#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Lovecraft's Brood edited by Ellen Datlow

Today I have a an ARC of an upcoming anthology, my review of which is in the June 2026 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 David from KS. Now on to this week's giveaway. 

Lovecraft’s Brood: Nineteen Tales of Cosmic Horror Ed. Ellen Datlow

July 2026. 302p. illus. Tachyon, paper, $18.95 (9781616964627). REVIEW. First published June 1, 2026 (Booklist). 

Completing the duology she began with Lovecraft’s Monsters, award-winning editor Datlow is back with 19 previously published stories, all from this century*. An impressive list of authors focus their talents on cosmic fear as Lovecraft defined it– an immersive, existential dread, steeped in the realization that the universe is indifferent to our suffering. The range of stories includes those firmly grounded in reality such as Paul Tremblay’s “The Note,” where a neighborhood walk leads to a wife’s disappearance; to a tale caught in the space between realities– the roadside motel– as in Wendy Wagner’s “Halogen Sky;” to a tear in the fabric of reality, caused by a kitten, in T Kingfisher’s “Agent of Chaos.” Each story begins with an illustration by John Coulthart, perfectly capturing the appeal of the story to come. A great choice for longtime Lovecraftian Horror fans and newcomers alike, yes, but this volume will also lure readers in with the promise of a tale by a beloved author, as they exit having discovered a few new favorites along the way. *This is always important to point out in these Lovecraft anthos. We want to be clear these are TODAY’S voices.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Cosmic Dread, anthology, madness

Please click here for much more about this book and its appeal by me. 

 This book is out next month. The TOC is outstanding. From the Tachyon website:

A. C. Wise / T. Kingfisher / Paul Tremblay / Caitlín R. Kiernan / Laird Barron / Norman Partridge / Elizabeth Hand / Aaron Dries / Conrad Williams / Steve Rasnic Tem / Brian Hodge / Ray Cluley / Jacob Steven Mohr / Carol Gyzander / L. Marie Wood / Livia Llewellyn / Wendy N. Wagner / Ian Rogers / Gary McMahon

 Today I am offering the ARC that Tachyon sent me to one winner.

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

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Unsettled Score by Rebecca Rowland

Today on the giveaway I have an ARC of a book that I reviewed in the April 2026 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. 

Today I have a collection from a trusted small press and an up and coming voice you need to know.

Unsettled Score: A Mixtape of Psychological, Transgressive, and Art House Horror

By Rebecca Rowland June 2026. 272p. Lethe, paper, $19 (9781590217887). 

First published April 1, 2026 (Booklist).

Presenting her collection as a musical mixtape complete with 13 earworm inducing “tracks” on two “sides” including a “hidden track” tucked in after the acknowledgments, Shirley Jackson Award finalist Rowland gives readers a fun frame that effortlessly draws them into each story before she violently knocks them off center employing well executed, visceral and psychologically unmooring twists that, in story after story, work in tandem to rhythmically unsettle the reader. Some threats are human, some are supernatural, but all are monsters. For example, in “Mrs. Robinson” an unassuming middle aged woman closing up at work leaves readers speechless by the story’s end, while in “Turn Me Loose,” 80s nostalgia and a creepy doll provide a terrifying bite. With an introduction by horror short story master John Langan, Rowland has announced herself as an author to keep an eye on. For fans of collections with strong, flawed protagonists and a squirm inducing discomfiting tone such as by Gwendolyn Kiste or Clay McLeod Chapman or like in the tales gathered by Ellen Datlow for Screams from the Dark.

Three Words That Describe This Book: music/album frame, extremely unsettling, horrible but sympathetic main characters

You can click here to read more by me on this book including notes about specific stories.

Thank you to Lethe Press for the giveaway. 

Enter now and you are entered going forward, and next week I have a copy of the upcoming Nick Cutter!

Good Luck. 

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: New Story Collection by Gwendolyn Kiste and The LineUp Column Inspired By It

Today on the giveaway I have my favorite horror story collection of the year (so far) and access to a list of 6 excellent backlist collections you should be suggesting to your horror readers.  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 Allison from WI. Now on to this week's giveaway. 

