A Selection of Horror Books Released, 4 to 10 Aug 2024
Themes: Supernatural, psychological, ghosts, serial killer, cosmic, space, revenge, haunted house, technology, crime, coming of age, dark fantasy, body, vampire, and slasher horror
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Table of Contents
Amazonian Animal Attack – Mark M.J. Green
Animal comedy horror
Starring Sir Kelvin Attenborough: Manliest of men, explorer, naturalist, ex-boxer and ballet enthusiast.
Scream! As medically manipulated maniacal monkeys make mockery of man.
Cower! At the unstoppable murderous strength of the deadly sloth.
Shriek! At the psychic powers of the pygmy marmoset.
Run! From the unrelenting force of the capybara.
Blood Like Mine – Stuart Neville
Serial killer horror
A mother takes desperate measures to protect her daughter in a blood-chilling highway pursuit across the Southwest.
On a snowy December night, single mother Rebecca Carter drives her van into a snowbank to avoid hitting an elk on a desolate mountain highway. She is at the end of her rope, out of money and food. She refuses help from a man in a pickup truck because her adolescent daughteris on the run from a grisly secret, and the last thing they can afford is to be remembered by anyone they meet.
FBI Special Agent Marc Donner has spent the better part of two years hunting down a gruesome serial killer who drains victims of blood before severing their spinal cords, leaving a trail of bodies throughout the country. As Agent Donner’s investigation brings him closer and closer to where Rebecca and her daughter are hiding out, in the foothills of Colorado, the life that Rebecca has fought so hard to hold together for her daughter becomes increasingly imperiled.
In this deadly, high-stakes game of cat and mouse, nobody is safe and nothing is certain, not even the line between predator and prey.
The Chamber – Will Dean
Psychological horror
Locked-room thriller that takes place inside a hyperbaric chamber.
Six experienced saturation divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. Calm and professional, they know that rapid decompression would be fatal and so they work in shifts, breathing helium, and surviving in hot, close quarters.
Then one of them is found dead in his bunk.
With four days of decompression to go before the locked hatch to the chamber can be safely opened, the group must watch one another’s backs at all times. And when another diver is discovered unresponsive, everyone is on edge.
What, or who, is taking them out one by one? And will any of them still be alive by the time the four days is up or will paranoia, exhaustion, suspicion, and pressure destroy them all?
Creatures of the Night: Vicious Vampire Tales – Crystal Lake Publishing
Vampire horror anthology – Book 17 of Dark Tide Horror Novellas
Three vampire horror novellas, from Simon Clark, Kevin J. Kennedy, and Gord Rollo.
Return of the Blood-Feeders by Simon Clark: Viking vampires, and their latest vicious recruits, swarm through tunnels beneath the present-day town of Leppington. The Norse gods have created a Vampyrrhic army to wreak vengeance on people that turned their backs on Odin. Just two fragile humans stand in their way: a down-at-heel drifter who is struggling to recover from a severe head injury, and a dreamer with a drink problem. Together, they must become extraordinary. Together, they must defeat something that is much, much worse than vampires.
Perspective by Kevin J. Kennedy: A couple’s lives are thrown into turmoil when a body is dumped at their door. The vampires are catapulted into a blood-drenched journey to the gates of hell. Fortunately, they have some werewolf friends who want to come along for the ride.
Beneath Still Waters by Gord Rollo: On May 16, 2020, disaster struck the small Canadian mining town of Beckley, Nova Scotia. An explosion deep in Shaft 3 unleashed a massive torrent of water from an underground stream, quickly flooding the lower levels and dooming the workers below. Sixty-five people lost their lives that night, the tragedy one of the worst mining disasters in the province’s history. The Red Spruce Gypsum Mine would never reopen.
The town tried to turn the heartbreak into something positive, converting the flooded quarry into a natural swimming hole for people to cool off in during the hot summer months. But something has awakened from within the abandoned mine shafts and staked its territory in the deepest part of the lake. Something ancient. Something savage. Something hungry.
Crushing Snails – Emma E Murray
Serial killer horror
Winnie Campbell is sixteen and a burgeoning serial killer. Her father blames her for her mother’s death, dotes on her little sister, and executes increasingly cruel punishments meant to humiliate Winnie. As the punishments morph into torture, she begins fantasizing about regaining some semblance of power, eventually working through her rage by killing small animals.
