A Selection of Horror Books Released, 28 Apr to 4 May 2024

20 horror books this week

Themes: Supernatural, psychological, ghosts, serial killer, witch, monster, vampire, haunted house, and body horror

A Battle Against Demons – Kjell-Vidar Åhman Teig

YA Supernatural horror

Robert: I find myself on a raft on Lake Mørkved, pursued by both the living and the dead. The muzzle of a gun pressed against my neck could save me from the Witch and Death but also prevent me from breaking the curse cast upon us all. How could things go this wrong?

Øyerstad: The sign welcoming you to Øyerstad is worn and torn, and if you blink, you might just miss it – the little village nestled deep in the forests of rural Norway. Everyone in Øyerstad thinks they know everyone in Øyerstad. They don’t.

The Circus: The Phantoms sway eerily outside the tent, where the scents of sweets, popcorn, grease, and oil mix with the stench of excrement. Hooves and claws scrape against iron grating. Something prowls out there, where light becomes dark, a deeper shadow within the shadows, ready to tear apart anything in its path.

Calling Eldritch Hayes – Tori Lewi

Supernatural horror

In a small town in South Carolina, a man who has been able to see spirits since he was a child encounters a demonic entity who is determined to make his life hell.

From the moment he was born with a veil over his face, Eldritch Hayes has had the ability to see spirits, a fact that has defined his life since childhood.

At the age of 41, Eldritch keeps to himself, never venturing far from the safety of home or his job at the hardware store in the small town of Sommerset, South Carolina.

He is completely unprepared when a strange contractor stops by, bringing more into the Hayes’ family-owned business than meets the eye. After years of avoiding any unwanted spiritual encounters, Eldritch is unable to escape the presence of a powerful demonic entity – an entity whose sole purpose is to make his life a living hell, while drudging up the trauma and personal demons of his past.

Still reeling from the loss of his parents and convinced God has abandoned him, Eldritch has no choice but to face this battle alone … or does he?

Cole: The Madman – CJ Bishop

Serial killer horror – Book 3 of Cole: A Phoenix Club Serial Thriller

With Gabe in the hospital and three others missing, Cole must unravel the dark secrets hidden within the shadows.

As the only one privy to the kidnappers’ identities and their chilling capabilities, Cole is thrust into a dangerous game of cat and mouse where every decision could mean the difference between life and death.

The Corner of her Eye – JJ Carpenter

Ghost horror

In an isolated cottage in rural Australia, a woman with a rare medical condition discovers she’s not as alone as she hoped to be.

Everyone dies. But what happens if you’re not ready when it’s your turn?

The first time Charlie White nearly died, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes. There were no pearly gates. As the sufferer of a rare medical condition, she has lost count of the number of times she’s faced death.

Traumatised and afraid, she upends her high-flyer Sydney lifestyle and escapes to the relative isolation and safety of rural New South Wales, Australia. But as strange occurrences start up in her 1920s cottage, she realises she’s not as alone as she’d hoped.

The spirits are restless and not everything is as it seems. Charlie’s life is not the only thing hanging in the balance. Her beliefs, her sanity, her very connection to reality, are under threat. She soon realises purgatory is all too real, and she’s not its only resident.

Dark Descendants – Stacey L Pierson

Supernatural horror

A sheriff returns to the island she fled as a teenager and finds the strange traditions embracing her once again.

Pine Island, where mainlanders aren’t allowed, is alive with ghost stories and dares that fuel rumors.

Sheriff Theresa ‘Tre” Finkle’s never expected to return to the sickle-shaped island she fled in the middle of the night eighteen years ago. But that changes, when a flyer featuring a teen from the island lands on her desk.

Instantly shunned, Tre has no choice but to depend on her deputy and her eccentric brother for help.

A mutilated body is discovered deep in the woods, Tre’s deputy vanishes, the dead reappear, and Tre begins to stalk herself as the strange traditions of the island reach out to embrace her once again.

The Dead Also Have Secrets – Joe Talon

Ghost crime horror – Book 8 of Lorne Turner Supernatural Thrillers

A Syrian family asks for help when they take over an old hotel and open it for visiting spiritualists. It turns out they are more progressive than their first paying guests.

The invited medium is an American woman, and Lorne knows something about her story is wrong. After being forced off the road, then shot at, Lorne reaches out for help.

The team gathers and soon realise they are in the middle of warring extremist factions within the Christian faith. The Vatican and the Dominionists are fighting for an ancient relic that was stolen by pirates centuries before and believe to be lost at sea.

