#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Spread Me by Sarah Gailey

Today I am giving away an ARC for a book by an author who is VERY popular with library audiences. 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 Brandi from OK.

Now on to today's giveaway. Sarah Gailey has a new book coming out. Spread Me and the advance praise for this novel is off the charts! Via Goodreads:

Spread Me is a darkly seductive tale of survival from Sarah Gailey, after a routine probe at a research station turns deadly when the team discovers a strange specimen in search of a warm place to stay.

Kinsey has the perfect job as the team lead in a remote research outpost. She loves the solitude, and the way the desert keeps her far away from the temptations teeming out in the civilian world.

When her crew discovers a mysterious specimen buried deep in the sand, Kinsey breaks quarantine and brings it into the hab. But the longer it's inside, the more her carefully controlled life begins to unravel. Temptation has found her after all, and it can't be ignored any longer.

One by one, Kinsey's team realizes the thing they're studying is in search of a new host—and one of them is the perfect candidate....

Here's the thing though, this description works very hard to not give anything away, but it might work too hard. I think it leaves out some key appeal info about this erotic horror novel. So, I have added three blurb from an author and one from a librarian (that I know irl):

“A pure giddy delight of an erotic horror story. It will leave you scandalized, terrified, and delighted.” —Katee Robert, New York Times bestselling author

"John Carpenter's The Thing is back and it's sandier, and hornier, and wants to be inside of YOU! Made me blush so hard I cried." —Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls

“Hot, messed-up horror that puts you in a maniacal 'sickos meme' state. The vivacious pace keeps the pages flying, while the core of Spread Me is a blooming flower, revealing its beauty petal by petal. Another reason Gailey is one of my favorite authors.” —Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Game in Yellow

"I just finished @sarahgailey.bsky.social 's SPREAD ME last night and Y'ALL... I never felt so flushed about desert life before." -- Kristi C, @booksnyarn.bsky.social

I think most of you have this book on order already, but just in case....get on that! This book come out on 9/23/25.

I am giving away one ARC courtesy of Tor Nightifre to one winner. 

 Enter once and you are entered going forward.

Good Luck!

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Two Finished Books for 1 Winner

Today I am giving away two finished books (to one winner) that I am pretty sure many of you missed, but I think are worth your time. 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 three winners were (in order): Jamie from MN, Adam from KS, and Jenny from NY.

Now on to today's giveaway. 

I have 2 books which were brought to my attention as I attended conferences last month. The first came to me via StokerCon. As I was going through the dealers room and talking with authors I met Ari Loeb. Loeb is an example of an author who is getting the critical praise for his excellent work, but is having trouble breaking through into places like libraries-- where there would be many readers who would enjoy his novels-- mostly because he is being published in smaller presses. 

We had a great conversation and he is a super interesting person. (See also his memoir-- in essays-- coming out soon.)

To help more people know about his latest novel, The Stunted Man (which has a blurb from Nick Cage and that alone is enough for you to know as to why your readers will love it), which has won numerous awards and accolades, I am featured a finished copy here on the blog. From Goodreads:

"Compelling, poetic, and funny as hell." —Nicolas Cage

"Best Psychological Horror 2024" —American Fiction Award

"Best Fiction" —Literary Titan Award

Aging stuntman Lex Mercier battles addiction and his own demons while searching for his last shot at redemption on a dangerous gig with Universal Pictures. But will his fractured mind and broken body allow him to perform? Can he ultimately quell his addictions and conquer his darkest fears? Or will his misery overtake him . . .

Written from an insider's perspective on the stunt industry, The Stunted Man invites you to peek behind the curtain at the men and women who risk their lives to bring you the high-octane cinema you love. Horror fans, metalheads, and iconoclasts will revel in Lex's journey throughout the dark alleys, haunted film locations, and seedy sub-terrains of New Orleans, as he explores the depths of depression, the haunting allure of stunt work, and the ultimate cost of chasing one’s dreams.

If pop culture makes you uncomfortable, you will absolutely love this book.

"A Confederacy of Dunces meets Frankenstein."

"Myth-making at its finest. An air-tight bloody triumph."