When her violent games escalate and she accidentally kills an infant while babysitting, Winnie gets a taste of a power she doesn’t want to let go of. Her obsession with killing grows, and so does her fascination for Leigh, a girl that reminds her of her younger self.
Winnie wants to kill. She wants to die. She wants to be someone other than herself. And killing Leigh, a symbolic suicide, could be the key to her metamorphosis.
Drill – Scott R. Jones
Cosmic horror
Magical mailman kills God.
You are in danger. You are afflicted with a mind parasite that feeds on your suffering and destroys your families so it can have something to drink from your ruined energetic body.
To burn it out is the only way and it is the fire of your personal apocalypse, or revealing, that will perform this cleansing action.
Contact me in any way you can should you require further help in this matter. I am here for you as a fellow human being, with a nervous system and feelings like yours, and as a practicing sorcerer, beyond feeling anything.
Ghost Mother – Kelly Dwyer
Ghost horror
A psychological ghost story that blurs the thin line between reality and delusion.
Lilly Bly desperately wants to have a baby. She is struggling with infertility and bad spending habits when her husband, Jack, gets a new job that moves them from Chicago to a small town in Wisconsin.
Impractical Lilly falls in love with a decrepit mansion well out of their price range. She is convinced that she will finally get pregnant and have a baby in this house, and Jack reluctantly agrees to buy the wreck.
But when Lilly learns that her dream house was the site of a gruesome triple homicide/suicide in the 1950s, she begins to experience strange occurrences that soon lead her to believe the house is haunted.
Hell Divers XII: Heroes – Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Space horror
Two final dives. One mission that will determine the fate of humanity … forever.
The Forerunner has decimated the Vanguard Islands in a surprise attack from the Trident warship. King Kade Long, seeing no alternative, accepts a peace deal, committing to a perilous mission with X, the “Immortal,” to activate weather-modification reactors at the poles. But as Kade and X set off, the fragile peace is threatened by Gran Jefe’s one-man guerrilla war against the psychopathic knight, General Jack. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, Michael and his family begin to settle into their new life in the Canary Islands, only to discover that it’s not the sanctuary they believed it was.
Diving into the most inhospitable territory yet, the Hell Divers face horrific monsters bred for a single purpose: to keep them out at any cost. Their only hope of defeating the monsters and restoring the planet is for enemies to unite behind the Immortal and finally work together. But with blood being shed back home, these heroes may have nothing left to save.
Hootenanny Horrorshow – RJ Roles (editor)
Horror anthology
Take a trip into the mountains, through the hills and hollows, where your screams echo through the forest, and no one is going to save you from what lurks in the shadows.
From hillbillies and cryptids, to witches and places forgotten by time, these tropes go together like apple pie and moonshine. Toss in a sackful of horror and you’ve got yourself a bonafide recipe for a backwoods tale of nightmarish proportions.
Featuring horrors from: Josh Reynolds, Joshua Ginsberg, Stephen Barnard, Pamela Morris, M. Betterelli, Z. Martin, David D. West, Dylan Wells, Jyl Glenn, Kimberly Rei, Eric Butler, Jonah Buck, RJ Roles, Meredith Kurz, Rachel Coffman, Mark Szasz, Amanda Leanne, London Blue, Donna J.W. Munro, Derek & Megan Stockton, Chip DePew, Lee Clark Zumpe.
House of Bone and Rain – Gabino Iglesias
Supernatural revenge horror
A group of young men seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered in a Puerto Rican slum.
For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo’s mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree.
Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. Soon, they learn Maria was gunned down by guys working for the drug kingpin of Puerto Rico. No one has ever gone up against him and survived.
As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.
The House Where Death Lives – Alex Brown (editor)
YA Haunted house horror anthology
A dance to the death. A girl who’s just as monstrous as H.H. Holmes. A hallway that’s constantly changing, and hungry. All of these stories exist in the same place, within the frame of a particular house that isn’t bound by the laws of time and space.
This YA speculative fiction anthology explores how the permanence of a home can become a space of transition and change for both the inhabitants and the creatures who haunt them.
