31 Days of Horror: Day 2-- How to Use This Site As The Go-To RA Resource for Horror

Yesterday was exciting. I got the Why I Love Horror essays going on day 1 with a debut author, and we had a 3 book giveaway. Click here to catch up.

However, before we move forward with this year's new content, I wanted to take a moment, as I do every year, to reacquaint you with this blog as more than just a fun October experience (which it is), but rather, remind you of it's usefulness as a resource all year long.

So let's do a little orientation today.

RA for All Horror in general, and this blog-a-thon specifically, makes everyone feel welcome from the horror newbie (and/or fraidy cat) to the expert and everyone in between. I go out of my way to present things in an accessible way, organizing the content to meet everyone where they are, and allow people to explore at their own pace, always centering the patron experience. I am helping you help your readers, again from whatever level of familiarity of horror they come with as well.

Of course every October, there is a post a day in the main frame area, but throughout the year, I tend to only post 1x a week to host my #HorrorForLibraries giveaway. That giveaway is always going on. Your entry at any time, enters you going forward. And if you win, you can re-enter after 4 weeks. Since April 2020, I have given over 330 people books. Every giveaway post begins with the rules on how to enter. Here is a recent giveaway so you can see what those rules are (and so you can enter if you want; yesterday's post has the current giveaway).

I have written three editions of a textbook for library workers entitled, The Readers' Advisory Guide to Horror from ALA Editions (most current edition is 2021 and you can buy here). I also edited Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature from Saga Press (you can buy that anywhere books are sold). That book won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Nonfiction and Tananarive Due's essay from the book won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Nonfiction. 

While Why I Love Horror is my newest book, this website began to support those textbooks for library workers. Everything I do here acts like a free update to those books. Its focus is on helping you, the library worker help horror readers-- just like this blog.

So that is the basic background on what this site exists. Now let's take a quick tour, together. 

Look at the page in front of you. I keep the site very text heavy so that it is clear and easy to navigate. I also use tags to make everything easy for you to find. And finally, I keep the tone here conversational but authoritative. I want anyone who works from any place on their library's organizational chart to feel like they belong here, I want every level of familiarity with horror to find useful information, and I don't want anyone to feel like they are not welcome here.

At the very top of the page is the link for the current year of Summer Scares, a national summer reading program of horror titles-- 3 each for the reading levels of Adult, Teen, and Middle Grade-- presented by Horror Writers Association (HWA), in partnership with Booklist, Book Riot, iREAD, and NoveList®, a division of EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO). The 2026 year is coming to an end, but on October 30th, here on the blog, we will be announcing our 2027 Spokesperson!

Below that link is the main body of the site presenting as blog posts. You can navigate these as they appear in reverse chronological order or use the tags either at the end of each post or in the right gutter. Under the tags you can also navigate the blog by year and then month. So, if you want to easily see all 31 Days of Horror posts ever, you can use the tag for 31 Days of Horror, but you can also go to each year and choose October to access them that way.

The other major section of the blog you need to know about are the Pages which are listed above the tags and just below the HWA logo in the right gutter. These pages are actively maintained by me for the purpose of serving as your go-to horror for libraries resource. Below are the pages, linked in this post just as they are in the gutter, but here for the blog, I also added some information about what you can find when you click through.

PAGES

• Home: This link brings you back to the main page and the current blog post. 

• About This Blog: Info on this blog, how it began, and what to expect. 

• Third Edition Bonus Content: More Subgenre Annotations: When I wrote the third edition of the book, I had to cut half of the annotations. I moved them here on the blog to help you find even more suggestions. But full disclosure, all of this is dated now. The manuscript was turned in at the very beginning of 2021. 

• Horror Resources: This page is a treasure trove of links and resources for anyone who wants to help horror readers. Use it all year long. 

• Best Independent Horror Publishers for Libraries: This is exactly what it says. I update it regularly.  

• Horror Awards: Also exactly what it says. I pulled it out of the resources page so you can access the awards quickly and easily. 