At the beginning of 2026 I was reading Gwendolyn Kite's The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own and I was loving it! Late last week my starred review of that collection was published in Booklist and you can access it plus bonus appeal content at this link.

In celebration of the book's release next week, I have a finished copy (courtesy of Raw Dog Screaming Press) which you can win and add to your collection this week!

I am hoping all of you will order The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own for your libraries. RDSP is a small press with distribution via Ingram, so you can easily add it to your collections. 

Again click here to read my full review with bonus comments about this book.

I enjoyed this collection so much, I was inspired to highlight other excellent single author story collections as one of my 4 annual "From the Haunted Stacks" columns on The LineUp.

[Editors note because I have been asked about this multiple times times: the term for a single author volume of short stories is "collection," while "anthology" is used for books of stories by different authors.]

So not only can you use this post to enter to win a copy of my favorite story collection of 2026 (so far) but you can also access the article it inspired-- From the Haunted Stacks: Single Author Horror Collection to Devour: Six essential horror collection to lose yourself in.

You can access the entire catalog of my posts for The LineUp here. Since this is a recourse focused on backlist titles, the archive of my articles is a great resource to help you help your horror readers top  find a great read that is probably on the shelf right now.

Enter now and you are entered going forward.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Bodies of Work by Clay McLeod Chapman (and a bonus story collection)

Today on the giveaway I have two books for one winner, pairing a well known authors ARC with a story collection from a trusted small press. 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 Emily from NY. Now on to this week's giveaway. 

I cannot review every book, even if I really like the author, even if I really want to. Today's book is a great example of that. But thankfully, others are there to do the work as seen below with Chapman's upcoming novella and its starred review in LJ.

Bodies of Work by Clay McCleod Chapman

Library Journal review:

STAR Winston Kemper is alone in the world, working as a church janitor and living in a one-room apartment. In his home he is creating an epic work of words and pictures, written and drawn across the floors, walls, and a number of notebooks. The room is shared with the women Winston has murdered to take their voices. But the Butterfly Girls have found a way to speak to Winston and secretly plot their revenge. Their voices act as a chorus, providing commentary as they argue. These discussions become complicated and uncomfortable as Winston’s history is revealed. Chapman (Acquired Taste) never allows readers to make a simple judgment, and the book is filled with creepiness and unease from the start. Readers will fall into the book even as they sense the dreaminess is filled with nightmares and terrors. 

VERDICT Blurring between dreams and reality, this novella explores the world of a labyrinthine, disturbed mind. Chapman’s short fiction is an excellent introduction to his work, and this latest is another one of his excellent portrayals of complicated emotions in horror. Readers of Cynthia Pelayo’s “Chicago Saga” and her poetry collection Into the Forest and All the Way Through will especially find this book compelling. --Lila Denning

Bodies of Work comes out next week on April 7, 2026. Thank you to Titan Books for the giveaway copy of the ARC.

While I have your attention, I wanted to also let you know about an up and coming voice, and their story collection from a trusted small press.

Nothing Has Happened to You: Stories by Rory Say. From the book description on the Lethe Press site:

Nothing Has Happened to You is a collection of short stories where the ordinary twists into the uncanny and the familiar becomes strange. Memory, family, and grief blur with phantoms that may or may not exist, and the smallest moments—opening a door, telling a story, looking into the dark—carry the weight of dread.

A young girl confides in a silent companion no one else can see, who grows smaller each time he returns. A lover reveals she has been dead for years and will soon be forgotten. A tenant discovers his basement suite may not exist at all, except as an echo of guilt. Elsewhere, lost children, haunted objects, and voices from the grave stir quietly at the edges of daily life.

Rory Say, whose work has appeared in Weird Horror, Dark Recesses, Metastellar, The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify and more, writes with precision, lyricism, and an unshakable sense of unease. Each tale is self-contained, yet together they form a world where nothing is certain, and dread lingers long after the last page.

Nothing has Happened to You is already out and you can add it to your collections here. Thank you to Lethe Press for this copy to giveaway to one of you.

