Accumulation – Aimee Pokwatka
Haunted house horror
A filmmaker-turned-housewife moves into her dream house and is forced to consider whether it’s the house or herself that is haunted.
When documentary filmmaker turned stay-at-home mom Tennessee Cherish moves into the the dream house her husband bought for her, a brighter future seems to be on the horizon. Even if her husband is frustratingly absent due to his new high-paying job. Even if their two young children begin acting out in strange ways. Even if she feels lonelier than ever.
Distracted by the endless details that come with moving into a new town, a new house, and new schools, Tenn doesn’t notice when odd things begin happening at home. The faucet that runs at all hours. The creepy doll that seems to show up in every room. The human tooth they found in the floorboards.
As the kids’ outbursts and the strange events start to escalate, the family finds themselves increasingly caught in loops, repeating everyday actions with dangerous, and then devastating, effects. Tenn realizes she must find the source of what is haunting her family, before it kills them all.
Body Count – Codie Crowley
Slasher horror
Three wishes. One prom queen celebrating at the Jersey Shore. And one monster who will keep killing until her wishes are paid for.
Seven years ago, Sundae Valentine made a deal with a monster she met at the bottom of a motel pool. She didn’t know the wishes he offered had a price, or that the third wish, the one she still hasn’t made, will cost her life.
Back then, she barely escaped Wildwood alive. Now, the cheerleaders and football players are headed to the Jersey Shore for prom weekend, leaving Sundae no choice but to return to the scene of her sun-bleached nightmares.
Sundae tries to forget, throwing herself into the rides on the pier, the tequila-fueled dance parties, and the guitar-strumming girl she can’t quite look away from. She hopes the beast has forgotten, too.
But there are eyes like silver coins watching from the shadows, and teeth like a rusty saw glinting in the light of the boardwalk. Because Sundae still owes a debt. And whatever it takes, whoever he has to kill, this time the monster’s determined to collect.
The Build-A-Monster Workshop – Pedro Iniguez
Horror poetry collection
Pedro Iniguez invites you to attend The Build-A-Monster Workshop – sneak into an eldritch, abandoned building filled with rusty antique tools, mad scientist’s contraptions and all manner of bloody body parts. Let your imagination run wild as you examine the horrors assembled and documented so far. Try your hand at creation and see what new and terrifying beasts emerge.
The Build-A-Monster Workshop explores themes of the monstrous in all forms, from creatures that lurk in the shadows to the demons living within ourselves. Lessons are broken into four sections: Mad Science, Revenants, Ghosts and Monsters. Iniguez applies his unique perspective to the question of why evil exists and how we live and cope with it in our daily lives.
Steeped in both the American tradition of Hollywood monsters and the Mexican folklore of witchcraft these poems look back to the roots of our cryptid stories as well as forward to the ways, and the reasons why, our society births new and twisted abominations to fear.
But I Won’t Miss Me – Tiffany Tsao
Psychological horror
In an alternate reality, where pregnancy endows women with exceptional powers, one new mother uncovers terrifying truths about herself and life.
In a world where drastic measures have averted the global environmental crisis, humans too are now subject to great transformation.
Vivi should be happy she’s pregnant. But she’s troubled by a looming reality that seemingly bothers no one else: having a baby also means birthing an identical, nearly indestructible self who will eat her and take her place. “Rebirth” is simply a fact of life, nature’s way of equipping women for the challenges of motherhood. But as Vivi’s unborn child develops, so does her fear.
In a rare turn of events, Vivi emerges from rebirth weakened rather than strong. When her husband cannot tolerate her defects, they divorce and Vivi relocates to the country with her baby to work for her old boss.
Chronically exhausted, mentally struggling, and on her own, Vivi must move on, for her own and her son’s sake. But just as with her failed rebirth, swapping old for new isn’t as straightforward as it seems. When Vivi finally discovers what went wrong during childbirth, it will rewrite her life utterly: future, present, and past.
Cataclysm Road – Sam Whittaker
Vampire horror – Book 2 of Last Gasp of the World
Vampire. Motorcycle. Cult.