• Archive of Becky's Lists, Articles, and Presentations: This is where all of the content I have created outside this blog lives. I will talk about this page in detail tomorrow's post. 

• Summer Scares Archive [2019-2025]: Once a year ends for Summer Scares, I move the content to this archive. This is the place to go to see all of the titles and resources we have created over the years. 

• Horror Reviews Index: Access my reviews through an automatically updating link.

Thank you for joining me on this tour of the RA for All Horror. Tomorrow, I will focus on my Archive of Lists, Articles, and Presentations as noted above. 

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31 Days of Horror: Day 1-- Here We Go Again for the 16th Year, the First Why I Love Horror Essay of 2026, and the First Giveaway

Today is October 1st and here we are again with 31 Days of Horror.

Each year 31 Days of Horror grows in readership. While some of you are here all year long, even when this blog is limited to my weekly #HorrorForLibraries giveaways, each year I get many new people joining in on the spooky blog-a-thon fun.

Now with Why I Love Horror: Essays in Horror Literature out in the world for a full year, and having won the Bram Stoker Award for both Short Nonfiction and Long Nonfiction, there is even more eyes on 31 Days of Horror.

But even with the book out and succeeding, the Why I Love Horror train stops for no one and I have solicited over a dozen Why I Love Horror essays being published here on the blog for the very first time. And it will all start today with Katherine Daniel a debut author with Berkley. 

But, first things first, if you have never encountered 31 Days of Horror before well, I have been doing this event since 2011.

[Side note, it all began inauspiciously with this post. Nothing special, just a basic post about  the appeal of Horror, but I htinkit is important to acknowledge that inauspicious beginning.]

The entire idea of 31 Days of Horror, began as a way to help library workers during the time of year when they need the most help with Horror. However, I did not want this series to become a list of lists either. 

From that desire to give you something original and useful was born a concurrent series entitled Why I Love Horror. In this series, that runs mostly, but not only, during October, I reach out to people in the Horror world and invite them to contribute essays written for you-- the general library worker. These invited people are told to share why they love horror as a creator and fan in 1500 words or less. Once again,  I have quite an exciting lineup planned.

My goal with the "Why I Love Horror" series has always been to expose you to people you should know about AND give you even more context for appeal. I can give you all the examples in the world of why people enjoy feeling scared when they read, but until you hear from actual fans, fans who also create Horror, it is hard to understand, especially for the vast majority of you who don't enjoy Horror for yourselves. 

Over the years I have had many people contribute to the Why I Love Horror series from up and comers [some of whom have gone on to become big names] to firmly established authors to folks who love horror in the library world. 

You can click here to see them all. "Why I Love Horror" is also a searchable tag any time, just like 31 Days of Horror.

"Why I Love Horror" is an excellent resource to help you help readers, and it is a Horror RA resource you cannot find anywhere else. 

But the blog is going to post every single day for 31 days in a row, so there is plenty of time to talk about all of this in more detail. Today, we are rushing straight with an original Why I Love Horror essay from Katherine Daniel, the author of When The Night Comes Knocking, her debut, Appalachian horror novel in which two estranged siblings become trapped in a convenience store under attack by a monster from the mountains who feasts on guilty hearts.

When The Night Comes Knocking is coming out October 20th from Berkley, but I have an ARC for one lucky winner today.

But wait....there's more. I want to start this month of supersized giveaways with 2 more titles, also going to the one winner.

I also have a finished, hardcover copy of the Welsh Folk Horror novel,  The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson courtesy of Hogarth which came out on August 11th AND an ARC of the Lit RPG horror novel, The Ship of Death by Kyle Winkler courtesy of the Harper Collins Library Marketing team. This novel came out this past Tuesday.

Click here to see last week's giveaway and review the rules on how to enter. You enter once and you are entered going forward.

Good luck.

And now, please meet debut horror novelist Katherine Daniel and learn why she loves horror.

