

March

Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Pelayo

The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T Wurth

rekt by Alex Gonzalez

The Unworthy by Augustina Bazterrica

The Memory Ward by Jon Bassoff

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter boy Stephen Graham Jones

April

When The Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

Freakslaw by Jane Flett

The Cut by CJ Dotson

The Sundowner’s Dance by Todd Keisling

Senseless by Ronald Malfi

May

The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

The Butcher’s Daughter: There Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs Lovett by David Demchuk and Corrine Leigh Clark

Below the Grand Hotel by Cat Scully

Overgrowth by Mira Grant

The Night Birds by Christopher Golden

MaXXXine by Tim Waggoner

June

The Nut House by Patrick Barb

I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness by Irene Sola

Ecstasy by Ivy Pochoda

Girl In The Creek by Wendy N Wagner

The Small Hours by Bob Pastorella

King of Ashes by SA Cosby

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Buy These Books

Preorder all of the 2025 Horror Preview books on Bookshop.org.

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I hope you enjoy this episode! 2025 is going to be packed with exciting new books, so get out there and start reading. If you have a book you’re excited about, let me know! Comment here, or on social media. I love to share things, so I love to hear about new things.

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Finally, if you’re more of a YouTube type of listener/viewer, this link is for you: