Dance for the Dead – Nuzo Onoh
Dark fantasy horror
On a moon-lit night, Diké, heir to the Kingdom and leader of the terrifying warrior cult, the Ogwumii, falls asleep inside his bedroom.
He wakes to find himself trapped within the secret shrine of the village deity, a dark cave forbidden to all, save the powerful witchdoctors.
Overnight, the mighty warrior-prince becomes an Osu – an untouchable and outcast.
In disgraced exile in the forbidden shrine, his sole companion is the raging ghost of a murdered slave girl, wrongly sacrificed to the gods on the false prophecy of a lecherous witchdoctor.
To break the Osu curse, Diké must find the traitors who orchestrated his downfall and embark on a terrifying journey to the ancestors’ realm. A deadly quest, but one that could return him to full citizenship and glory.
“The slave-girl is right to be afraid, not just of the dead, but also of the living.”
Ticktock – Dean Koontz
Supernatural horror
Tommy Phan is a 30-year-old Vietnamese-American detective and novelist living in Southern California, and a chaser of the American Dream.
He drives home his brand-new Corvette one day to discover a strange doll on his doorstep. It’s a rag doll made entirely of white cloth, with no face or hair or clothes. Where the eyes should be, there are two crossed stitches of black thread. Five sets of crossed black stitches mark the mouth, and another pair form an X over the heart.
He brings it into the house. That night, he hears an odd little popping sound and looks up to see the crossed stitches over the doll’s heart breaking apart. When he picks up the doll, he feels something pulsing in its chest. Another thread unravels to reveal a reptilian green eye, and not a doll’s eye, because it blinks.
Tommy Phan pursues the thing as it scrambles away into his house, and then is pursued by it as it evolves from a terrifying and vicious minikin into a hulking and formidable opponent bent on killing him.
“Out of a cloudless sky on a windless November day came a sudden shadow…”
A Dark Roux – Blaine Daigle
Supernatural horror
Beneath the black waters of the Louisiana bayou hides a world of dark mysticism. A world steeped in superstition and the decay of family legacies. A world Rhiannon LeBeau thought she’d left behind fifteen years ago after a summer of tragedy and horror.
But following the death of their mother, Rhiannon LeBeau and her younger brother Rhett find themselves drawn back to their crumbling ancestral home deep in the sugarcane farms of Terrebonne Parish. A place full of family secrets and lost memories that will force both siblings to come face to face with the demons of their past, and present.
Because something has been waiting for their return. Something with a long memory and a debt to collect. Something tied to the bayou in blood. Something that intends to make sure Rhiannon and Rhett never leave again.
“This is a world that time did not forget, but purposely left alone.”
The Good House – Tananarive Due
Curse horror
The home that belonged to Angela Toussaint’s late grandmother is so beloved that the townspeople in Sacajawea, Washington call it the Good House. But that all changes one summer when an unexpected tragedy takes place behind its closed doors, and the Toussaint’s family history – and future – is dramatically transformed.
Angela has not returned to the Good House since her son, Corey, died there two years ago. But now, Angela is finally ready to return to her hometown and go beyond the grave to unearth the truth about Corey’s death.
Could it be related to a terrifying entity Angela’s grandmother battled seven decades ago? And what about the other senseless calamities that Sacajawea has seen in recent years? Has Angela’s grandmother, an African American woman reputed to have “powers,” put a curse on the entire community?
“At last, it was happening, after all this time. Gramma Marie’s magic was back.”
Vodou – Brandon Scott
Supernatural horror
Two centuries ago, Jack Holiday, desperate and broken-hearted, wielded the forces of Vodou to resurrect his great love: Lilith.
His trespass into that realm cost him his life. That night he was cursed to serve at the pleasure of Samedi, the head of the Vodou order. He would become a reaper of souls; his charge? Collect “the Bad Ones.”
As Jack sets out on the road to acquire from his list the soul of cult leader John Haley, he stumbles onto a forbidden ritual, and there, at the heart of it, is the ancient Resurrection Amulet, the very object that saw him cursed so long ago.
Jack is pulled into a mystery, a conflict that threatens to tear the entire Vodou culture apart at its core.
“There’ll be no tricks here … but maybe a few treats.”
Darkness – John Saul
Supernatural horror
Villejeune, Florida. A secluded little town at the edge of a vast, eerie swamp. Far from prying eyes. Far from the laws of civilization. Here folks live by their own rules – dark rites of altars and infants, candles and blood.
Years ago the Andersons left town with a dream. Now they are back. To live out a nightmare.
Something has been waiting for them. Something unspeakably evil. It feeds on the young and the innocent.
And soon it will draw their teenage daughter into its unholy embrace.
“The children of the Dark Man lurked in the shadows.”
All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By – John Farris
Supernatural horror
The affair is a military wedding. The groom’s parents are the Bradwins, one of the oldest and most distinguished families in Virginia. The family head, General “Boss” Bradwin, is a famous army officer.
Of all his prized sons, his youngest, “Clipper” Bradwin, is the most promising. First in his class at Blue Ridge Military Academy, graduate with all honors, he is now entering into holy matrimony and then into wartime service of his country.
What will begin, however, with the solemnity of his marriage vows will end in the echoing screams of the damned – an ungodly spectacle of spilled blood and sobbing, throat-aching terror.