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Why I Love Horror: Essay by Katherine Daniel

When I was perhaps six years old, my ferocious reader of a mother introduced my siblings and I to Alvin Schwartz’ In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories. Allow me to set the scene: in a small bedroom covered with Star Wars action figures and Nintendo 64 game cartridges, the blinds were shut and every light was turned off, as my brothers and I sat on the carpeted floor between two twin beds with flashlights held beneath our chins. We stared, for once quiet and completely fixated on a portable radio; from it, a cassette tape played of a deep-voiced narrator telling the haunting tale of “The Green Ribbon.” With each word, our grips around the flashlights tightened; our postures hunched inward, breaths catching. It was terrifying. 

It was absolute magic. 

While I can’t recall for certain whether that was my first real acquaintance with horror, it’s one of the core memories that stands out in my mind when I think of how my love for the genre began. Another one of these moments came a few years later, when my dad was watching the movie Misery on the boxy TV in our living room. I had only caught glimpses from the next room over—a too-wide smile, the delicious craze in Kathy Bates’s eyes—though I found myself drawn in nonetheless, pulled into a crouching position behind the recliner my dad lounged in, where I quietly hid and watched the remainder of the film with a hand over my mouth and my heart pounding in my ears. With it came that feeling again, the same one that I’d experienced when listening to “The Green Ribbon”. That sharp terror mixed with so much impossible-to-place excitement. All I knew was that I wanted more. 

I soon became enthralled with the original Sci-Fi channel on cable TV, devouring any creature feature that was on at the time that regularly chronicled the murderous rampages of ice spiders, chupacabras, radioactive alligators, or masked killers. Then, at around twelve or thirteen years old, when my mom gave me a well-loved, peeling copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that she had read when she was my age, I knew I was a complete goner—that horror had my heart gripped between its sharp, bloodthirsty teeth. 

Through steadily consuming more and more horror, I had finally begun to understand the concept of fear, and how it could only truly have power over you if you allowed it to. There was something so addictive, so freeing about that notion that I knew I never wanted to go without it again. And thus, the love grew. 

I look back on these moments now and cherish them for what all they introduced me to—for the exploration into an adoration of something that had barely just begun to take root. Now, I have a new core memory that will be added to my collection; one where I will look back on the time that I was 28 years old and my debut novel was being published—a novel that was written as a pure love letter to all the horror I grew up finding so much joy in. 

I believe that fear is the universal emotion; all humans experience it, all battle with it, and I think that’s what keeps people readily going back for more in terms of consuming horror media. While we’re curious by nature, there’s also a deep craving to know just what it is that causes that spike in our heart rate and our blood to run cold—or that makes us grip our flashlights just a little bit tighter. At the gut of it, we long to understand what scares us most; and we feel quietly pleased when we find ourselves able to face something that otherwise might make someone else’s skin crawl. We come to horror to peel back the armour on the most honest, basal parts of our natures. We come to horror, open and eager and vulnerable again and again to feel—to decide if we’re going to be afraid or not. 

It’s a beautiful thing; I love horror for many reasons, though that might be my very favorite.

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Thank you for getting us started, Katherine. Come back tomorrow for a more formal primer on how to use this blog as a resource all year long.

#HorrorForLibraries: Last giveaway BEFORE 31 Days of Horror Begins-- 2 Arcs for 1 Winner

Today is the final giveaway before the bonanza that is 31 Days of Horror. I am offering 2 great ARCs, of titles I did NOT get a chance to review but I wanted to make sure were on your radar. 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.

Last week's winner was Jeremiah from FL. Now on to this week's giveaway.

As I mentioned above, today I want to feature 2 books that are coming out very soon. Titles I wanted to review but physically could not fit into my schedule. [Side note: wait until you see the 13 reviews and 2 interviews I have between Booklist and LJ for October.]

Both are worthy of an add to your library. I will feature them in the order they come out.

First up, a popular nonfiction title: Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe by Emily Ogden:

A fascinating and intimate inquiry into the shadowy life and horrifyingly compelling work of Edgar Allan Poe, and why we are drawn to darkness in art.