Frank and Jessie are on the road. They have an entire country to cross, yet don’t know exactly what awaits them at journey’s end. However, they do know that a world full of monsters and dangerous human survivors alike stands in their way.
They haven’t even made it out of Oregon when the survivors of a small town beg for their help. For a clan of motorcycle-riding vampires has laid siege to them and plans to farm them for food. But these are not your average blood-sucking monsters. Frank soon uncovers a long-buried secret about them.
They are a dangerous vampire cult – one despised and hunted even by other vampires – long believed to be extinct. They have risen again from the apocalyptic ashes of the world. And they have designs on unleashing their ravenous demonic lord from the abyss to wreak havoc on the newly vulnerable world.
Complicating matters, a series of ground quakes rumble the land, causing Frank to expect the coming of yet another long-feared cataclysmic trouble: a major earthquake known as a Cascadia event is on their doorstep. If they don’t get away, a cult of vampire motorcyclists may be the least of their worries.
The Cove – Claire Rose
Folk horror
Seventeen-year-old Lindsay Weinberg has just been kicked out of another prep school, and has consequently found herself shipped to her Uncle Levi’s farm in the cold, isolated town of Marbury, Maine.
When Lindsay arrives at a big, old farmhouse miles from civilization, she is greeted by her uncle’s new wife, a goy with a little too much Jesus decor for Lindsay’s taste―with Uncle Levi mysteriously away on a business trip. Not only that, but Lindsay isn’t the only teen staying there. In fact, there is a small group of teens going through some kind of reform program. Up at dawn. Manual labor all day. No phones, computers or tablets.
Things start to feel hopeless until Lindsay meets the twins, Phin and Cass. They live on an island off the Peninsula’s coast, and they have internet. Lindsay convinces the others at Haven House to sneak out for a party on the island, and the night is incredible. At least… what they can remember of it.
All of them wake up in their beds with sea-shell mementos, no memory of how they got home, and wicked hangovers. All of them except one. And as the disappearances and mysteries pile up, Lindsay and the others realize that they have become involved in a terrifying fight to survive, before the Cove claims them all.
The False Child – LM Kaplin
Supernatural horror
The summer after seventh grade was supposed to be uneventful. Long days. Lazy afternoons. A derelict building on a hill, long forgotten.
But when a baseball sails over a rusted fence and into the grounds of the abandoned Fairfield Children’s Home, curiosity pulls a group of friends toward a place the town has spent decades trying to forget. Yet something still lives beneath the cracked boards and tangled roots, something that remembers the children who never came home.
When a child goes missing, old wounds reopen, and the difference between what was lost and what returned becomes impossible to ignore. In Fairfield, not all children grow up. Some are taken. And some come back changed.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces – Sunyi Dean
Gothic horror
Set in a historical Hong Kong that meshes ancient myths and local legends into a haunting story of ghosts, grief, and women who will not forgive.
When Mercy Chan washes up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money, and no memories, the only refuge she finds is the infamous, ghost-infested slum of Kowloon Walled City. Since then, she has rebuilt her life, working for the local triad as a ghost talker and dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt the district. The filthy gutters and cramped alleyways of Kowloon have become her home.
But the past Mercy can’t remember isn’t done with her. An unusually powerful ghost has infested Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. It claims to know Mercy and secrets from her past that are best left forgotten.
As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realize that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours – Nat Cassidy
Horror collection
There are locations in this world where the light doesn’t seem to reach. Where, no matter how illuminated the place might be, shadows creep in too strongly to fight back.
A suspiciously empty gas station rest stop in the middle of the night, littered with googley eyes.
A doctor’s office, where a bottle of booze and a tear-stained folder wait on the desk.
A tech millionaire’s haunted kitchen.
A Bible-quoting ventriloquist’s dingy apartment.
A yoga retreat in the middle of the desert, silent except for the screaming.
Let’s hope you make it home in one piece.
