A Wasp for a Fig – Natalie Pinter
Dark fantasy horror
Sylas wants to support his best friend, David, who has had a rough time since his sister tragically went missing a year ago. When David embarks on a trip down south to her last known whereabouts, Sylas, and their roommate Vishal, accompany him.
As the young men approach the place where her car was found, a wonderful scent lures them off the side of the road and into a lush garden where they encounter strange folk with violet eyes.
When they seek answers, both about the fate of David’s sister, and the nature of this uncanny place, they discover the floral oasis harbors a gruesome secret that threatens all of their lives.
“David rolls down the window and Sylas smells something fresh and sweet.”
A Pale Shade of Winter – L.B. Stimson
Southern gothic horror
Set against the beginning of the Spanish-American War, a young woman finds herself thrown into the midst of the most difficult choice of her life.
This decision will ultimately lead to the unveiling of her family’s most deeply held secrets.
With two innocent lives caught in the veil between life and death, will she be able to make amends and cast out the evil that now thrives amongst the living?
“She turned and faced the house in hopes her father had changed his mind.”
Wrathburn – Hayley Bernard-Ryan
Dark fantasy horror
Eric Wrathburn is just as troubled as he is gifted. Due to his special abilities, he has been chosen to rescue the citizens of Hiraeth, a magical city that very few people know about, while battling his own personal demons.
Serena Catskill is a travel writer visiting London for the first time. After her initial encounter with the enigmatic and tortured Eric Wrathburn, she is thrust into his twisted but often beautiful world where nothing is quite what it seems.
Together they embark on a strange journey into the unknown, but they are not alone. Eric has a nefarious voice in the back of his head. It has been there since birth. He sees it in the mirror. It visits him in the dark. Over the years, he has managed to keep it at bay, but not anymore.
Sometimes when you cage the beast, the beast gets angry…
“Eric Wrathburn was frequently troubled by vivid nightmares…”
One Hell of a Night in Mexico – Sunni Ellis
Vampire western horror
When vampire gunslinger, Creed Goodnight, takes a bloody bite out of the demon infestation in Whiskey Lick, Texas, he is offered an ironic, but lucrative proposition by Archbishop Declan McQuade of the Catholic diocese in El Paso.
Flanked by a nun and a half-breed angel, Creed braves a new breed of fearsome haunting the Mexican wastelands in a furious race to seal the Gates Of Hell and save the village of Almas Perdidas before time runs out.
“Sundown in Acuna was a skull-crusher.”
Nowhere Land – Pamela K. Kinney
Supernatural horror
For centuries, legends have been told of a haunted land not far from Gloucester, Virginia. The local tribes had labelled it a place of demons. Wildlife is hardly seen there, and even insects avoid it. Sound fluctuates; nothing above a whisper one moment, only to come back minutes later. Those who dare to cross the land never make it out, mysteriously vanishing.
Parker Burkett and his sister, Lisa Polivka, inherit the land from their grandfather. They bring in a group of investigators to find if the stories behind the property are true. Parker has plans to turn it into a historical attraction and wants to debunk the ghost tales. He finds the paranormal group gone the next morning, except for a finger still wearing a ring lying in the loft of one of the buildings. It is the only evidence they’d been there.
Ben Neilson, who leads the paranormal team, Seekers of Paranormal World, wants to investigate, but first he must convince Parker to let them. He also wants longtime friend and psychic medium Neri Phelan to help his team.
Neri left the group a couple of years ago after the death of her younger sister on an investigation. She has a past with the cursed land, and she doesn’t want anything to do with it. Nightmares and an attack from something dark that destroys her spirit guide help her decide that it’s time to break the curse.
“Is there anyone of the spirit realm in here with us?”
A Whisper in the Dark – Elizabeth S. Devecchi
Creature horror
Sarah Parker thinks she has found the perfect place for a fresh start when she moves her family from the Midwest to a sleepy suburban neighborhood in an idyllic southern town. Leaving a position as a serious journalist to write fluff pieces for a local paper is a compromise she is willing to make to escape the past and rebuild her family.
Ten years earlier, Ben and Mary moved to the same neighborhood in search of their own fresh start, leaving a trail of death and disfigurement in their wake. Now that cancer has taken Mary, a blossoming friendship with the Parker family offers Ben a glimpse of the things he missed out on and the child he and Mary were denied.
As he questions the sacrifices he made to be with Mary and the evil he harbored to protect her, that evil has set its sights on Sarah’s eleven-year-old son, Sam, putting the entire town in danger.
“She closed her eyes, the hypnotic echoes traveling just under her skin…”
Good For Her – Nefarious Bat Press
Rage horror anthology
If you’re not angry – you should be.
