A Dark and Wild Wood – Sarah Nicole Lemon
Dark fantasy horror
A maiden with dark magic becomes the apprentice to Lord Death – for a price.
Ever since she was a child, Salomé has been plagued by visions of spirits and dangerous powers she can’t control. After watching her foster mother burn as a witch, she and her beloved sister Rochelle are raised together in a convent, a grim and dreary existence. Until one day, Rochelle vanishes.
Determined to find a way to save her, Salomé runs: first to a brothel, and then, after a terrible accident, away from the village and into the woods. Deep amongst the trees of the wild Black Forest, she comes face-to-face with Lord Death.
Rather than taking her life, he brings her to his home at the heart of the woods, a strange manor full of locked rooms and mysterious corridors, crumbling one moment, magnificent the next. He promises to make her his apprentice and teach her how to harness her mind and magic. His words are as seductive as his presence, but should one trust Death?
The Dorians – Nick Cutter
Psychological horror
On a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring their lost youth.
The chance to put death on pause, forever, perhaps.
The remarkable secret lies in the high-tech harnessing of an ancient and extraordinary biological agent, one with no conscience, yet possessed with a single-minded purpose that has helped it persist for eons: the will to survive.
The dark heart of unbridled human ambition finds its apex in an unholy experiment that now tests the limits of both creator and subject, eclipsing all bounds of morality and sanity.
Filth Eaters – Ito Romo
Vampire horror
Granada, 1849. After centuries of scrounging in the shadows, the vampire Radamés discovers an ancient Aztec codex that reveals the vampires of the “New World” live a more “human” life: they marry, they give birth.
Spurred on by tantalizing promise of a fuller existence, Radamés glamours and schemes his way onto a ship headed for Mexico. There, in the underbelly of the forgotten city of Teotihuacán, the Andalusian vampire falls in love with a member of this ancient sect of vampires who call themselves Filth Eaters.
From their union, the mestizo vampire Doro is born.
God’s Vengeance – Theresa Darwin
YA dystopian horror
In a world plunged into chaos by a devastating disease known as Blanchard Syndrome, the remnants of humanity are confined to a mysterious facility, where teenagers are subjected to horrific experiments under the guise of finding a cure.
Ella has already lost too much. Now trapped inside a crumbling world ruled by fear, cruelty, and impossible choices, she must fight to protect the people she cares about while uncovering the truth about the facility and the man who controls it all.
Dr. Blanchard may claim he is saving humanity, but his methods are brutal, his secrets are monstrous, and the line between science and madness grows thinner by the day. The facility, a microcosm of a crumbling society, is a battleground where morality is tested, alliances are formed, and the will to live is challenged at every turn.
As the fabric of society within the facility begins to unravel, Ella and her friends must confront the harsh realities of their existence and make life-altering decisions.
Magician – Tracy Lynne Oliver
Dark fantasy horror
First, he is a Boy, born to a Mother who cannot abide his existence. Despite her torments, the Boy finds a way to survive and create a small space for himself in the world.
The Boy endures unspeakable cruelties, saved only by a mysterious magic that intervenes in moments of need: magic he learns is his to command. When he finally escapes the Mother, a beguiling circus troupe welcomes him into their family and the Boy begins to imagine a life beyond survival, one where circus lions roar and enchanted forests spiral far into the distance.
For the first time, he discovers chosen family, community, and love. He eagerly apprentices under the circus’s conjurer, only to realize his gifts far outstrip his mentor’s. Thus the Boy becomes the Magician. But as ambition bends his power, a primal threat stalks, determined to destroy not just the Magician, but all he holds dear.
Monsters Unborn: The Lost Universal Monster Remakes – Bruce Kilkowski Jr.
Horror movie non-fiction
Step into the shadowy world behind Hollywood’s most iconic creatures.
Drawing on unproduced scripts and decades of behind-the-scenes history, uncover a treasure trove of “lost” stories from haunting gothic reimaginings to bold futuristic reinventions that never made it to the screen.
Packed with new research, this book brings to life abandoned visions of legendary monsters like the Bride of Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, revealing just how close they came to rising again.
Equal parts film history and “what might have been.”
Salomé – Leslie Baird
Gothic horror
An adrift journalist accepts an alluring stranger’s invitation to stay at her home in a small French town, only to uncover a dangerous family history that could bend the course of humanity.
Courtney notices Salomé the moment she steps onto the plane. She’s magnetic, quicksilver, and, best of all for incurable Francophile Courtney, French. So when Salomé invites Courtney to her mother’s town in northwestern France, Courtney doesn’t even have to think about it.
But things are, almost immediately, surreal. Despite feeling right at home with Salomé, Courtney is confronted by a house outfitted with cameras and the dark, watchful presence of Salomé’s mother. Courtney senses she should leave, but with Salomé she feels as if she’s rediscovered the “French Courtney,” an alternate version of herself who made a life in France.
That is, until she starts to experience paralyzing nightmares in which strange voices intone Don’t open your eyes and encounters Salomé’s charismatic stepfather, Marco, whose pyramid-scheme vitamin company offers a tempting segue into an even more insidious group obsessed with eternal life.
Or is it an actual cult? And how much does Salomé really know? As a conspiracy unfurls, Courtney is torn between her loyalty to Salomé and what might be the story of a lifetime, the kind that could make a journalist’s career, if it doesn’t kill her first.
Something on Your Mind – George Morris De’Ath
Psychological horror
A young man spirals through a surreal, fractured Los Angeles.
Theo Gray is running out of time.
Desperate for a cure to his terminal illness, Theo convinces his friends to journey with him to Los Angeles, a city as chaotic and fractured as his mind. Haunted by the voices in his head and the devil perched on his shoulder, Theo battles a growing urge to smash, bash, and crash anything blocking his path to survival.
But as reality frays and his grip on morality slips, Theo must confront the darkest corners of his psyche before everything, and everyone, falls apart.
The Temptation of Charlotte North – Camilla Bruce
Gothic horror
A rebellious young woman desperate to escape her predetermined life.
The handsome but married priest who has caught her eye.
And the resolute schoolteacher who values science above all.
In 1910, on a small, remote island that boasts more sheep than people, the fates of Charlotte North, Jasper Hill, and Ruth Russel are perched on the edge of a cliff, and a strange wind is blowing.
When an ancient tower, rumored to have once imprisoned a witch, crumbles, it releases a restless spirit that knocks inside the walls and sends household objects flying. A spirit that seems to be drawn to Charlotte, who sees in it a potential for power and change.
But first she must overcome Jasper’s piety and Ruth’s fierce determination to banish the terrifying entity. Only then will she gain the power to claim the life that she desires.
Until Death – Mary Berman
Psychological horror
A woman finally agrees to marry the man of her mother’s dreams only to discover that wedding planning will eat you alive.
If Ophelia Cohen learned one thing from her parents, it’s that getting married is a bad idea. But if she’s learning anything from her widowed mother’s dementia, it’s that dying alone is worse. So when she meets Luke, the man of her mother’s dreams, marriage suddenly doesn’t seem so crazy.
But none of Ophelia’s obsessive scrolling on wedding forums can prepare her for the nightmare of planning her own.
Why is her mother-in-law going crazy over every detail? Why is Luke’s family so eager to host the wedding in their vineyard’s ancient chapel? And what exactly will Ophelia have to sacrifice if she and her mother both hope to survive her special day?
