30Seven – Jeremy Robinson
Sci-fi horror
After a year of torment following his wife Isabella’s brutal murder at the hands of an artistic serial killer, Marcus Lockwood retreats with his son Elias to Moose Hollow, a secluded campground in backwoods Maine, in search of healing. There, a close-knit band of lifelong campers immerses them in a warm, nostalgic experience filled with fishing, canoeing, and crackling barbeques, offering a taste of normalcy.
When whispers of eerie UFO sightings ignite an annual night vigil on the beach, Marcus and Elias eagerly join the hunt for the inexplicable. They get much more than they bargained for when the sky erupts in otherworldly light. A mysterious craft descends, and in one surreal moment, twenty-eight people are abducted.
Isabella’s killer is one of them.
A Box Full of Darkness – Simone St. James
Ghost horror
Siblings return to the house they fled 18 years before, called back by the ghost of their long-missing brother and his haunting request: Come home.
Strange things happen in Fell, New York. A mysterious drowning at the town’s roadside motel. The unexplained death of a young girl whose body is left by the railroad tracks. For the Esmie siblings, Violet, Vail, and Dodie, the final straw was the shocking disappearance of their little brother. It started as a normal game of hide-and-seek. The three closed their eyes and counted to ten while Ben went to hide. But this time, they never found their brother; he was gone and the ongoing search efforts turned up no clues.
As their parents grew increasingly distant, Violet, Vail, and Dodie were each haunted by visions and frightening events that made them leave town and never look back. Violet still sees dead people, spirits who remind her of Sister, the menacing presence that terrorized her for years.
And now after two decades running from their past, it’s time for a homecoming. Because Ben is back, and he’s ready to lead them to the answers they’ve longed for and long feared.
If the ghosts of Fell don’t get to them first.
Books of Horror Community Anthology Vol. 5 – Books of Horror
Horror anthology
Stories live within everyone. Stories that scratch and claw until they’re finally unleashed into the world.
Many contain horrors that no one should witness and slip into the ether, while others get remembered and immortalized in the pages of books.
Take a journey and explore the horrors held within for your morbid delight.
Brides in the Dark – Jacob Steven Mohr
Dark fantasy horror
In Wicke, menfolk hunt their wives in the dim forests. On the Burning Coast, they snatch them from the sea. But in Patrick’s mountain village of Blackfrye, lonely boys lure their brides down from the night sky itself.
And these, everybody knows, these make the happiest marriages of them all.
But when the young shepherd scales the mountain to win a wife of his own, he gets almost more than he can handle with Stella. She’s got bats’ wings, for one, and a tongue far sharper than her yellow fangs.
And in exchange for her hand in wedlock, she wants something from Patrick in return, something that, once given, might turn his humble home upside-down forever.
Dead Fake – Vincent Ralph
Psychological horror – Book 1 of Bleak Haven
Welcome to Bleak Haven: The town you won’t (or can’t!) leave. Deep fake murders have taken over the high school, but what happens when they start to become real?
Would you Swipe to Die?
When the new craze takes over Bleak Haven High, Ava Wilson refuses to join in. As the niece of an infamous murderer, it’s the last thing she needs.
The mysterious website allows people to view their own ‘death’, an AI generated version of their final slasher-movie-moments. But, when some of her classmates’ deepfakes are replicated in real life, Ava can either catch the killer or be the next victim.
Eminence Front – Rebecca Rowland
Cosmic horror
A winter storm ravages a small community in New England, but the residents of one street are unprepared for what the snow brings: an ancient curse, an entity that knows both their sins and their regrets and will stop at nothing to consume what belongs to it.
When John Stephenson peers out of his window on a Tuesday morning, he sees nothing but clear, gray skies hovering above the houses on his staid suburban street, but the next 48 hours will prove to be a waking nightmare from which John and his neighbors cannot escape.
As the first flakes fall, the whispering begins. A woman walking her dog leans into the sidewalk as though something buried beneath speaks to her. As the storm grows in ferocity, each of the residents hear the storm calling.
What it says, however, few may survive to repeat.
Hemlock – Melissa Faliveno
Gothic horror
A woman haunted by a dark inheritance returns to the woods where her mother vanished.
Sam, finally sober and stable with a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, returns alone to Hemlock, her family’s deteriorating cabin deep in the Wisconsin Northwoods. But a quick, practical trip takes a turn for the worse when the rot and creak of the forest starts to creep in around the edges of Sam’s mind. It starts, as it always does, with a beer.
As Sam dips back into the murky waters of dependency, the inexplicable begins to arrive at her door and her body takes on a strange new shape. As the borders of reality begin to blur, she senses she is battling something sinister, whether nested in the woods or within herself.
The Infamous Gilberts – Angela Tomaski
Gothic horror
A wealthy, eccentric family in decline. Secrets held within the walls of their crumbling country manor.
Thornwalk, a once-stately English manor, is on the brink of transformation. Its keys are being handed over to a luxury hotelier who will undertake a complete renovation, but in doing so, what will they erase?
Through the keen eyes of an enigmatic neighbor, the reader is taken on a guided tour into rooms filled with secrets and memories, each revealing the story of the five Gilbert siblings.
My Were Valentine – Jason R. Davis
Werewolf horror – Book 3 of NightWere
Roger thought he’d finally found peace.
A quiet town. A place to disappear. Somewhere his inner monster could rest.