Enter once and you are entered going forward. In the coming weeks, I will be featuring books that I have reviewed in the April issues of LJ and Booklist. Stay tuned.

Good luck!

Announcing the 2026 Summer Scares Titles

In celebration of National Library Lover’s Day and Friday the 13th, the Horror Writers Association (HWA), in partnership with Booklist, Book Riot, iREAD, and NoveList®, a division of EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO), is delighted to announce the eighth annual Summer Scares reading list, which includes titles selected by a panel of authors and library workers and is designed to promote Horror as a great reading option for all ages, during any time of the year.

This year, Summer Scares welcomes New York Times Bestselling author Jennifer McMahon as the 2026 spokesperson:

"We need horror now more than ever. Stories to unsettle us, to make us question what we think we know, to show us how to confront the darkness and come out the other side,” said McMahon. “Stories that we will put down and feel changed by. This collection of books chosen by the Summer Scares committee perfectly showcases the true diversity of horror today, and is more evidence that we are at the peak of a horror renaissance. These are books to get lost in, books to share with others in your life, books to talk about and ponder over. So come along, take my hand and prepare to step into the darkness with me this summer. Yes, there’s plenty of scary stuff in these books. But there’s also a whole lot of hope. Oh, and don’t close your eyes — you don’t want to miss a thing along the way."

Every year, three titles are selected in each of three categories: Adult, Young Adult, and Middle Grade. For 2026 those selected titles are:

Adult Selections:

A Botanical Daughter, by Noah Medlock (Titan, 2024) 

Never Whistle at Night, ed. Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst (Vintage, 2023)

Maeve Fly, by CJ Leede (Tor Nightfire, 2023)

Young Adult Selections:

What We Harvest, by Ann Fraistat (Delacorte Press, 2022) 

Gorgeous Gruesome Faces, by Linda Cheng (Roaring Brook Press, 2023) 

Our Shadows Have Claws, ed. Yamile Saied Méndez & Amparo Ortiz (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2022)  

Middle Grade Selections:

Garlic and the Vampire, by Bree Paulsen (Harper, 2021) 

It Came from the Trees, by Ally Russell (Delacorte Press, 2023)  

This Appearing House, by Ally Malinenko (Harper, 2022)

Summer Scares aims to introduce Horror titles to school and public library workers so they can start conversations with readers that extend beyond the books on each list and promote reading for years to come. In addition to the annual list of recommended titles, the Summer Scares Programming Guide—free for any library to access—is back with the tools libraries need to connect with their patrons. 

“The 2026 guide, developed and designed by the HWA Libraries team, is the library worker’s roadmap to providing exciting and meaningful experiences for their communities through Summer Scares, whether they’re putting up book displays, leading discussion groups, developing events, or orchestrating an entire Summer Scares program series,” states Konrad Stump, co-creator of the programming guide. “With select titles aligned with iREAD’s 2026 theme (Plant a Seed, Read), the guide makes it easy for libraries across the world to incorporate Summer Scares into their summer reading programs and engage patrons of all ages in the horror genre.”

The guide will be available beginning March 1, 2026 on the Summer Scares Resource page at http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/p/summer-scares.html

Along with the guide, the Summer Scares committee will work with both the recommended list authors and Horror authors from all over the country to provide free programming to libraries. Any library looking to host horror-themed events anytime of year is encouraged to email libraries@horror.org to get started.

Booklist is helping to kick off Summer Scares 2026 in March with a series of three free webinars with this year’s featured authors in conversation with committee members:

• Thursday, March 12, 2026, at 2pm Eastern, featuring our Middle-Grade authors and moderated by Julia Smith. Click here to register.
• Monday, March 23, 2026, at 2pm Eastern, featuring our Young Adult authors and moderated by Kelly Jensen. Click here to register.
• Thursday, March 26, 2026, at 2pm Eastern, featuring our Adult authors and moderated by Jennifer McMahon. Click here to register.

Each webinar lasts one hour. Anyone may register to participate for free at https://www.booklistonline.com/webinars. Recordings will be available for on demand viewing after the live events at https://www.booklistonline.com/webinars-archive.