Since Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious death in 1849, his stories and poems have captivated millions of readers around the world. One hundred seventy-five years later, why do we continue to descend into the darkness of his imagination—and of the genres, from horror to crime, that he pioneered?

In this spellbinding and singular book, Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant winner Emily Ogden plumbs the darkness within Poe and enters it alongside him. She interweaves stories from his mysterious and tragic life—from his strange disappearances and tortured romances to his nearly fatal use of opium—with those of his most famous readers and translators, including poet Charles Baudelaire, writer Julio Cortázar, and psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte, a descendant of Napoleon and a patient of Sigmund Freud.

Tracing their passionate attachments to Poe and Ogden’s own—unexpectedly sparked when she taught an introductory Poe course at the University of Virginia, where Poe himself was once a student—Darkness Becomes Bright makes a different case for literature from the one we most often hear (that it engenders empathy). This exquisite volume shows how Poe’s vision and its echoes across the generations allows us to make peace with our own flawed humanity.

Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe by Emily Ogden comes out next week, September 29th from Viking who provided this ARC for today's giveaway.

Second is a title I featured in my July Horror Genre Preview in LJ under the trend of "Sea Soaked Horror," Atomic Coffin by Benedict Anning:

December 1984. SIS field asset Heidi Sperling [codename Thistle] exfiltrates from East Berlin with the only copy of a critical intelligence coup – a naval log containing a solitary message received from a previously unidentified Soviet Typhoon ballistic missile nuclear submarine.

Incredulously – impossibly – it seems the vessel, known only as TK-15, has been sitting motionless and undetected in the waters between Scotland and Iceland for three years. Now NATO needs to be on high alert because that one-word message ACTIVE . . .

Picked up from East Germany’s Baltic Coast by the Royal Navy’s hunter-killer submarine HMS Viking, Heidi is thrown into a mission to find and investigate the TK-15, and must confront her own paralytic fear of the ocean’s crushing black depths and HMS Viking’s seemingly hostile crew. When her only apparent ally, Executive Officer Daniel Vickers, disappears as they investigate the TK-15, she realises this modified submarine is far more than a Soviet experiment to gain a strategic upper hand in the nuclear arms race. Here, at the bottom of the ocean, the Soviets have – for good or ill – delved too long and too deep into what lies beneath and woken something far, far worse. As Heidi’s own reality twists around her, as an unknowable force drives the crew to madness and cripples the British submarine's defences. Can Heidi control her own escalating fears and help bring the Soviet craft to the surface? Or will she make the ultimate sacrifice in order to stop the mysterious TK-15 from completing its dark and terrible mission?

Atomic Coffin by Benedict Anning comes out October 6th from Saga/S&S Press who provided this ARC for today's giveaway.

Enter now and you are entered going forward, meaning you are in the running for all of the October giveaways. I already have a lot of giveaways planned, but after my trip to NYC for the week of 10/5 and an appearance at NYCC and a visit to the Saga offices, I will have more. Including finished copies of OFF THE RESERVATION by SGJ. 

Good luck to all!

And remember, starting 10/1, you need to be back here on the horror blog every single day for a month of new content.

#HorrorForLibraries: 2 Arcs for 1 Winner

Today I have 2 great ARCs, including this one I reviewed in the September 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.

Last week's winner was Susan from MA. Now on to this week's giveaway.

First up is a book I reviewed in the September issue of Booklist, Quaint Folk by Bitter Karella:

It’s one week to Tigglestide Eve on the quaint British island of Hasenhurst, where the isolated islanders are devoted to their unique traditions. A Californian family– Tech VP Greg, homemaker Jessica, and their 15-year-old, nonbinary, purple-haired, aspiring witch, Sandy– relocate so that Greg can help Hasenhurst move into the 21st Century. However, as readers know from Chapter 0, the house that they will be staying in has powers of its own, allowing a layer of unease to settle over the novel, even before the family gets to the island's foggy shores. Told through the perspectives of the troubled Jessica and a blossoming Sandy, Karella (Moonflow) builds the world of Hasenhurst with skill, deliberately unveiling the details of Hasenhurst’s “quaint tradition” of Tigglestide as the days tick down, details that allow the fear to steadily rise from unsettling to dread to all out terror. Thought-provoking, irreverent, fun, and utterly original, get this book in the hands of Chuck Tingle's fans and those who enjoy folk horror in the vein of Slewfoot by Brom.