Good For Her: An Anthology of Women’s Rage celebrates women’s rights – and women’s wrongs.
Filled with rage, revenge and retribution and featuring stories from writers including Ai Jiang, RJ Joseph, Hailey Piper, Candace Nola, MJ Mars, Leigh Kenny and SH Cooper, Good For Her is not only pure catharsis – it supports a great cause, with 100% of profits donated to Sisters Uncut.
“Elise Brennan shuffled the blank papers on her desk and beamed at the camera…”
Velocities – Kathe Koja
Horror collection
13 tales that explore the darker aspects of the human condition.
From urban landscapes to rural nightmares, these stories delve into themes of art, identity, and transformation with a unique blend of horror and literary prose.
“What he carried to her he carried in a red string bag.”
Teenage Girls Can Be Demons – Hailey Piper
Horror collection
13 coming-of-rage stories.
A vicious group of college upperclassmen prey on the freshman girls.
Across the world, something is mutating adolescents into bizarre creatures.
A girl on a night out realizes a bizarre cop is hunting her.
A Halloween prank goes horribly wrong when a murderous ghost steps out of an urban legend and into the real world.
These stories take our most difficult years of transformation and twist them into new and terrifying shapes, where the monsters are real and you’ll do whatever it takes to get away, or get even.
“The first girl explodes on the final evening of orientation weekend.”
Penfold’s Menu of Magic and Malice – Valerie B. Williams
Horror collection
16 stories from evil children, myths and legends, cursed objects, to wee folk; something for everyone.
A mysterious visitor to a Civil War hospital offers comfort to the wounded by offering a glimpse of their families, if they will only look into his camp mirror.
Two boys foraging for wild mushrooms discover a new species of fungus at the same time it discovers them.
A woman introduces her granddaughter to the matriarchal skill—the ability to charm a carnivorous swamp cryptid.
A pirate ship’s bounty includes a hogshead containing the body of a young woman, and rumors fly that she is a mermaid.
A grave-robbing gnome and his family meet a rookie detective determined to solve the crime and make his name.
In a post-apocalyptic world, a father battles his estranged daughter for command of their tribe.
“I ask myself how this happened.”
A Sunny Place for Shady People – Mariana Enriquez
Horror collection
Welcome to Argentina.
12 spellbinding stories 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.
“First, I think, I should describe the neighborhood.”
Be Still – Blair Daniels
Horror collection
Take a photo of your kid.
You never know when he will come back… different.
I’m a lifeguard. There’s someone who won’t get out of the deep end of the pool.
I was asked to restore a home video. It’s ruining my life.
Every flavor of horror, from ghosts in the library to horrible prophecies, from creepy funhouses to liminal parking lots.
Read… if you dare.
“I never skipped taking the photo. Never.”
She’s Always Hungry – Eliza Clark
Horror collection
A woman welcomes a parasite into her body.
A teenager longs for perfect skin.
A scientist tends to fragile alien flora.
A young man takes the night into his own hands.
Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.
“Follow a few simple steps and you can eat whatever you want…”
The Glass Coffin – Women in Horror
Horror anthology
Five voices. Five resurrections. One promise: the women you silenced are clawing their way back.
Five authors shatter the glass coffin—that suffocating space where women’s stories are buried, their power entombed, their rage left to rot. But here’s the thing about burying women alive: we’ve always known how to dig ourselves out.
From Amber Hassler’s haunted orchard where revenge is served fresh-picked, to Alicia Powers’ boardroom bloodbath where the corner office demands a crimson price, these stories break ceilings and demolish the entire building. Reyna Young serves workplace harassment with a side of supernatural justice. Deborah Daughetee uncorks a vintage that flows with ancient feminine fury. And Staci Layne Wilson delivers a girl reporter whose biggest scoop becomes her own obituary—and her most dangerous exposé.
“The Glass Coffin” isn’t your grandmother’s Gothic horror (though she’d probably love it). It’s feminist rage given form, resurrection as rebellion, and transformation through terror. Each tale pulses with lyrical fury, weaving vengeance and sisterhood into something beautifully monstrous.
Because when you try to bury women’s stories, you forget one crucial detail: we’ve been perfecting the art of rising from the dead since the first witch trial, the first “hysteria” diagnosis, the first time someone said “smile more.”
This time, we’re not asking permission to haunt you.
“Of course, back then, I didn’t know the secrets these vines were carrying.”
The Children on the Hill – Jennifer McMahon
Psychological horror
1978: At her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when she’s home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran, teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love.
Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris, silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral, does not behave like a normal girl.
Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere.
2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real, and one of them is her very own sister.
