Afterbirth – Emma Cleary
Psychological horror
In the wake of a fraught and ill-omened romance, Brooke arrives in Vancouver to care for her sister Izzy, who is preparing to undergo reproductive surgery. But Izzy’s rapidly decaying apartment building, its hallways stalked by an ominous figure known only as Medusa, offers little of the refuge the sisters need.
Seeking solace in the horror movies her ex-girlfriend loved, Brooke soon finds traces of horror bleeding from the screen into their lives. Old wounds reopen and new tensions surface. When Brooke begins to exhibit strange symptoms of her own, the line between self and sister blurs, and their concern for each other twists into a tangled obsession.
Bloody Shores and Other Nautical Nightmares – Thomas Stewart
Creature horror
Something’s killing in the water, and it ain’t no shark.
Maxwell Davidson has his work cut out for him when he’s assigned by World Of Weird magazine to investigate and write an article surrounding a string of brutal slayings at the popular summer hotspot, SunnyShore Resort.
Some believed it to be shark attacks, others believed it to be a deranged killer.
When the nightmarish truth is revealed, however, the investigation quickly turns into a struggle for survival, just to tell the tale, paycheck or not.
The Cellar Below the Cellar – Ivy Grimes
Folk horror
When a wild solar storm wipes out all electronics and traps Jane at her grandmother’s house in the woods, she is forced to start a new life off-grid as part of a small, isolated community.
However, there is something very strange about her new neighbors, and the longer she lives under the eerie glow of the auroras, the more she feels her grandmother may be hiding unsettling secrets.
To have any hope in her new world, Jane must find the courage to step into her power and claim her identity, but that would mean facing whatever hides in the cellar below the cellar, a place that seems to be waiting for her.
Dig – J.H. Markert
Psychological horror
The soil on Crow Island holds secrets, and they’re ready to be unearthed.
Eight years ago, a boy took up an axe and slaughtered a dozen people. That odd, troubled boy, Jericho Dodd, has been dead and buried in his father’s yard for years, but ever since that massacre, Crow Island has been a dark and unsettling place.
When Jericho’s father begins digging up the past he buried, a compulsion to dig sweeps over the island and soon everyone else is obsessively churning up dirt, desperate to uncover buried secrets. The compulsion leads to violence and as neighbors turn against each other, the island’s famous tupelo honey, harvested from trees deep in a swamp, changes too.
As dread and paranoia seep up from the ground, it becomes clear that the island itself needs something from its residents, before it digs itself apart for good.
The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru – Olesya Salnikova Gilmore
Gothic horror
A fearless fortune teller in 1920s Paris must use her powers to divine who she can trust when an exiled Romanov princess and her brother come to her seeking answers about a decades-old mystery.
Spirited Zina and her secretive grandmother, Baba Valya, own a tearoom on rue Daru in Paris, where they have lived quietly since Zina’s mother’s untimely death. By day, the women serve tea, mostly to members of the bustling Russian émigré community, but when dusk falls, they divine fortunes and perform séances for their loyal clientele.
Then the charming Princess Olga and her brother arrive, searching for knowledge about the disappearance of their father, the exiled Grand Duke, cousin of the last Tsar of Russia. Zina, eager to learn more about the spirit world and her powers, performs the séance. She is able to summon the Grand Duke, but to her horror, he starts to haunt the shop, and he seems to know something sinister about her mother’s death.
As Zina delves into her family’s hidden past, dark secrets are unearthed, threatening the home and tearoom Zina and her grandmother have worked so hard to build, not to mention their very lives.
Marked: Tales of S.T.A.N.G.E. – K.L. Patrick
Horror collection
A darkness moves around us, a world asking to enter the other side. People inspired by the entities that lie beyond the stars, and even our dimension.
To fight the dark comes a light. S.T.A.N.G.E. is the only thing keeping our world safe, but it comes at a cost.
Fighting for us in the background, these are their tales of horror and loss. Four stories of the otherworldly show the impact The Damned and the precursors have made on our world.
From 1860 to the 90s, a darkness has tried to break through. The final question remains. Will they save us, and what will be the aftermath if they succeed?
Palmetto Boy – D.A. Jobe
Monster horror
She thought she’d escaped the monster that tormented her family decades ago.
Alane is determined to give her 12-year-old son, Ray the stable childhood she didn’t have. After moving into a new apartment, Alane works two jobs to make ends meet, leaving Ray alone in the evenings. Ray loves his new independence, but soon that love turns to fear as he begins to hear strange sounds from the attic crawl space. Doors slam where there aren’t any. Something is chewing a hole in his bedroom ceiling.
Long-buried memories of an old family tale surface, a monster Alane and her little brother called Palmetto Boy.
Alane must confront the creature that has haunted her for years and destroy it for good, before it rips away her son and the future she’s fighting to build.
The Porosity of Souls – Terry Campbell
Horror collection
18 disturbing tales of horror.
The human soul is an ethereal sponge, collecting and absorbing emotions-good and bad-and holding them for eternity. But the darker emotions-fear, anguish, loneliness-are far denser, more destructive and, sometimes, they can crack the soul.
A man in a bleak, futuristic society where physical sex is banned will stop at nothing to acquire the one thing he cannot have-love.
A mayor in a small Canadian town must watch helplessly as his entire population falls victim to a ferocious plague.
A stained-glass window inspires an artist, but not in the spiritual manner in which he imagines.
This’ll Make Things a Little Easier – Attila Veres
Horror collection
A writer finds out that one of his stories will be translated into an extremely obscure language. But when his copy of the book arrives, it doesn’t match what he wrote: instead, the text contains a much more horrific narrative that may be playing out in reality.
A traveling representative for a soft drink company finds his sales territory expanding when he is sent to an alternate reality where they have their own nightmarish use for his cola.
A narrator is ready to give up on life, until a murderous army of fish-people begins to rise from the oceans.
Money literally does grow on trees when the government tries to alleviate poverty by supplying families with a strange new plant species, but their newfound financial gain comes at a terrible cost.
Wolf Worm – T. Kingfisher
Gothic horror
Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods.
Sonia Wilson is a talented scientific illustrator, but she is only able to follow her dream because of her father’s reputation as a renowned scientist. Such is the lot in life for a woman in science in 1899. And after his death, she is left without work, prospects, or hope.
So when the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use.
Once there though, she encounters dark happenings in the Carolina woods, and even darker questions come to light, like what happened to her predecessor? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”
With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a twisted road. His ground-breaking discoveries come with a cost, one that Halder is paying with human flesh.
If Sonia can’t find a way to stop the monstrosity, she may be next under the knife.
Wretch: or, The Unbecoming of Porcelain Khaw – Eric LaRocca
Psychological horror
After his husband dies, Simeon Link finds himself overcome by grief and seeking comfort in an unusual support group called The Wretches, who offer an addictive and dangerous source of relief.
They introduce Simeon to a curious figure known as Porcelain Khaw, a man with the ability to let those who are grieving have one last intimate moment with their beloved … for a price.