In the Wake of Gods – Kent Priore
Dark fantasy horror – Book 2 of The Abyss Borne Gods
Standing amidst the destruction of Magistrum, great sorrow and guilt weighs upon Seth as he keeps the memory of his mistake close, to continue his growth, to remain good. A concern which lingers through the birth of his daughter, Persephone, labeled a True Born God by the personification of the White Abyss. And due to the sudden death of her uncle, Persephone’s abyssal powers emerge in a destructive way, tearing a hole through the fabric of the world. Thus, solidifying Seth’s worries of managing his own struggles while being father to a god who resembles his past far too much.
Feeling Persephone’s powerful aura pulsate through dimensions, both antagonistic forces begin pursuing her, wanting to eliminate a threat, and make her power theirs. Alongside these heavy stressors, Seth must also deal with the inevitability of Sasha dying the same mysterious way as the other Guild members.
The Earth devolves into a wasteland as the gods ravish the globe, devouring every human they can find. All the while Seth, Sasha, their daughter, and others lay in hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike back, to resist the will of the Abyssian gods, but can they without sacrificing everything they worked so hard to achieve?
And will Seth, so burdened by his past actions, endure this, or will he devolve into the monster he once was…the monster he fears his daughter will also become?
The Library After Dark – Ande Pliego
Ghost horror
A bookseller must escape the infamously haunted library that holds her darkest secrets, but with a murderer in her tour group, escaping alive is not as simple as it seems.
Not all fairytales were meant for children.
Aria Stokes is finally feeling settled: she lives in a tiny New York apartment, works as a bookseller at a local shop, and has even taken a leap of faith in love by indulging her attraction to bookstore regular Jasper. And he seems to already know her so well.
As a Valentine’s Day surprise, Jasper gets the two of them tickets to an exclusive, after-dark tour of the Daedalus Library, the grandiose establishment famed for its immersive genre-based reading rooms and, more notoriously, its rumored hauntings. While Aria normally loves all things ghastly, this place holds more dark secrets than she’d prefer Jasper to know. Like that the last time she was here, she left a body behind.
But when the automatic-door entry malfunctions and Aria, Jasper, and the five other people in their tour group become trapped in the library, they are forced to venture through the storied rooms and hidden passageways of the Daedalus in search of escape, and Aria quite literally has nowhere to hide from the shadows of her past. Then the group learns there’s a murderer in their midst.
Now, as she tries to break out of the library’s intricate reading rooms, Aria has to decide who she can trust, and what secrets are best kept buried, if she wants to make it out alive.
Mori Quinn and the Coffin Game – S. Alessandro Martinez
Middle grade horror
Moribeth Quinn doesn’t fit in. So when her parents drop her off at summer camp, Mori expects the worst: lonely days, awkward conversations, and no friends in sight.
She’s wrong.
Mori quickly bonds with two girls, Emma and Henrietta. But their new friendship comes with a challenge: a creepy dare from the camp bully, sneak into a nearby cemetery at night and lie in old coffins to prove who’s the bravest.
It’s supposed to be a joke. It isn’t.
When Mori climbs into one of the coffins, she’s transported to a strange and dangerous world filled with eerie ghosts, magical warriors, and terrifying monsters. Trapped in this dark fantasy realm, she must find her friends, survive the horrors that stalk the land, and face the terrifying Viscera Queen who rules it.
But escape won’t be easy.
To make it home, Mori must confront her fears, stand up to the bully who started it all, and discover the courage she never knew she had.
Neon Moon – Grace R. Reynolds
Slasher horror
Darlene Boone is a survivor. For more than a year, she’s been bartending at the famous Teegarden Saloon, a honky tonk in the Texas Hill Country, while attempting to put her life back together in the wake of an abusive past.
But when an axe-wielding maniac descends on The Teegarden during one of the bar’s busiest nights of the year, Darlene, along with everyone else in the crowded establishment, will have to put down their whiskeys and take up the nearest weapon if they’re to survive this unexpected night from hell.
No one knows if they’ll make it out alive, least of all Darlene, but one thing’s for sure no matter what: Texans don’t go down without a fight.
Not Your Final Girl – Mikayla Randolph
Slasher horror
Darcy and her high school friends haven’t gathered together in seven years. After a tragic murder on prom night, the group graduated and never looked back. But when the lakeside cabin they spent their summers at is put up for sale, they reunite for one last hurrah.