“Her smell sends me tumbling back through time to before. Before I knew the truth.”
The Place Where They Buried Your Heart – Christina Henry
Haunted house horror
On an otherwise ordinary street in Chicago, there is a house. An abandoned house where, once upon a time, terrible things happened. The children who live on this block are told by their parents to stay away from that house. But of course, children don’t listen. Children think it’s fun to be scared, to dare each other to go inside.
Jessie Campanelli did what many older sisters do and dared her little brother Paul. But unlike all the other kids who went inside that abandoned house, Paul didn’t return. His two friends, Jake and Richie, said that the house ate Paul. Of course adults didn’t believe that. Adults never believe what kids say. They thought someone kidnapped Paul, or otherwise hurt him. They thought Paul had disappeared in a way that was ordinary, explainable.
The disappearance of her little brother broke Jessie’s family apart in ways that would never be repaired. Jessie grew up, had a child of her own, kept living on the same street where the house that ate her brother sat, crouched and waiting. And darkness seemed to spread out from that house, a darkness that was alive – alive and hungry.
“Nobody ever said the house was dangerous…”
The Body – Bethany C. Morrow
Supernatural horror
Mavis broke from her parents’ congregation years ago, but she still hasn’t recovered. Their impossible expectations and soul-shredding critiques have dug deep into her mind, and she’s taunted by the knowledge that even when she’s done nothing wrong, she’ll never be right.
Now Mavis is afraid she’s about to lose the only thing she has: her husband, Jerrod. The man she’s always known was too good to be true. No one thinks she deserves him, not even after surviving the serial cheater they wanted her to stick by, and soon they’ll all find out they were right.
Mavis is already unraveling when a brush with death shows her what real fear looks like. Soon, she’s under constant attack from all directions. As the assaults turn increasingly vicious and bizarre, Mavis realizes that Hell isn’t reserved for the afterlife.
And sinner or not, no one is coming to save her.
“Mavis’s thoughts must have been the only ones that came with talons.”
Sundial – Catriona Ward
Psychological horror
Rob has spent her life running from Sundial, the family’s ranch deep in the Mojave Desert, and her childhood memories.
But she’s worried about her daughter, Callie, who collects animal bones and whispers to imaginary friends. It reminds her of a darkness that runs in her family, and Rob knows it’s time to return.
Callie is terrified of her mother. Rob digs holes in the backyard late at night, and tells disturbing stories about growing up on the ranch. Soon Callie begins to fear that only one of them will leave Sundial alive.
“I make a decision tree in my head. Then I go downstairs to break the news.”
The Hunger – Alma Katsu
Supernatural horror
Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party.
Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos, unknowingly propelling them into one of the deadliest and most disastrous Western adventures in American history.
As members of the group begin to disappear, the survivors start to wonder if there really is something disturbing, and hungry, waiting for them in the mountains, and whether the evil that has unfolded around them may have in fact been growing within them all along.
“Everyone agreed it had been a bad winter, one of the worst in recollection.”
A House with Good Bones – T. Kingfisher
Gothic horror
“Mom seems off.”
Her brother’s words echo in Sam Montgomery’s ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone.
She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam’s excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out.
But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mom is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mom jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above.
To find out what’s got her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried.
“There was a vulture on the mailbox of my grandmother’s house.”
Daughters of Darkness – various
Horror anthology
46 horrific tales. All by women.
When you were little, you had a nanny. A nanny only you could see.
There are clumps of dark hair in the swimming pool. Curling around your toes, slowly tugging you down.
“The Love Simulator” shows your perfect life with ‘The One’… which turns out to be your worst nightmare.
Pull up a chair and listen to the horrors of murderous femme fatales, fiercely protective mothers, and daughters who realize their childhood isn’t quite what it seemed.
“The first time I saw you, I was surprised I could see you.”
The Lamb – Lucy Rose
Coming of age horror
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember.
When Margot is not at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. People who have strayed too far from the road. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her bid for freedom.
“I spent the night helping Mama make stock out of the bones.”
The Starving Saints – Caitlin Starling
Historical horror
Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. In this isolated setting, food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.
Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the survival horror unfolding within Aymar’s walls.
As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters… or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.
“In fifteen days, there will be no food in Aymar Castle.”
The Devouring Gray – Christine Lynn Herman
YA monster horror
After her sister’s death, seventeen-year-old Violet Saunders finds herself dragged to Four Paths, New York. Violet may be a newcomer, but she soon learns her mother isn’t: They belong to one of the revered founding families of the town, where stone bells hang above every doorway and danger lurks in the depths of the woods.