All are welcome to join the Summer Scares committee and featured authors at the HWA’s Librarians’ Day, taking place in person on Friday, June 5, 2026 in Pittsburg, PA as part of StokerConⓇ. Please visit https://www.stokercon.com/ for more information.

The HWA is a non-profit organization of writers and publishing professionals and the oldest organization dedicated to the Horror/Dark Fiction genre. One of the HWA’s missions is to foster an appreciation of reading through extensive programming and partnerships with libraries, schools, and literacy-based organizations.

The 2026 Summer Scares program committee consists of author Jennifer McMahon, HWA Library Committee Co-Chairs Becky Spratford and Konrad Stump, as well as academic library director and ILA President Carolyn Ciesla, Book Riot Senior Editor and YA specialist Kelly Jensen, Booklist Senior Editor and Middle Grade specialist Julia Smith, and Manager of Reader Content and Services at NoveList Yaika Sabat.

For more information about the Summer Scares reading program, including committee member bios and how to obtain promotional materials and schedule events with the authors/committee members, please visit the Summer Scares Resource Page (http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/p/summer-scares.html) or email HWA Library Committee Co-Chairs Becky Spratford and Konrad Stump at libraries at horror dot org.

Please click here for access to our free folder of graphics including title collages courtesy of Kelly Jensen.

Click on the image to access the
Summer Scares 2026 Graphics folder

#HorrroForLibraries: 2 Awesome Horror Collections and 1 Anthology for 3 Readers

Today on the giveaway I have 3 books full of horror stories to give away to 3 lucky winners. And all three are finished copies, meaning you can add them directly to your library's collections. 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 Michael from IL. Now on to this week's giveaway.

Below I will provide information about each title. I will be giving them away in the order they appear. All books are courtesy of the publisher and I highly recommend you add these to your public library collections whether or not you win; however, the winners absolutely can add these as they are all finished copies.

First up, This'll Make Things A Little Easier by Attila Veres. From the book description:

Attila Veres' debut collection, The Black Maybe, was hailed as one of the best horror debuts in years and was named Rue Morgue's best collection of 2022 as well as being a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. Critics likened it to debut collections by writers like Clive Barker and Thomas Ligotti in terms of its sheer originality of style and vision. Now Veres is back with a follow-up collection of unforgettable cosmic horror.

In the opening story, 'a pit full of teeth', an aspiring Hungarian horror writer gets the exciting news that one of his stories will be translated into the obscure language of a reclusive tribe that almost no one knows anything about. But when his copy of the translation arrives, he discovers that it doesn't match what he wrote: instead, the text contains a much more horrific narrative that seems to be playing out in reality. In 'The Designated Contact Individual', a traveling representative for a soft drink company finds his sales territory expanding when he is sent to an alternate reality where they have their own nightmarish use for his cola. 'Damage d10+7' tells of a group of gamers who commit a terrible outrage in the fantasy world of their game and which has a deadly ripple effect in their real lives. The narrator in 'The Summer I Chose to Die' has decided that life is no longer worth living, but his worldview is shaken up when a murderous army of fish-people begins to rise from the oceans. And in the title story, money literally does grow on trees when the Hungarian government tries to alleviate poverty by supplying families with a strange new plant species, but their newfound financial gain will come at a terrible cost.

Like the stories in his first collection, the tales in This'll Make Things a Little Easier are blood-chillingly frightening, often darkly humorous, and always dazzlingly brilliant. Readers who were left wanting more when they finished reading The Black Maybe won't want to miss this new volume.

That link to The Black Maybe in the description above is to my Booklist review of Veres' first collection. Please use the link to read more. I found out about this, his next collection, too late to review it officially, but I can tell you, this is a voice you need in your library. Veres writes his stories in his native Hungarian, and in this case, he also served as the translator. 

This book came out from Valancourt who are not only a trusted indie press (they do the Paperbacks from Hell line) but they are also one of the only horror publishers committed to getting horror not originally written on English out and available to the English speaking world. They have published 2 volumes of Horror stories from all over the world and I have read and reviewed them both. 

The first name I pick will win a finished copy of this title.