Three Words That Describe This Book: great world building, folk horror, tongue in cheek

Click here for way more by me about this fun, thought provoking, and chilling book.  Quaint Fold by Bitter Karella comes out on 10/6/26 from Run For It.

Second the ARC of a title I am very excited about but did not have time to review, Silent Nightmares: Haunting Stories to Be Told on the Longest Night of the Year edited by Chuck Palahniuk and Michael Bailey:

For fans of Out There Screaming and Never Whistle at Night, a chilling anthology of tales centered around the longest nights of the year, with modern horror authors like Alma Katsu and Josh Malerman paying homage to the time-honored Victorian tradition of ghost stories, edited by Chuck Palahniuk and Michael Bailey.

Great writers of centuries past like Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, and Bram Stoker understood that darkness is always hiding amid the holiday cold and cheer, revealing sinister secrets. That in the stillness of winter, when the world is wrapped in a blanket of snow, the festive spirit masks the lurking horrors that dwell beneath the surface.

From haunted halls to malevolent delights, from vengeful spirits of the past to creatures lurking in the shadows, expect to encounter beings that celebrate the season in frightful ways in this Victorian-inspired horror anthology.

Join Chuck Palahniuk, Michael Bailey, Josh Malerman, Joe R. Lansdale, Alma Katsu, Ramsey Campbell, Cynthia Pelayo, Gabino Iglesias, and more for stories that promise nostalgia and dread, reminding us that sometimes the most silent nights can be the deadliest.

This is a book that will be popular with horror fans all year long and those looking to dip their toes in right now, around Halloween and around the Solstice. Don't miss this one.

There are also gorgeous illustrations accompanying each story by the amazing illustrator Orion Zangara who did the work on the tshirt for my book.

Add this book to your carts now if you haven't already. Silent Nightmares: Haunting Stories to Be Told on the Longest Night of the Year edited by Chuck Palahniuk and Michael Bailey comes out 9/29/26 from Saga Press. 

Both ARCs for 1 winner. 

Enter now and you are entered going forward.

Good luck to all!

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: 2 ARCs for 1 Winner

Today I have 2 great ARCs, including this one I reviewed in the August 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.

Last week's winner was Lizzy from VA. Now on to this week's giveaway.

First up a book I reviewed in Booklist and wow was it great-- This B Just Won't Die by Tanya Pell. From that review:

Barb spent years as a scream queen, playing Debbie in six Mirror Man films, but now it’s 20 years later, she’s over 40, signing memorabilia for money, anxious about aging, and angry that she has never been seen as anything but the final girl. However, when people near Barb start getting murdered, the killer leaving clues from the movie franchise, Barb must fight her way through a real-life slasher film, grow into the role of final girl, or die trying. Pell’s (Her Wicked Roots) second novel is both a love letter to and biting satire of the final girl trope, filled with all the parts fans will demand but including a “pink horror” lens, the emerging subgenre of woman centered stories that are deadly terrifying, fun reads that tackle the sexism of the genre and the world at large head on without missing a horror beat. For fans of meta horror like Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix or the scary, angry, feminist horror of authors like Rachel Harrison and C.J. Leede.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Final Girl Trope, Pink Horror, Conversational Tone

Click here to read a whole lot more. This is Pell's second novel and I am putting her on the MUST BUY list for every book. Her horror is perfect for a public library audience. Her work is thoughtful, has great characters, compelling pacing, and is definitely horror. 

This B Just Won't Die by Tanya Pell will be published on 10/13/26 by Gallery Books who provided this ARC for me to give away to one of you.