Each story in the anthology focuses on a different room in the house and features unique takes on monsters from a wide array of cultural traditions. Whether it’s a demonic Trickster, a water-loving Rusalka, or a horrifying, baby-imitating Tiyanak, there’s bound to be something sinister lurking in the shadows.
Hum – Helen Phillips
Technology horror
An unflinching portrayal of a woman’s fight for her family’s security in a world shaped by global warming and rapid technological progress.
In a city addled by climate change and populated by intelligent robots called “hums,” May loses her job to artificial intelligence. In a desperate bid to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance.
Seeking some reprieve from her recent hardships and from her family’s addiction to their devices, she splurges on passes that allow them three nights’ respite inside the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals flourish.
But her insistence that her son, daughter, and husband leave their devices at home proves far more fraught than she anticipated, and the lush beauty of the Botanical Garden is not the balm she hoped it would be. When her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a hum of uncertain motives as she works to restore the life of her family.
Letters to the Purple Satin Killer – Joshua Chaplinsky
Serial killer horror
Jonas Williker is considered one of the most sadistic serial murderers of the modern era. This epistolary novel explores the aftermath of his arrest and the psychological trauma of those who lived through it.
The Pennsylvania native brutalized his way into the zeitgeist during the early part of the new millennium, leaving a trail of corpses across five states before his eventual arrest. All told, Williker was responsible for the rape and murder of 23 women, and is suspected in the deaths of dozens more. His calling card, a torn piece of fabric found on or inside the bodies of his victims, helped popularize his now ubiquitous nickname: The Purple Satin Killer.
In the years following his arrest, Jonas Williker received hundreds of letters in prison. Collected here, these letters offer a unique glimpse into a depraved mind through a human lens, including contributions from family, the bereaved, and self-professed “fans.” They represent a chilling portrait of the American psyche, skewering a media obsessed culture where murderers are celebrities to revere.
What you learn about the man from these letters will shock you, but not as much as what you learn about yourself.
Loving, Ohio – Matthew Erman & Sam Beck
Coming of age graphic novel horror
After the mysterious suicide of their friend, Sloane, Elliott, Cameron, and Ana are just trying to get through the rest of high school. They live in Loving, Ohio, town built around The Chorus, a new age cult with members firmly planted in positions of power and influence throughout the community.
Through their grief, a series of murders throw these friends into a mystery connected to everything around them. Sloane and her friends have to escape a roaming murderer, figure out their place in the world, and deal with loss all in the looming shadow of The Chorus. But through it they will find the true cost of friendship and the adulthood they seek.
Maple Falls Massacre 2: Sacrificial Lambs – Daniel J. Barnes
Slasher horror – Book 2 of Maple Falls
Twelve long months have passed since the horrors that were inflicted upon the town of Maple Falls. Seven missing teens disappeared from a cabin, leaving behind traces of their existence, but yet no bodies were ever found.
Sheriff Patrick Russell had lost almost everything in his hunt for the killer. No tangible evidence meant little help from his superiors, but stubbornly he still continued his search.
Every winter there is an influx of reported missing persons in the area.
Some say that when the Old Syrup lake freezes over, Beau Tooth comes back to Maple Falls.
Will this winter be any different?
A Mask of Flies – Matthew Lyons
Crime horror
A criminal on the run after a failed heist must confront dark family secrets and demons from her past made flesh.
In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller has no choice but to return to her family’s cabin – a secluded shack in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother’s untimely death.
Along for the ride are Jessup, Anne’s badly wounded partner, and Dutch, the police officer she’s taken hostage. As they wait for help, Anne discovers strange relics from her mother’s past and begins to unfold the mystery of her childhood at the cabin.
Then Jessup goes missing, only to turn up dead. Anne and Dutch bury her friend, but that night, he comes back and knocks at the cabin door.
Not a dream, not a hallucination, but not exactly Jessup, either. Something else. Something wearing her friend’s face. Something hungry.
Mystery Lights – Lena Valencia
Supernatural horror collection
An influencer attempts to derail a viral TV marketing campaign with her violent cult following.
A marriage between two ghost hunters is threatened when one of them loses her ability to see spirits.
The lives of a famous painter in the twilight of her career and a teenage UFO enthusiast converge when a mysterious glowing orb appears in their small desert town.