Next up, We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone: Twenty Haunting Stories by Ronald Malfi. This is the Titan Books paperback edition courtesy of the publisher. From the book description:

A new mother is pursued by mysterious men in black. A misguided youth learns the dark secrets of the world from an elderly neighbor on Halloween night. A housewarming party where the guests never leave. A caretaker tends to his rusted relic of a god deep in the desert... 

 In his debut short story collection, Bram Stoker Award finalist Ronald Malfi mines the depths and depravities of the human condition, exploring the dark underside of religion, marriage, love, fear, regret, and hunger in a world that spins just slightly askew on its axis. Rich in atmosphere and character, Malfi's debut collection is not to be missed.

Malfi is a name that is not well known in library circles because his books have not been easy to get for our collections. But, he has a lot of fans. With this release, you can easily add this to you carts and get it on the shelf both to show your horror readers, you know about the authors they already like, and to bring new fans to this already popular author.

Thanks to Tian Books for this finished copy. The second name I pick will win a finished copy of this title.

And last but not least, an anthology. Horror Library, Volume 9 edited by Eric Guignard. From the book description:

The +Horror Library+ anthologies are internationally praised as a groundbreaking source of contemporary horror short fiction stories--relevant to the moment and stunning in impact--from leading authors of the macabre and darkly imaginative.  

Filled with Fears and Fantasy. Death and Dark Dreams. Monsters and Mayhem. Literary Vision and Wonder. Each volume of the +Horror Library+ series is packed with heart-pounding thrills and creepy contemplations as to what truly lurks among the shadows of the world(s) we live in.

Containing 30 all-original stories, read Volume 9 in this ongoing anthology series, and then continue with the other volumes.

Shamble no longer through the banal humdrum of normalcy, but ENTER THE HORROR LIBRARY!

Included within Volume 9: - In "Head Over Heels," a sentient unicycle enacts long-sought revenge against those who have wronged it. - In "Eyes Without Their Lids," a couple with no memory of their prior lives, awaken in a doorless room and in full sight of a camera that watches all they do. - In "False Witness," a man whose life was saved by a mysterious voice finds himself in the midst of a worse fate. - . . . and more!  

Also including a special guest-artist's gallery of Michael A. Livolsi!

Guignard is a critically acclaimed horror editor and author. This collection includes original stories   by names you know and already have represented on your shelves such as Bentley Little, Brian Evenson, Tanvir Ahmed, Jo Kaplan, Delilah S. Dawson, Mercedes M Yardley, and more.

Thanks to Dark Moon Books for this finished copy that you can add to your collections. Also please consider visiting their site auto take a look at the previous 8 volumes. It is a cost effective way to get some excellent horror stories into your collections. 

The third name I pull will receive a copy of this book.

There you have it. 3 books of stories for 3 winners. Enter now and you are entered going forward. 

Good luck!

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Final Curtain: Tales Inspired By The Phantom of the Opera

The giveaway a finished copy of an awesome, crowd pleasing anthology of Weird Fiction, featuring authors you already have books by on your shelves and a hook that will draw in many new readers, all from a  trusted small press. 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 most recent winner was Amber from TX . Now on to this week's giveaway.

Steve Berman, editor and owner of Lethe Press is someone who I trust to deliver great books and we he told me about his idea for an anthology of original stories based off of The Phantom of the Opera, I was so excited. He got the ARC to me too late for review, but now I have a hard cover, finished copy in hand and am excited to give it away to one of you to add to your library collection.

But first, here are more details about Final Curtain: Tales Inspired By The Phantom of the Opera, edited by Steve Berman, including the impressive TOC:

A mysterious dirge in human form, Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera is both man and monster, the villain of one of the more famous novels of the early 20th century. Fittingly, the Opera ghost has inspired grandiose movies and an award-winning musical. And now, an impressive anthology of horror and weird fiction, edited by Steve Berman. What has happened to the purloined body of Lon Chaney? Who is convinced that the Phantom is alive after the events of Paris? And contemporary haunting stories of youths drawn to the eerie music of an underground grotto or a pair of devious lovers trying to make it big on Broadway even if it takes a killing.