The second book is a titles that I did not have time to review but want to make sure you all know about.

It is the adult novel from a former Summer Scares YA author: American Nightmare by Kelly McWilliams. From the publisher's page:

“With its unflinching excavation of our dark past, American Nightmare is a page turner with a message.”—Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Kin 

In this haunting historical novel, a light-skinned Black man goes undercover to investigate lynchings in the South, only to be confronted by the very evil that has pursued him since childhood…

Clark Wendell White first encountered the Nightmare as a child during the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, when he and his father stood guard over their family home. In the eyes of the mob surging through his neighborhood, Clark sensed this malevolent presence. It was then that the Nightmare took shape, burrowing deep into his mind and feeding on his fear.

Years later, the same evil presence drives Clark to the NAACP’s headquarters in New York City, where he answers an ad seeking light-skinned Black men for dangerous undercover work. As a spy for the NAACP, Clark investigates lynchings, impersonating the very Nightmare that once tormented him.

As Clark descends deeper into this double life, another force rises: a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, finding a foothold in the storied streets of New York City. Among its eager recruits is Sam Cahill—the one man who can see past his disguise. Now Clark must outwit both the living and the dead, as he confronts a past that refuses to stay buried and a future where the act of passing exacts a soul-deep price.

Inspired by the life of civil rights activist Walter White, who passed as a white man to expose the brutality of lynchings from the South to the Midwest, American Nightmare is a gripping historical thriller that reveals the most terrifying monsters aren’t those that go bump in the night but those that walk among us.

I am very excited for this one. American Nightmare by Kelly McWilliams comes out next week on 9/15/26 from Crown who provided this ARC for me to give away to one of you.

Two great titles, one winner. Enter now and you are entered going forward. 

Good luck!

#HorrorForLibrariesGiveaway: Three Anthologies for 1 Winner

Today I have 3 high interest anthologies, 1 finished copy and 2 ARCs. 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.

The last winner was Lisa from PA. Now on to this week's giveaway.

Anthologies are very popular in general, but especially during the Fall when we have more readers who want to give Horror a try. Anthologies are the best way for readers to survey the landscape of a genre, to see a wide variety of styles and voices writing under one umbrella. They also provide a tasting menu of voices familiar and brand new. And if the editor does their job well, readers will finish the book having learned of a few new writers who will be added to their personal to-read pile.

Today I have 3 yet to be released 2026 Horror Anthologies for 1 winner. I highly suggest you add all three of these anthologies to your collections ASAP. They all feature popular authors whose books you have in your collections.

The first one is edited by Ellen Datlow. She is the most decorated and critically acclaimed editor and anthologist in the genre. Datlow crafts anthologies that unfold like a novel, layering stories that build off of each other which adds depth to the reading experience. It is important to note that Datlow has been consciously inclusive in assembling the table of contents for each of her books—and that intentionality (by the field’s top editor no less) has inspired others to follow her lead.

Next week she has a new anthology of all new stories dropping, All Hallow's Eve. From Goodreads:

Hugo Award winning editor and horror legend Ellen Datlow presents this chilling horror anthology of 19 original short stories from a world-class line-up of the masters of horror, delving into the histories and traditions of the spookiest season of the year.

Featuring stories by Josh Malerman, Stephen Graham Jones, Garth Nix and many more.

Halloween, Samhain, Día de los Muertos—festivals across the world where we can commune with those we have lost, when spirits can cross over, and when the boundary between the living and the dead is far, far too thin.

A young boy encounters a woman with an ancient and terrifying link to the holiday, a group of college students attend a Halloween party to die for, and a troubled girl exploits a local urban legend to try and turn her life around.

From America to New Zealand via the rural Romanian wilderness, this anthology explores our worldwide obsession with the spookiest season of the year, when the veil is lifted and the spirits come alive. 