I highly recommend you add this book to your collections, whether you win this week's giveaway or not. It is a great example of survival horror with an interesting and frame-- the stunt industry. That alone will get pique readers interests. The fact that the reading the book is totally worth their time, well that will be icing on the cake.

Next up is a finished book from Poisoned Pen Press (Sourcebooks) that I had missed completely when it came out in mid-June-- The Farmhouse by Chelsea Conradt:

Every woman who has lived on this farm has died. Emily just moved in.

When Emily Hauk's mother dies, it's time for her and her husband, Josh, to finally leave San Francisco. A farm in rural Nebraska is everything they want for a fresh start: clear skies, low costs, and distance from the grief back home.

They should have asked why the farm was for sale.

Three years ago a teenage girl went missing from the farm. Soon afterward, the girl's mother mysteriously died. The deeper Emily digs the more stories she uncovers of women connected to her new home who've met their own dark ends.

With each passing day Emily's sanctuary slips further away. The barn seems to move throughout her property as though chasing her. Her mother's favorite music drifts across the cornfield. She swears she saw blood in one of the farmhand's trucks. And the screams that wake her are not fox howls, no matter how many times her husband says they are. If she wants to claim this place as her own she'll have to find out the truth before whatever watches from the cornfield takes her, too.

The Sourcebooks Library Marketing Team talked to me about this book while I was at ALA Annual and gave me this finished copy to give away to one of you. I had not heard about this book at all, even as I was reviewing other titles from the imprint-- and loving them. Keep your eye out for their great titles. Like all Sourcebooks titles, these are books that are PERFECT for a general library audience.

Reminder, both of these books are finished copies, so the winner should consider adding them to their collections.

But it is more than that. All of you reading this should consider adding both of these books to your collection...right now! I do this giveaway not only to give the advanced copies of the books I have read for review away, but also, to alert you to books that you would not know about otherwise. I can't review them all, but I can fit a few more in with my Becky seal of approval here on the giveaway.

Next week I will begin featuring books with September release dates! 

Enter now, so you can be entered going forward. Last week I had a winner from 4 years ago who had forgot she entered as well as someone who had entered that week. You never know.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: 3 Books for 3 Winners

Today I have three books which I wrote reviews for in the July 2025 issue of Booklist  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 Samantha from WI.

Now on to this week. I have MANY books to giveaway in the coming weeks so I am going to get a jump on the overflow with three titles whose reviews just published.

Below I will list the books in the order of which I will pull the winners with the title and my three words for each book, with the link going my draft review and bonus appeal info from the general blog. Three books, three distinct winners.

• We Are always Tender With Our Dead by Eric LaRocca
• Three Words That Describe This Book: transgressive, engrossing, epic
• STARRED Review
• Tantrum by Rachel Eve Moulton
• Three Words That Describe This Book: generational trauma, bad seed novel reimagined, sinister
• 8114 by Joshua Hull
• Three Words That Describe This Book: verisimilitude, haunted small towns, trauma

Good luck to all. 

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: A Shirley Jackson Award Nominee and Two Bonus Books

Today I have three books from Lethe Press for one winner including a title that is nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award which are all being handed out next weekend.  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 Hawaii

Today I have a prize pack courtesy of 3 finished books from Lethe Books which I got from them while attending StokerCon. You can add all of these to your collections immediately.

First up is a novella which, as I said above, is up for a Shirley Jackson Award in the novella category. My colleague Stephanie Klose gave it a star last year in Booklist:

STAR

A Scout Is Brave.

By Will Ludwigsen. July 2024. 150p. Lethe, paper, $15 (9781590216606).

First published June 1, 2024 (Booklist). 