Featuring 15 brand new stories:

• "Selections from the Memoirs of the Countess of Chagny, Translated" by Nadia Bulkin
•  "La Belle de la Mer" by Jameson Currier
• "The Road of Mirrors" by James Bennett 
• "The Phantom of the Wax Museum" by Orrin Grey 
• "Now We Sing the Killing Song" by Josh Rountree 
• "Two for the Show" by L.A. Fields 
• "Trompe L'oiel" by Tim Newton Anderson 
• "The Music We Became" by Addison Smith 
• "Encore" by Steve Berman 
• "Little Rats" by Theresa DeLucci" 
• "The Lake" by Becky Thacker 
• "Exeunt. Flourish" by Peter Dubé 
• "Figaro's Children" by Jean-Marc Lofficier & Randy Lofficier 
• "The Ghost Singer" by Cara DiGirolamo 
• "Such Broken Souls" by John Linwood Grant

These are all original to this anthology stories, some, by authors for whom you have books and stories already in your collections. And as I said above, the frame is one that will draw in new readers to Weird Fiction in general.

Enter now to win his finished copy for your collection, but also, take a moment to go to Lether Press' site and order a copy as well. Only one of you will win, but all of you can add this book to your collection. There is currently a $5 off discount there as well. Good luck! 

Scheduling Note: due to my travel to New England next week for this event, there will not be a giveaway next week. The giveaway will return on February 5, 2026. But you can still enter anytime because when you enter once, you are entered going forward.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: 2 winners of Azathoth: Ordo ab Chao, Edited by Aaron J. French

Today I have two finished copies for two winners of a volume featuring many authors whose work you have on your sleeves, presented by a trusted editor, and part of a series of books which I have reviewed titles from in the past. 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 Jessica from IN. Now on to this week's giveaway.

Today I want to talk about author and editor, Aaron J. French, specially his work taking Lovecraftian Gods and asking a diverse group of today's authors to write new and original to him stories for his anthologies.

I have read and reviewed (for Booklist) The Gods of H.P Lovecraft and The Demons of King Solomon. Click through to read my reviews of each anthology and to see the impressive contributors.

This Fall, French released Azathoth: Ordo ab Chao. From the publisher description:

The first in a series of anthologies devoted to the Lovecraftian gods, Ordo ab Chao follows the highly successful The Gods of HP Lovecraft (published in 2015 by JournalStone Publishing). We begin our series with the primal origins and the god Azathoth, who represents primordial chaos in the Lovecraftian Mythos. H.P. Lovecraft described Azathoth as a demon king ruling from a dark throne in the middle of the fiery cosmic void, out of which all created things emanated. Surrounding this orbiting spiral of infinite chaos and creation sounded the repetitive notes of an incessant flute, a reference to the Greek god Pan and the symbol of chaos behind the orderliness of nature. Taking this as our departure, the stories in this volume approach Azathoth through the concept of "order out of chaos" (or Ordo ab Chao in Latin). Ordo ab Chao includes new work from some of the most talented and respected authors in horror and dark fantasy, featuring stories from T. Kingfisher, Ruthanna Emrys, Adam L. G. Nevill, Kaaron Warren, Brian Evenson, Donald Tyson, Richard Thomas, Richard Gavin, Matthew Cheney, Erica Ruppert, Jamieson Ridenhour, Maxwell I. Gold, Lena Ng, Nathan Carson, Samuel Marzioli, Lauri Taneli Lassila, Akis Linardos, and R. B. Payne.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