Featuring 19 original stories from bestselling and award-winning masters of the genre, and from Hugo, World Fantasy, Locus, Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson award-winning editor and horror legend Ellen Datlow, this anthology invites you to carve a pumpkin, light the lanterns and welcome in trick or treaters from across the world. With stories by Josh Malerman Lee Murray Rich Larson Clay McLeod Chapman Livia Llewellyn Michael Marshall Smith Stephen Graham Jones Linda D. Addison Christopher Golden Alma Katsu Brian Evenson Siobhan Carroll Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ Theresa DeLucci Garth Nix Jeffrey Ford Richard Kadrey Nathan Ballingrud John Langan

All Hallows' Eve comes out 9/8/26 from Titan Books who have provided this finished hard cover copy for one of you to add to your collections.

Next up is an anthology I reviewed in the August issue of Booklist here. 

Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné Horror

Edited by Cynthia Pelayo

Oct. 2026. 336p. Atria/Primero Sueno, paper, $18 (9781668091944).

First published August 2026 (Booklist).

Critically acclaimed author Pelyao presents a culturally centered, haunting anthology featuring a who’s who of today’s Latiné authors with simultaneous publication in English and Spanish. The 17 stories are as different as the authors themselves. For example, Agustina Bazterrica presents a chilling, psychological, and heartbreaking story of a family’s pain; while Ann Dávila Cardinal’s diaspora story/satire will make readers laugh and gasp; and Lilliam Rivera’s standout, a discomfiting, visceral tale of body horror, anger, and retribution across generations and countries that will remind readers of Stephen Graham Jones. The tales here might stem from an inherited legacy of the horrors of colonialism, narco-violence, immigration, dictatorships, and gender violence, but the universal fear they describe reverberates loudly, screams into readers’ ears, ringing with their unsettling truth, lingering and forcing readers to reckon with what they have just experienced, long after the final page is turned. For all horror readers, this anthology will be especially sought after by the fans of the included authors and those who enjoyed the Never Whistle at Night anthologies.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Haunting, Full Range of Scares, Thought-Provoking

Click here for much more by me about this anthology. Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné Horror comes out on September 29th from Atria/Primero Sueno Press who provided this ARC for me to giveaway to one of you.

Finally, an anthology I am very excited about but did not have time to fit it into my review schedule-- Unearthed: New Horror of Ancient Ruins. edited by Dan Coxon and Philip Fracassi. From Goodreads:

Nineteen original horror stories exploring ancient sites, uncovering forgotten histories and prising open the tombs of the past, from award-winning authors and editors Dan Coxon and Philip Fracassi.

Perfect for fans of Ellen Datlow.

Unearthed digs beneath these crumbling structures to reveal their archaic pasts, and their darkest secrets. Featuring the best modern writers of horror and dark fantasy, these stories explore the caverns and the catacombs, the ruined temples and the monoliths – and drag an ancient evil back into the light.

Featuring stories by  Tananarive Due Christopher Golden Josh Malerman Tim Lebbon Eric LaRocca A.M. Shine Jonathan Maberry Hildur Knútsdóttir Ai Jiang A. G. Slatter Mark Chadbourn Priya Sharma Benjamin Percy V. Castro Gemma Amor Cavan Scott Premee Mohamed Hache Pueyo Steve Toase

Unearthed comes out on  9/15/26 from Titan Books who have provided this ARC to me to give away to one of you.

That's 3 anthologies for 1 lucky winner.

Enter now and you are entered going forward.

Good luck!

No Giveaway Today BUT.....

I will be heading on vacation in a few days so there is no giveaway this week.

However, I have lots of upcoming Horror books for all ages to share today via Shelf Awareness:

Note from the Editors

Welcome to Shelf Awareness: Extra!

Welcome to another edition of Shelf Awareness Extra!, which are special issues that focus on a particular subject and appear once a month. This edition focuses on Halloween, many people's favorite holiday--for booksellers and publishers, too. For a lot more about spooky titles, keep reading!

Click through for lots of upcoming horror goodness, for all ages.  

I am back next week with 3 up coming anthologies for 1 winner. Including a hard cover, finished copy of this.

You can enter anytime. Follow the direction on the most recent giveaway here.