When both sides realise Lorne’s uncovered their secrets, he is cut off and hunted.

He has to find a way to save himself and his people, and stop the relic from falling into the wrong hands. If the wrong group gains the power it offers, it could unleash a darkness not seen in millennia.

Descendants of Monstrosity – Stephanie Ellis

Supernatural horror – Part of Darklings

A woman investigating the vanished hamlet of Church Easton is plagued by strange dreams and illusions.

As part of a university team investigating the disappeared settlements of England, Harriet Rothery arrives in the vanished hamlet of Church Easton.

A place on no map but one. A place an old friend had given as her address before she dropped off the face of the earth.

As Harriet investigates, she is plagued by strange dreams at night and illusions during the day. Church Easton and its surrounds, she discovers, is a place haunted with the taint of witchcraft and the injustices of the English Civil War, a legacy which reaches into the present, reaches for her.

Flowers from the Void – Gianni Washington

Gothic horror collection

Thirteen dark tales told through the lenses of Black, female, and queer narrators, among others.

These tales burrow deep into the heart of the gothic to challenge the conventional nightmare and disinter a haunted labyrinth of chilling alternate realities eerily similar to our own.

A high school freshman is lured into a sinister pact with a classmate that will cost him more than he could ever imagine. A grieving African witch prepares for initiation into a 17th century Salem coven of white women. A girl with no shadow befriends one.

Granite Harbor – Peter Nichols

Serial killer crime horror

In scenic Granite Harbor, a local teenager is found brutally murdered in the Settlement, the town’s historic archaeological site.

Alex Brangwen, adjusting to life as a single father with a failed career as a novelist, is the town’s sole detective. This is his first murder case and, as both a parent and detective, Alex knows the people of Granite Harbor are looking to him to catch the killer and temper the fear that has descended over the town.

Isabel, a single mother attempting to support her family while healing from her own demons, finds herself in the middle of the case when she begins working at the Settlement. Her son, Ethan, and Alex’s daughter, Sophie, were best friends with the victim.

When a second body is found, both parents are terrified that their child may be next. As Alex and Isabel race to find the killer in their midst, the town’s secrets, past and present

Infaust – T.D. Cloud

Witch horror

A witch with a dead familiar is an outlier and an ill-omen to every village they pass through. Rehan Nadir is one such witch.

The only jobs available to him are terrible ones, and vagrancy is his only recourse.

At least, it was until he heard tell of the town of Hamelin’s plight. Stories of a malicious entity, a chaos god, have tormented the village for hundreds of years, and like clockwork tragedy has struck once more: while the adults gathered elsewhere, the children were spirited away. No trace of them has been seen since. The town is desperate to bring them back. Very desperate.

Finding and returning the lost children would be just the thing to give Rehan a new chance at the life he lost after the death of his familiar, and if all it takes is killing a god of chaos, then he’s more than ready to take the plunge and open that door.

Unfortunately, he just didn’t anticipate opening a few more in the midst of dealing the finishing blow.

Little Nightmares: Fears & Phobias – David W. Adams

Monster horror collection – Book 2 of Little Nightmares

Delve into the chilling abyss of terror, where the darkness whispers secrets known only to those brave enough to confront their deepest nightmares.

Three distinct tales force you to face your fears head-on.

What happens when in an end of the world scenario, revenge comes looking for you from a long dormant grudge?

When someone is so deathly afraid of even the smallest amount of water, how will they cope when they find themselves locked in an underground tunnel which is slowly being filled by the ocean?

Who in their right mind would set up an arachnid attraction with over 16,000 spiders in the middle of a Dorset housing estate?

Morgana, My Queen and other stories – Fleur Blum

Horror collection

Five horror novellas.

What if you found yourself in a relationship with a woman who was way out of your league? Sure, she’s kind of goth, and might be into witchy stuff, but she thinks you’re cool.

Or maybe you found muddy footprints leading up to your apartment building one day, and instead of letting it go, you need to find out why. What harm could looking into footprints be?

Palmetto – Ania Ahlborn

Psychological horror

A couple buy a house that should be far too expensive for them, even though the wife has a bad feeling about it, and their joy morphs into a descent into madness.

Kim Devland nearly has it all. A great marriage. A baby on the way. All that’s missing is a house, one idyllic enough to fill the Norman Rockwell-shaped spaces in her mind.

When Kim’s husband, Eddie, books a property tour of a home Kim has been eyeing online, it’s love at first sight. Far too expensive for them to afford, Kim and Eddie make an offer anyway and score the deal of a lifetime.