When Bud Castillo and his parents move from Queens to tiny oceanfront Innsmouth, Massachusetts, he’s startled to find that the town contains only one other kid: naive, earnest Aubrey Marsh. Missing his Boy Scout troop, Bud suggests that he and Aubrey start their own, leading to adventures that include breaking into a derelict hospital and sneaking onto the offshore drilling rig where Bud’s father works in an effort to learn more about “the Unpleasantness” that led to Innsmouth being abandoned 30 years earlier and its connection to the mysterious Reverend Pritchett’s current plans for the town. Bud’s first-person narrative voice is wry and engaging, telling his fish-out-of-water story with both the wonder of the child he was and the canny perspective of the adult he’s become. With teen protagonists and equal attention paid to the narrator’s coming-of-age and the eldritch horrors (possibly) lurking under the water, this perfectly polished gem of a novel is ideal for readers who loved YA horror, such as White Smoke (2021), by Tiffany D. Jackson, or The Dead and the Dark (2021), by Courtney Gould, as well as for adult fans of cosmic horror, such as John Langan’s The Fisherman (2016) or Nick Cutter’s The Deep (2014). — Stephanie Klose

Next up is  H.P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book: Weirdly Illustrated:

Artist Michael Bukowski takes the entries in H.P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book and creates a memorable addition to any bookshelf devoted to the weird. Featuring a mix of full-color spreads and cleverly monstrous spot art surrounding Lovecraft's imaginative notions, it is the perfect gift for any fan of the Cthulhu Mythos. Only 1d6 SAN lost with each reading.

Paperback, 84 pages with a selection of full-color artwork on many pages!

And finally Monstrous Alterations by Christopher Barzak:

In this new collection from Shirley Jackson Award winning author
Christopher Barzak, discover stories where fairy tales, gothic narratives, and classic monster stories are transformed into new wonders. A princess who yearns only for freedom dances her nights away at clubs in defiance of tradition. A young man plots revenge on his murderer from the underworld. Two friends discover a goblin market where they are offered the fruit of forbidden love. On the streets of London, a man destroys the life of a little girl in an instant. The caretaker for a woman confined to her room frees her from the circumstances that have bound her. A maid at an inn discovers the powerlessness and power of invisibility. A teenager, locked into Kensington Gardens after closing time, is brought face to face with the reality of a childhood icon. A man is born, grows up, and dies, all within the span of a day. A bank clerk determines to save himself and his friend from the destinies their overbearing fathers have made for them. From the Brothers Grimm to Kafka, Barzak imaginatively traverses the history of the dark and the fantastic, and returns with new tales for an ever-changing world. 

"In Monstrous Alterations, Christopher Barzak fashions old tales into modern marvels, trimming, embellishing, and turning them inside out. A spellbound tailor, he is both witty with his scissors and entranced by his source material, enmeshed in Poe, Kafka, Christina Rossetti, and the vast fairy tale tradition. These stories display not only the power of craft but the helplessness of desire: that intoxicating stuff we call inspiration." -Sofia Samatar, World Fantasy Award winning author of A Stranger in Olondria.

All three finished copies for 1 winner!

Enter now and you are entered going forward. Good luck! 

Becky's Annual Horror Genre Preview in Library Journal Featuring My Interview with Chuck Tingle

 

It's alive!

My 2025 Horror Genre Preview is in the July 2025 print magazine and is up on the Library Journal site here.

 It is paywalled, but they give you a few free articles a month. However, in the interest of helping all of you serve your horror readers,  I have made the (longer) unedited draft of this article avaialable here. 

Also anyone can accces a full list of titles, sorted by BISAC code and including trend notes in a handy spreadsheet to make ordering easier for your library.

Shout out to Emily Hughes’ archive of 2025’s New Horror Books on her site Jump Scares which was instrumental in helping me craft this article as well as Edelweiss's database.

But wait....there's more. I was able to conduct an interview with Chuck Tingle as part of this issue as well.

LJ Talks with Horror Writer Chuck Tingle,
Author of ‘Lucky Day’
 

Click here to read our conversation, here for the LJ starred review of Lucky Day and here for access to my starred review of the same novel in Booklist. Thanks again to Tingle for fitting this interview into his schedule.

So much upcoming horror goodness here. Get on it. Now is the time to prepare for Spooky Season.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Three Cli-Fi Titles for 1 Winner

Today I have the ARCs of the three books by the authors who appeared on a panel I moderated at ALA. 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 winners were Kristie from NJ, Ilyssa from NJ, Susan from MA, and Maggie from CO.