Justin Hawthorne’s bloodline has protected Four Paths for generations from the Gray, a lifeless dimension that imprisons a brutal monster. After Justin fails to inherit his family’s powers, his mother is determined to keep this humiliation a secret. But Justin can’t let go of the future he was promised and the town he swore to protect.
Ever since Harper Carlisle lost her hand to an accident that left her stranded in the Gray for days, she has vowed revenge on the person who abandoned her: Justin Hawthorne. There are ripples of dissent in Four Paths, and Harper seizes an opportunity to take down the Hawthornes and change her destiny, to what extent, even she doesn’t yet know.
The Gray is growing stronger every day, and its victims are piling up. When Violet accidentally unleashes the monster, all three must band together with the other Founders to unearth the dark truths behind their families’ abilities, before the Gray devours them all.
“His fate lay in the cards.”
She Made Herself a Monster – Anna Kovatcheva
Vampire horror
We make monsters in order to destroy them. For thousands of years, we’ve named witches and burned them, suspected demons and exorcised them. When crops die and children fall ill, who better to blame than a monster?
Yana rides from one desolate town to the next, staging grisly displays while the villagers sleep: animal corpses in the public square, eggs filled with blood in the chicken coop. She tells the stricken villagers stories of vampires that stalk the night. Then she eliminates the threat, and sows seeds of hope in her wake.
The village Koprivci is plagued by exceptional illness and misfortune, its children rarely surviving infancy. There, Yana meets Anka: a headstrong orphan who the villagers blame for their curse. As Anka approaches womanhood, the village Captain is grooming her for marriage against her will. Anka is powerless against him, until Yana arrives.
Together, the orphan and the vampire slayer hatch a plan: to conjure a monster so vile, it might provide cover for Anka to escape. But their plan quickly takes on a horrifying life of its own.
“There is a brick, and there is a mouth.”
Turn Off the Light – Jacquie Walters
Ghost horror
On the isolated Eastern Shore of Virginia, Edith is a healer, a woman of knowledge, and a woman watched. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Whispers creep through the dark. Terrified she has opened her home to the Devil, Edith makes a desperate choice.
Claire doesn’t believe in ghosts, until she returns home to care for her dying father and finds her childhood house… listening. As one sleepless night bleeds into the next, she becomes convinced something is stirring beneath the floorboards. Something that has waited a long time to rise.
Is the house haunted? What compels this lurking darkness? As the danger mounts, Edith and Claire will discover they’ll need each other to survive. But they are separated by four hundred years. And time is running out for them both.
“The apple is an omen. She does not yet know why, but she is sure of it.”
Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M. Danforth
Gothic horror
In 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir.
To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths.
This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, the Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever, but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.
Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded Age institution.
Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation and a searing piece of Hollywood satire, starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara.
But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled, or perhaps just grimly exploited, and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.
“And then she disappeared completely into the dark mouth that was the path’s entrance.”
Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga – Lindy Ryan (editor)
Horror anthology
Deep in the dark forest, in a cottage that spins on birds’ legs behind a fence topped with human skulls, lives the Baba Yaga.
A guardian of the water of life, she lives with her sisters and takes to the skies in a giant mortar and pestle, creating tempests as she goes.
Those who come across the Baba Yaga may find help, or hinderance, or horror. She is wild, she is woman, she is witch, and these are her tales.
“Follow us now, and please come see our beautiful homes.”
Darkness There But Something More – Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar
Psychological horror
After the loss of her baby and subsequent divorce, Edgar Allan Poe scholar Marissa Owens leaves her tenured job as an English professor for a fresh start at her alma mater, Blackthorn University. As she begins to feel like herself again, one of her favorite students goes missing.
Then, the police find the body.
The investigation descends upon the campus, and familiar clues begin to surface. This triggers a disturbing memory from Marissa’s own dark past at Blackthorn, one she has attempted to keep buried.
“They enter the path in single file, a curving snake of girls, the sorority pledge mistress at the helm.”
All’s Well – Mona Awad
Dark fantasy horror
Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating chronic back pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now, she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theater director.
Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised and cost her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers.
That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past and a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known.
“I lie like this, and I do not feel relief.”
You Asked For It – Amanda Ruzsa
Horror collection
A twisted collection of nightmare-fueled tales of cursed objects, dolls that blink when you’re not looking, and creatures that slither through the cracks of reason.
Every page breathes. Every tale gives life to darkness.
Holiday cheer turns to holiday fear. Kind faces reveal sinister smiles. Innocent items give way to hellish realms. From subtle, creeping dread to scenes soaked in blood and madness, this book takes you on a relentless descent into the unknown.
Are you ready? Just remember … You asked for it …
“Shelly thought Donny’s dusty doll shop was a wonderland…”