• ORDO AB CHAO: TOWARD THAT ENDLESSNESS by Maxwell Ian Gold
• “Agent of Chaos” illustrated by Sofiya Kruglikova
• AGENT OF CHAOS by T. Kingfisher
• “Expatriate” illustrated by Yves Tourigny
• EXPATRIATE by Jamieson Ridenhour 
• “...And Peer Aloft to Glimpse Some Fragment” illustrated by Andrej Kapcar .
• ..AND PEER ALOFT TO GLIMPSE SOME FRAGMENT by Ruthanna Emrys
• “Making a Difference” illustrated by Ayham Jabr
• MAKING A DIFFERENCE by Brian Evenson
• “The Recreationist” illustrated by Ayham Jabr 
• THE RECREATIONIST by Kaaron Warren
• “The Blind God’s Game” illustrated by Andrej Kapcar
• THE BLIND GOD’S GAME by Matthew Cheney
• “In the Grove” illustrated by Sofiya Kruglikova
• IN THE GROVE by Erica Ruppert
• “Church of the Void” illustrated by Andrej Kapcar
• CHURCH OF THE VOID by Donald Tyson
• “Upon an Iron Bed, Under the Eyes of Chaos” illustrated by Sofiya
• UPON AN IRON BED, UNDER THE EYES OF CHAOS by Richard Gavin
• “The Root King” illustrated by Sofiya Kruglikova
• THE ROOT KING by Lauri Taneli Lassila
• “The Infinite Beat” illustrated by Andrej Kapcar
• THE INFINITE BEAT by Nathan Carson
• “The Door at 21 Bis Rue Xavier Privas” illustrated by Andrej Kapcar
• THE DOOR AT 21 BIS RUE XAVIER PRIVAS by R. B. Payne
• “An Unusual Pedigree” illustrated by Andrej Kapcar
• AN UNUSUAL PEDIGREE by Richard Thomas
• “Dust-Clotted Eyes” illustrated by Ayham Jabr
• DUST-CLOTTED EYES by Samuel Marzioli
• “The Revelations of Azathoth” illustrated by Sofiya Kruglikova
• THE REVELATIONS OF AZATHOTH by Lena Ng
• “Primordial Jack” illustrated by Sofiya Kruglikova
• PRIMORDIAL JACK by Akis Linardos
• “Respect Your Elders” illustrated by Yves Tourigny
• RESPECT YOUR ELDERS by Adam L. G. Nevill

Look at the TOC! These are names you know, some of your most popular horror voices, and plenty that will be new to you and your patrons.

While that TOC alone is enough for you to add this book, what I really love about all of the anthologies French has edited is that he introduces today's horror readers to the Lovecraftian Gods, allowing us all to see why they are enduringly terrifying, and making sure their horrible human of a creator is paired with a diverse group of today's voices (which I hope is making Lovecraft roll over in his grave).

It is the responsible way to present this man and his work. We cannot ignore that Lovecraft is responsible for creating some of the best horror of the 20th Century. We cannot also ignore that his work has inspired and continues to inspire many of today's authors-- especially many who come from he marginalized communities who Lovecraft actively and publicly expressed his hate for. Take The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle and House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias for example. These are two works that have been nominated for major awards and both actively grapple with Lovecraft's racism in their works.

Thanks to JournalStone I have 2 finished copies that 2 winners will be able to add to their collections. But everyone should check out all three anthologies mentioned in this post and consider adding them to your horror collections.

Good luck!

The giveaway is off next week for Thanksgiving.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: 2 Books for 2 Winners

This week I am offering two books for two winners. One is my review ARC of book that comes out next week; it is the novel I am pushing this year to give to any reader who wants to try Horror; a book I had this glowing review of in the the July issue of Booklist. The second is an ARC of an essential story collection by a legendary bestselling author, out 10/7. 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 in order were, Catherine from IL and Sarah from NC.

Now on to this week's giveaway.

First up is a book that you need to give out to anyone who wants to try horror. It is The Thursday Murder Club meets Scream. Seriously. From my post back in July:

The Autumn Spring Retirement Home Massacre

By Philip Fracassi

Sept. 2025. 416p. Tor Nightfire, $28.99 (9781250879066); e-book (9781250879073). 

 First published July 2025 (Booklist). 

Step aside, teenagers. Make way for Rose DuBois, a final girl for the over 70 set. Quick witted and active, Rose enjoys her full life at Autumn Springs surrounded by so many friends, especially her best friend, Miller. However, when two residents end up dead in quick succession, Rose starts to suspect that they were murdered, and she may be the only person able to stop the killings. Like the best slashers, this is an emotionally resonant tale, more about its characters than the violence being perpetrated against them (of which there is plenty). But it is also a well-paced, age appropriate, kick-butt, final girl story led by Rose’s point of view with cinematic, darkly humorous glimpses into the residents’ lives as they are about to be murdered. But at the horror at the heart of this story is the terrifying reality of how disposable society views mature adults. In the tradition of the Scream films, this story will appeal to fans of Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and Hendrix’s Final Girl Support Group.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Slasher, Mature protagonists, emotionally resonant

Click here for more of my thoughts about this book. As I said above, it comes out next week and you need to make sure you have it pre-ordered. 