Darcy hopes it will be an inspiring weekend that will help them all move on from their shared trauma. But Ashley, her biggest tormentor and the group’s manipulative self-appointed leader, is sure to stir up trouble. After a first day filled with jealousy, heartbreak, and unexpected guests, tensions are bursting, and the feud between Darcy and Ashley resurfaces.
The reunion takes a sinister turn when a masked killer slaughters one of their own. Cut off from the outside world with the death toll rising fast, the terrified friends turn on each other and uncover long buried secrets. Someone is seeking justice for their past betrayals and with friends like these no one is safe
One Leg on Earth – ‘Pemi Aguda
Supernatural horror
Something is haunting the pregnant women of Lagos. Across the city, they are walking into water and drowning.
Twenty-three-year-old Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to start her life. Working for a slick architectural firm, she finds a city of adventure and opportunity. Her new world is one of fancy gallery openings, glamorous friends, and all the shiny potential of the future, encapsulated in projects like Omi City, the ultra-luxury development her company is building, a symbol of the dawn of a brighter Lagos.
But Yosoye’s idyllic vision of Lagos soon begins to seem naive, and its darker, stranger layers trouble her. Something is not right about Omi City, and as construction speeds ahead, stories of strange deaths in the city’s open waters reach a fever pitch.
After a chance encounter, Yosoye discovers she is pregnant, a revelation which puts her on a collision course with an inexplicable force that is as seductive as it is deadly.
The Shadows That We Carry – Black Cat Reading
Horror anthology
20 stories of the bogeymen that follow us into adulthood. The monsters that shadow us for our entire lives.
She Waits Where Shadows Gather – Michelle Tang
Psychological horror
Parents should pass down stories, not spirits.
Avery and Carlos Tam have built their lives on logic, not legends. Carlos, the host of a hit reality show that exposes paranormal hoaxes, has made a name disproving the supernatural.
But when they travel to his ancestral home in the Philippines, darkness clings to every corner. The mirrors are shrouded. The housekeeper won’t stay in the house alone. And no one will speak of the tragedies the family has seen.
Then a brutal car crash leaves Carlos trapped in his own body, silent, helpless, and utterly vulnerable. As Avery tends to him, the house begins to stir. It watches. It listens. And it speaks, in a voice only Carlos can hear, offering a twisted kind of comfort.
And as the lies buried by Carlos and his family begin to surface, Avery must confront the truth: if the past won’t rest, their future may never begin.
Some inherit memories. Others inherit monsters.
Spider, Spider – L.C. Winter
Gothic horror
Young Nancy Ratcliffe is on the run. Her father had sought refuge for his family with the Brethren, led by the charismatic but dangerous Prophet. But now her father is gravely ill, and even the sooty streets of Victorian London hold less terror for Nancy than the brutality of Brethren Hall.
Meanwhile, Spider is biding her time. Wrapped in dreams and visions, she paces the dark corridors and hidden staircases of the crumbling house she grew up in. The man who murdered a part of her disappeared many years ago, but still she hopes for revenge.
The Witch of Tongues – S. Alessandro Martinez
Middle grade horror
If you hear the snip, snip, snip of scissors…run.
After a tragic accident leaves her without her father, and without her right eye, twelve-year-old Lydia Ramirez is forced to start over in the small town of Relic’s Rest, Ohio.
New house. New school. New problems.
Lydia doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want new friends. And she definitely doesn’t want to deal with her cruel cousin.
But Relic’s Rest has secrets. Dark ones. Whispers of a witch named Adeliza Barrow still linger in the town’s history: a woman accused, betrayed, and punished long ago. Most people say it’s just a story. Until Lydia finds the grave. And wakes something that should have stayed buried. Now children are in danger.
A shadow moves through the town.
Scissors whisper in the dark. And Adeliza Barrow has returned to finish what was started—taking from children what was taken from her. To stop her, Lydia must face her fears, uncover the truth behind the legend, and find the courage to stand up for herself, and for others.