The house is suddenly theirs, and Kim sees it as destiny. But something begins to squirm beneath Kim’s skin. Something portentous. A warning. Don’t buy this house.

Blinded by the idea of storybook happiness, Kim barrels headlong into a dream that quickly proves to be anything but. Her once joyful anticipation morphs into a harrowing descent into madness, and a chilling realization dawns upon her: this house is not a sanctuary but a prison, a sinister labyrinth where nightmares are born.

Phiction – Don Coscarelli

Sci-fi horror collection

Six stories set in the world of horror movie franchise Phantasm.

Explore the origin story of ice cream vendor/hero Reggie and his first encounter with the supernatural forces of evil in the jungles of the Vietnam war.

Learn the secrets of the embalming trade from one of the most memorable characters from the original film.

Revisit young Tim, prior to the events from Phantasm III, and find out how he survives against unspeakable horrors using only his wits and guile.

Follow the trail of one of Phantasm’s forgotten characters as he witnesses the key events of that film from an entirely different perspective.

Track the events of the nunchuck-wielding Rocky as she’s mustered out of the armed services and travels the backroads of the rural South in the early 90’s.

Join the diminutive Chunk, from Phantasm: Ravager, as he attempts to flee his home in the big city from the horror of an oncoming apocalypse.

Spring Harvest – Rektok Ross

Vampire horror

Friends at a rural music festival must survive a vampire siege.

Alix Summerlin and her friends are ready for the ultimate party weekend at the Garlic Groove Music Festival in remote little farm town Allium Valley. Her biggest worries are what designer outfits to wear each night and managing the post-breakup tension with her sweet-but-brooding ex, Logan.

When festival-goers start vanishing, Kade, a mysterious, handsome stranger, warns Alix to flee town, she begins to suspect something sinister is at work.

As the festival descends into chaos, Alix discovers the town’s dark secret. Bloodthirsty vampires, emboldened by a garlic-less spring harvest, have taken over.

With almost everyone dead or captured, it’s up to Alix, Logan, and Kade to save Allium Valley. But Kade is also keeping secrets.

Undead Folk – Katherine Silva

Apocalypse horror novella

Beyond the smoke-choked skies of an apocalyptic United States, a woman travels the desolate railroad tracks of a small town in search of revenge and a quiet place to settle.

Her only companion is an undead fox: animated with backwoods herbal magic and the soul of a middle-aged father who died before the world fell into darkness.

We Met in the Forums – Rob Ulitski

Body horror

A couple use internet forums to uncover the truth about a deadly disease spreading at the beach.

In the darkest corners of an anonymous internet forum, Josh and Leo share a morbid fascination for all things grotesque and macabre. When they move into an apartment on the coast together, bringing their online relationship into the real world, they find themselves entangled in a mysterious epidemic.

Forced into a fight for survival, the pair investigate first-hand accounts of a deadly disease spreading at the beach, using the forums to uncover the truth whilst the population is divided by sinister conspiracies.

As blood is spilled and flesh is severed, one question remains: what would you do to protect the ones you love?

Whispers of Apple Blossoms – Brett Mitchell Kent

Psychological horror

A love story spanning decades. A lonely widow mourning her husband and daughter. A trail of missing people all leading to one unpredictable source.

Edna Mann, a lonely widow longing for the family she’s lost, finds companionship in an unlikely source when her late husband begins communicating with her through her houseplant.

As those around her begin to disappear, Edna must confront the reality that something much worse may be at play, and has been for longer than she could have ever expected.

An atmospheric and haunting tale of love, heartache, fear, and obsession. The warped reality of an elderly woman filled with regret interlaces with the story of the past she desperately longs to relive.

Why Didn’t You Just Leave – Cursed Morsels Press

Haunted house horror anthology

It’s the question asked of any story about a haunting: why didn’t you just leave? But if accounts of people who have stayed in haunted houses are any indication, it’s never that simple.

Twenty-two stories about the reasons people don’t leave scary situations: parents who stay in haunted houses to protect their children, convicts who literally can’t leave their prison, retail workers who need a paycheck even if it’s from a haunted workplace, trauma survivors suffering from agoraphobia, and more.

Woodworm – Layla Martínez

Haunted house horror

The house breathes. The house contains bodies and secrets. The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes.

It was built by a small-time hustler as a means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can’t leave.

They may be witches or they may just be angry, but when the mysterious disappearance of a young boy draws unwanted attention, the two isolated women, already subjects of public scorn, combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice.

Published: 4 May 2024