Thank you to Tor Nightfire for the paper copy that I am giving away.

Next is a book from a smaller press that you might have missed but you need to get on it NOW. The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale with an introduction by Joe Hill:

In this career horror retrospective, World Horror Grandmaster Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-tep; Hap and Leonard) tackles racism and human cruelty as de­ftly as he conjures demon nuns and Elder Gods.

Featuring an original introduction from Joe Hill, this much-anticipated volume showcases the best of Lansdale’s terrifying short stories—menacing, astute, and wildly inappropriate. Bestselling author Joe R. Lansdale is known for his gritty mysteries and his eccentric horror.

As an eleven-time Bram Stoker Award winner, Joe Lansdale cooks up an inimitable recipe of Southern Gothic and Southern fried chicken that continues to delight his many fans and influence generations of horror legends.

Lansdale mashes up crime, Gothic, mystery, fantasy, and science-fiction, filtered through a raw, violent world of dark humor and unique characters. Lansdale is one of the early American horror writers to portray racism not as abstract but as realistic, intimate, and impossible to ignore.

In Lansdale’s nightmarish visions, you’ll discover psychotic demon nuns, a psychopathic preacher, cannibals, 80-year-old Elvis, undead strippers, ­ flying ghost fish, Elder Gods, possessed cars, and the worst evil of all: mankind. 

 This is one you NEED to order. Thanks to Tachyon for the ARC.

I will pull 2 winners this week and give these books away in the order they are listed here.

Good Luck.

Enter now and you are entered going forward.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: A Primer to Gemma Files-- Finished Hard Cover Copy

Today I have a finished copy of a book of short fiction by Horror master Gemma Files, from a great series of books. 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 Lucy from MO. Now on to this week's giveaway.

Eric Guignard is an award winning writer and editor. In 2017 he launched an ambitious series of "primer" books exploring short dark fiction through his small press. All of the books are created in conjunction with the authors as well. I have been a supporter of this series since it launched. Click here to read a guest post by Guignard when I asked him to introduce the new series to my readers.

The series has keep chugging along with Guignard showcasing the work of the genre's most important short fiction writers in gorgeous hardcover books. Click here to see all seven titles. 

In honor of the release of the latest book in the series, I am offering a giveaway of a finished hardcover copy (courtesy of Guignard) of Exploring Dark Short Fiction #7: A Primer to Gemma Files. From the publisher's description:

Named "One of the genre's most original and innovative voices" (L.A. Review of Books) and "An expert at terrifying prose" (LitReactor), Canadian author Gemma Files has been penning gritty and macabre fiction since 1993, earning industry awards and critical acclaim from sources such as National Public Radio, Publishers Weekly, and The National Post. Files imbues her cross-genre work with layers like dark heartbreak upon horror, built over the vignettes of life we may find ourselves in, but for one slight turn of reality.

Dark Moon Books and editor Eric J. Guignard bring you this introduction to her work, the seventh in a series of primers exploring modern masters of literary dark short fiction. Herein is a chance to discover-or learn more of-the evocative voice of Gemma Files, as beautifully illustrated by artist Michelle Prebich.  

Included within these pages are: 

• Six short stories, one written exclusively for this book 

• Author interview 

• Biography and bibliography 

• Academic commentary by Michael Arnzen, PhD (former humanities chair and professor of the year, Seton Hill University) 

• … and more! 

 Enter this doorway to the vast and fantastic: Get to know Gemma Files.

Consider adding this and all of the books in the series to your horror collections. They make for a great introduction to all of the authors' work as well as offering a brand new story to fans. There are also a great option for high school students who need to do an author project.

Enter now and you are entered going forward. 

Good luck!

#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!