On Sunday during the ALA 2025 Conference, I had the opportunity to moderate this panel:

Cli-Fi Panel: Exciting Forthcoming Environmental Fiction: 

Join authors Anna North (BOG QUEEN, Bloomsbury), Wendy N. Wagner (GIRL IN THE CREEK, Tor Nightfire), and Yume Kitasei (SALTCROP, Flatiron), as they discuss their forthcoming novels, which explore environmental issues in bold new ways and through various genres, including literary fiction, eco-horror, and sci-fi. This panel will be moderated by librarian Becky Spratford, RA for All. After 30 minutes of discussion and Q&A, please join the authors for a 20-minute galley signing. 

During our 20 minute conversation we talked about how "Cli-Fi" is not a genre-- as these three books demonstrate. It is more of a frame. All three of these books have an environmental frame and add unsettling speculative elements to provide entertainment, yes, but also some fear about our very real climate.

We have titles here that would be most commonly cataloged as Historical Fiction (North), Horror (Wagner), and Science Fiction (Kitasei), and yet, they also a have clear "cli-fi" lens.

In this more general part of the conversation we talked about why they felt that this lens was so important to them and how it works I tandem with their genre elements. 

All three have a deep connection to the natural world and shared how they work it into everything they write. (So if you like these books or what I am sharing here, check out all of their books.)

We also talked about how they approached their novel so differently. We went back and forth about some more specifics of how their stories are told. Here is a summary of that part of the conversation:

• North's novel is a historical story going all the way back to ancient times and alternating with the present. And we talked about how the bog gets a voice as well. She talked about her research as well.
• Wagner talked about the overlap of true crime, being a hiker and things she has seen, and the narration of her fungus-- the strangeness. We talked about the animals having a voice and her love of trees.
• Kitasei shared stories about having three sisters herself, how the story is as much about a journey as it is about the environment, and how when she wrote it, she thought it would be way more SF, but now it feels to real.

It was a great chat and I highly recommend all three books for all libraries. I am giving these ARCs away together precisely because I love how they represent the broad range of what would have been considered "Cli-Fi," even just a few years ago. These are solid historical, horror, and science fiction novels with strong message about the problems of climate change.

These ARCs were went to me by the publishers before ALA so that I could read them to prepare. And now, they are being passed on to one of you.

Enter this week and you are entered going forward.

Good Luck!

Back from ALA But First Unfinished StokerCon Business

 I got back late last night from ALA Annual in Philly but while I was there, my annual Stoker Awards wrap up article went live on The LineUp. I take the top 5 fiction categories, give you an annotation for the winner and offer two read likes (w/ annotations as well).

Please click here to read the full article. I have also posted the introduction below.

Also, don't forget I have 15 backlist columns available on the site for free as well. All of them contain excellent Horror suggestions for a wide range of readers. Click here to access them all.

From the Haunted Stacks: 2024 Bram Stoker AwardsⓇ Wrap Up

Some of the darkest, scariest, and all around superior works of horror from last year.

Each year, the Horror Writers Association presents the Bram Stoker AwardsⓇ for Superior Achievement in thirteen categories. There are a few interesting things about these, the most prestigious awards in the horror genre. 

One, the award itself is very cool, an eight-inch replica of a haunted house, designed specifically for HWA by sculptor Steven Kirk. The door of the house opens to reveal a brass plaque engraved with the name of the winning work and its author. 

Two, the Bram Stoker AwardsⓇ are not for the “best” works of the year; rather, they are “for superior achievement” which leaves room for more titles to be considered in a broader context.

And three, the awards are chosen by a hybrid system of juries (one for each category) and member input. 

When you put all of this together, the results are always a cause for celebration.

And that is exactly what happened on June 14, 2025, when the Bram Stoker AwardsⓇ for books published in 2024 were presented live in Stamford, Connecticut, as part of StokerCon. 

Visit the Bram Stoker AwardsⓇ  official website for a full list of winners here. Or you can watch the entire ceremony for yourself in the YouTube video here. 

In Haunted Stacks style though, I am not here to simply list the winners for you. Rather, I will focus on the titles that won in five of the categories and offer you two read-alikes to continue your superior reading adventure.  

 Click here to read the article.

Back to morrow to begin the post ALA discussions.