Nestled deep in the northeastern woods, Kittning seemed like the perfect refuge. Its isolation gave Roger’s wolf room to run without risking innocent lives. For the first time in years, he dared to believe he could stay. Maybe even make friends.
But Kittning has secrets of its own.
Something ancient has been sleeping beneath the surface and now it’s waking up. Hungry. Vicious. Ready to devour anything.
As Valentine’s Day approaches, Roger finds himself hunted. This year, he is someone else’s Were Valentine.
Myths Reborn – Kelly A. Hearty (editor)
Horror anthology
Nineteen authors breathed new life into traditional tales to create a new collection of reenvisioned, recontextualized myths.
Encounter cryptids and folk characters portrayed in novel and frightening ways.
Can a skinwalker become the savior of two terrified young girls?
How might the tale of Sasquatch be different when told from his perspective?
Could a vampire exist undetected in your city or a Tatzelwurm make its way into the very walls of your home?
The Night Ship – Alex Woodroe
Post-apocalyptic horror
An apocalyptic world turned into a pitch-black sea of nothingness, but smuggler Rosi and her crew of survivors aren’t alone. Something hungry lurks below.
Driving a logging truck through the Romanian mountains, smuggler Rosi and her crew come across a radio signal that hints at impending doom. As the world goes completely dark, their truck becomes a vessel sailing across a sea of nothingness.
But they’re not alone: transmissions trickle in through the radio from similar isolated islands across the country, from amateur radio hobbyists and police cars and customs facilities.
Attempting to rescue survivors and find a way out, the group save more lives, but soon discover that something hungry lurks below, and it’s sending up agents – and transmissions – of its own.
Night Terror – Vincent Ralph
Psychological horror – Book 2 of Bleak Haven
Welcome to Bleak Haven: The town you won’t (or can’t!) leave.
Bleak Haven High’s senior class of 1987 have already survived the town’s most horrifying tragedy to date. As a result, 17-year-old Noah understands everything there is to know about monsters.
When the bookstore that Noah works in is held up by masked attackers, he assumes they want cash. But the assailants aren’t demanding a ransom. They are searching for Bleak Haven’s very own urban legend – The Burning Book.
After something with a thirst for flesh creeps from the book’s pages, Noah must use his knowledge of Bleak Haven’s terrifying history to help his fellow hostages escape the mall, without turning their town into another bloodbath.
Porcelain Lullaby – Blaine Daigle
Psychological horror
An abandoned orphanage. A buried secret. A dark truth.
Jake and Nate Shepherd’s world shattered when they were children. After a night of horror, the boys woke to find their home the site of an unspeakable tragedy. One that fundamentally cracked the boys’ psyche and left them orphaned.
Two decades after that night, the brothers don’t talk much anymore, the weight of their childhood too heavy for either to confront or bear. But when they receive a message from their long dead mother calling them to an old, abandoned orphanage called Meadowland, they find themselves drawn there.
It’s a dark place of lost voices and broken souls. Where little figures lurk in the shadows and the echoes of the past grow louder and clearer by the moment.
The deeper they dig, the more the cracks in their fragile psyche begin to grow and the more their world sinks into a nightmare. Because nothing stays buried forever. Beneath the broken walls and floors of Meadowland lie secrets too dark to keep and truths too horrible to accept.
A Slow and Secret Poison – Carmella Lowkis
Gothic horror
1922, Wiltshire. When Vee Morgan accepts the job of gardener at a crumbling stately home, she’s hoping for a fresh start where nobody knows her troubled history.
But Harfold Manor is shadowed by grief and the memories of long-faded glory, its rooms haunted by the only surviving member of the family, Lady Arabella Lascy. Vee is fascinated by her enigmatic new employer, a woman obsessed with the curse she believes has killed her family one by one. A curse that is coming for her next.
As Vee immerses herself in the world of Harfold, she finds herself increasingly entranced by Arabella and the secrets that poison her.
But Vee has her own things to hide: secrets that caused her to flee Cardiff, secrets that estranged her from her own family, secrets that might finally catch up to her.
The Swallowed Town & Other Rabbit Holes You Should Avoid – C.F. Page
Psychological horror
In order to investigate the macabre murders of the Rowlings family – what the locals of [redacted] call the Lighthouse Killings – freelance journalist Felix Trellis must navigate the town’s idiosyncrasies: its esoteric origins, unusual marine organisms, an insular religion (the Church of [redacted]), and elusive accounts surrounding a figure known only as [redacted].
Before long, he finds himself descending into rabbit holes never meant for human minds to traverse.
We Call Them Witches – India-Rose Bower
Creature horror
Sara and her family must keep moving. Every few months, they’re discovered, and they have to pack up and get out quick.
For the twins it’s all they’ve ever known, for Danny, Noah and Ma, it’s a reminder of all they’ve lost. For Sara, it’s just another day.
In yet another abandoned house, one they surround with Pagan wards – the only thing that protects them – Sara and her family think they might be safe, for a while at least.
And then they find a strange girl in the garden. Parsley can’t remember where she came from or how she got here. The family sees only a threat, but Sara sees hope.
But outside they are waiting. The eldritch creatures. The ones they call Witches. The ones who already stole everything.
And now, just days after the Parsley arrives, they steal something even more valuable: Noah.
It’s time to stop running. It’s time to leave the safety of the wards, and try to find Noah in the witches’ lair.
It’s just that no-one has ever done that and come out alive.