For this distinguished family is like no other on earth. There is a curse on their blood. Their family history is rooted not in magnolia and honeysuckle, but in darkness and demonism, in frightening forces beyond their knowledge and control.
Their august history begins not in antebellum mansions, but with supernatural sorcery in the ancient rites and rituals of dark African jungles. There is a curse that grips the Bradwins from generation to generation, from horror to bloody horror, and that climaxes in a spine-chilling nightmare of black occultism and blood vengeance.
“The horrors have ended; or at least I have them at a distance. For now.”
Voodoo Heart – John Everson
Supernatural horror
When Detective Lawrence Ribaud wakes alone in a bloody bed with his wife missing, he knows this is more than just a mysterious case of murder.
His wife is the latest victim in a string of bizarre disappearances.
All across New Orleans, on one night each month, people are vanishing, leaving behind nothing but a pool of blood on the bedsheets … and an abandoned heart.
Ribaud doesn’t believe in voodoo, but he soon finds himself moving through the underbelly of a secret society of snakes, sacrifices and obscene rituals in search of the mysterious Black Queen and the curse of her Voodoo Heart.
“Voodoo is not a toy … it’s taken me my whole life to realize that.”
Rootwork – Tracy Cross
Folklore horror
In the summer of 1889, the lives of three African American sisters are upended when they are abruptly sent away from their parents and the only home they’ve ever known in a small, impoverished Louisiana parish to go live in the backwater with their mysterious, hoodoo-practicing Aunt Teddy, a powerful woman feared by some and hated by others.
United by love but separated by passion, will their introduction to a world of mysticism and magic connect the sisters by way of ancestral inheritance, or will they be driven apart by forces beyond their control after tragedy strikes at the hands of a racist sheriff?
“I’m gonna leave this town and take as much knowledge with me that I can.”
Tropic of Night – Michael Gruber
Supernatural horror
Jane Doe lives in the shadows under an assumed name. A once-promising anthropologist and an expert on shamanism, everyone thinks she’s dead. Or so she hopes.
Jimmy Paz is a Cuban-American police detective. Straddling two cultures, he understands things others cannot.
When the killings start – a series of ritualistic murders – all of Miami is terrified. Especially Jane. She knows the dark truth that Jimmy must desperately search to uncover.
As their lives slowly interconnect, Jane and Paz are soon caught in a cataclysmic battle between good and an evil as unimaginable as it is terrifying.
“My journal draws my eye. Why have I got it out tonight?”
Voodoo Child – Thomas Gloom
Southern gothic horror
Ghosts of the past will haunt until they are dealt with.
Finn knows he must deal with his own demons, but can he do it before it’s too late?
Finn is set to begin his senior year in high school when his best friend breaks the news that he’s moving away. The nerdy introvert isn’t ready for the onslaught of bullying that follows.
While running from a beating, Finn meets a mysterious Voodoo witch who introduces him to the supernatural world of curses. As a non-believer, Finn assumes he’s safe, but has actually placed himself on dangerous ground.
As the journey unfolds, he comes face to face with nightmares long forgotten, and truths that should’ve remained buried.
“The sign on the front of the shop read: Mama Caplata’s House of Voodoo.”
Voodoo Island Nightmare – Joshua T. Whaley
Supernatural horror
In the fall of 1987, four twenty-somethings set sail from the party capital of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, looking for a hedonistic weekend of fun in the sun on the uncharted islands around the Bahamas. Instead, what they discovered was nothing short of a nightmare. Falling victim to the mercy of an evil witch doctor, death would be considered a reprieve from the tortures he had in store for them.
Then, one week later, their empty boat beached itself back in Florida, the only clue being a strange arrangement of voodoo imagery.
It was up to Detective Jake Singer and Private Investigator Paige Morrison to solve the mystery. Drawn into a world of sacred rituals, zombies, gang violence, and the secrets of their own troubled pasts, they set out to discover the truth of what happened.
With the assistance of the Leader of the Disciples FLA motorcycle club and a wealthy businessman from New York City, they needed to answer the questions, “What happened to them,” and, “Who is Papa Kochma?”
With time working against them in a city ruled by sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, will they succeed? Or will they fail and be turned into voodoo zombies?
“Welcome to my island of your worst nightmare.”
Falling Angel – William Hjortsberg
Supernatural horror
Big-band frontman Johnny Favorite was singing for the troops when a Luftwaffe fighter squadron strafed the bandstand, killing the crowd and leaving the singer near death. The army returned him to a private hospital in upstate New York, leaving him to live out his days as a vegetable while the world forgot him.
But Louis Cyphre never forgets.
Cyphre had a contract with the singer, stipulating payment upon Johnny’s death. Payment that will be denied as long as Johnny clings to life.
When Cyphre hires private investigator Harry Angel to find Johnny at the hospital, Angel learns that the singer has disappeared. It is no ordinary missing-person’s case.
Everyone he questions dies soon after, as Angel’s investigation ensnares him in a bizarre tangle of black magic, carnival freaks, and grisly voodoo.
When the sinister Louis Cyphre begins appearing in Angel’s dreams, the detective fears for his life, his sanity, and his soul.
“It was Friday the thirteenth and yesterday’s snowstorm lingered in the streets like a leftover curse.”