A slasher-flick screenwriter looking for inspiration escapes a pack of wild dogs only to find herself locked in an SUV with a strange man beside her.
The Ojanox II: Ashes to Ashes – Daemon Manx
Cosmic horror – Book 2 of The Ojanox Series
The year is 1979. A small New York town prepares to welcome the fall season in all the expected ways: young children bicker and boast over Halloween costumes, secret lovers meet in clandestine corners, and a tortured soul plots wicked deeds. All the while, hidden just out of view, patient and hungry, an ancient evil lurks.
Welcome to Garrett Grove, an unassuming community nestled within the foothills of the Watchung Mountains. The very definition of “Everytown, USA”, it is a largely self-contained municipality, most of the residents on a first-name basis. An almost postcard-perfect location.
Dr. Ethan Ziegler believes the mysterious outbreak has been contained and the people of Garrett Grove have nothing to worry about. However, an ill-fated traffic fatality leads to a gruesome discovery, leaving Sheriff Carl Primrose and Medical Examiner Burt Lively even more concerned about the deadly infection.
With increasing occurrences of random violence and a rash of absenteeism reported in the town’s schools and businesses, it becomes apparent that something terrible is taking place.
Meanwhile, on the side of the mountain, an excavation team has unwittingly released a darkness back into the world.
Patchwork – Matt Shaw
Body horror
When an accident robs his wife of her beauty, a twisted husband ensures she remains beautiful by giving her the faces of pretty women he picks up from the bars.
Until the rot sets in, she will wear their faces and her confidence will come back ten-fold. And, when the rot sets in, her husband is already there, waiting with another face for his love.
But how long can this arrangement continue once the guilt of their situations starts eating him alive?
A Sorceress Comes to Call – T. Kingfisher
Dark fantasy horror
Cordelia knows her mother is … unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms – there are no secrets in this house – and her mother doesn’t allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother’s beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him.
But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t evil sorcerers.
When her mother unexpectedly moves them into the manor home of a wealthy older Squire and his kind but keen-eyed sister, Hester, Cordelia knows this welcoming pair are to be her mother’s next victims.
But Cordelia feels at home for the very first time among these people, and as her mother’s plans darken, she must decide how to face the woman who raised her to save the people who have become like family.
The Unmothers – Leslie J. Anderson
Psychological horror
A journalist sent to a small town begins to unravel a dark secret that the women of the town have been keeping for generations.
Marshall is still trying to put the pieces together after the death of her husband. After she is involved in a terrible accident, her editor sends her to the small, backwards town of Raeford to investigate a clearly ridiculous rumor: that a horse has given birth to a healthy, human baby boy.
When Marshall arrives in Raeford, she finds an insular town that is kinder to the horses they are famous for breeding than to their own people. But when two horribly mangled bodies are discovered in a field – one a horse, one a human – she realizes that there might be a real story here.
As she’s pulled deeper into the town and its guarded people, her sense of reality is tipped on its head. Is she losing her grip? Or is this impossible story the key to a dark secret that has haunted the women of Raeford for generations?
The Witch’s Secret – Stacie Murphy
Historical witch horror
Alone and in an unfamiliar place, a young witch discovers a murderous plot to turn the tide of the Civil War, which also might be the key to getting her powers and place in society back, if it doesn’t kill her first.
After using a forbidden spell to wring a confession from her faithless lover, young witch Joya Shaw finds herself stripped of her power and banished to the magical backwater of the Colorado Territory.
But it is 1862, the American Civil War is raging, and going west doesn’t mean leaving the battlefields behind. When Joya arrives at a homesteader’s cabin and discovers the occupants savagely slain, she knows it is no mere murder: traces of demon magic cling to the bodies. When a Union patrol is later wiped out the same way, Joya begins to suspect that someone is trying to create a new weapon for the rebel arsenal.
She gambles that thwarting the plot could be the key to ending her exile. But demon hunting is a dangerous game, and it’s all too easy for the hunter to become the prey. Trapped, Joya enters into an uneasy alliance with a demon.
She must find a way to free herself or bend its power to her will. If she fails, she will forfeit not only her life, but also her soul, along with the chance to stop the tide of the war from turning in an unspeakable direction.
Published: 10 August 2024
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