Brokeula – Michael J. Seidlinger
Vampire horror
A broke vampire’s last ditch effort to escape the blood sucking monster of capitalism through an ill-conceived multi-level marketing scheme.
James Sugre has never been this broke before in his centuries of living. Down and out, he’s had a terrible string of luck investing in companies crippled by fraud and always late to the next crypto-fad. He spends most of his time in his coffin, too broke to go out in public.
As the video game industry reaches record-breaking heights, Sugre tries his luck one more time with his own game studio. When he encounters a game developer and self-professed fan of vampire lore named Lauren, Sugre becomes hopeful that his luck might finally be on the up-and-up.
But the market is rocky, and nothing is as stable as “un-death.” Sugre learns the hard way that a dollar is worth more than a drop of blood. Trading immortality for cash, Sugre and Lauren create a, not entirely legal, business of turning humans into vampires for a fee. The business expands, but Vampire Nation has to protect their own investments, and Sugre learns the hard truth of the system he can’t escape.
The Burn Line – Jonathan Sims
Psychological horror
There’s something lurking in the stifling darkness and labyrinthine tunnels that run below London… something old, something vicious, and something very, very hungry.
It’s the hottest summer on record and London is dying. Prices are high, pay is low, and stressed commuters are packed onto London Underground trains again like the pandemic never happened. To add to the misery, the temperatures underground just keep climbing and climbing, the heat trapped in the clay with nowhere to go.
Then one fateful morning five travellers on an unlucky tube carriage find themselves bound together as witnesses to a single horrific event, an event they can’t quite seem to remember.
They make an unlikely team – a weary tube driver, a disillusioned civil servant, an ambitious city trader, an overwhelmed hotel worker, and an unhoused young man just trying to get by – but now they must come together to confront what they have seen and stop it in its tracks before it kills them all.
Fabulous Bodies – Chuck Tingle
Supernatural horror
Poppy Stringer was born to be a star.
An aspiring fashion influencer by day, Poppy moonlights as a grave robber to make ends meet, wheeling and dealing dead bodies across Palm Springs.
When her hero, the flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar Eddie Michaels, unexpectedly dies, Poppy gets a call to retrieve his body from the medical examiner’s office for a lucrative sum. It could be the last job she’ll ever need, if everything goes to plan. But the night’s delivery quickly veers off course when Eddie wakes up.
Now Poppy must fight for her life if she hopes to survive this blood-soaked joyride of carnage and extravagant entertainment.
Fun Times at the Bloodbath – Jeff Strand
Video game horror
When Margot finds her younger brother dead in his apartment, the investigation shows no medical issues. He simply played a video game until he died of thirst, despite a refrigerator full of bottled water in the very next room.
Only a lucky few get to playtest Fun Times at the Bloodbath, one of the most insanely violent video games ever made. It’s so addictive, they can’t stop playing, literally. Not to go to work. Not to sleep. Not to eat or drink. Not even to take a bathroom break. If somebody tries to make them stop, they get murderously violent.
And this is just the testing phase. Very soon, the game will be available nationwide.
The Red Sacrament – Sara Hinkley
Vampire horror
A savage, hypnotic dive into the lives and deaths of a coven of vampires living in 19th Century Paris on the cusp of revolt and revolution.
Paris, 1869. The Théâtre Saint-Siméon is the place to be, if you can get in. The black slips of paper that guarantee entry are rare and highly desired, and given only to certain persons. The actors on stage are magnetic and ageless, performing only at midnight and never seen during the day.
Arnault and his clan of vampires have survived for as long as they have by observing a rigid set of rules. At night, they perform on stage at the Théâtre Saint-Siméon, picking off just enough people in the audience to survive. But they understand the city, and how to live in it without being noticed.
Their peace is shattered first with a visit from Béatrice, a witch who forms a strange connection to Arnault; then with the arrival of Victor de Rouvray and his sister Françoise, vampires from a very different world. And, as Arnault grows closer and closer to the beautiful, enigmatic Victor, he risks becoming distracted from the constant bickering of his immortal friends, from the daily running of the theatre, and worse, from the premonitions of blood, death and starvation that he receives at night.
For a terrible change is on the horizon, revolt and revolution are brewing in the streets and soon, the city, and Arnault will never be the same again.
Witch’s Lust – Jim Ody
Witch horror – Book 1 of The Witch
It all started with a woman.
In her cottage at the edge of the woods, Lottie Wollowes practiced her sexual healing with the women of the village. Until one night, her cottage is burned to the ground with accusations of witchcraft. But Lottie’s death is only the beginning. And the foundations of the house remember.
As a new house replaces the cottage and time passes, those who enter the house are haunted by feelings of desire, and a distrust of their only neighbour, the local church. But will they survive the house, and the battle of wills with the church?
Some houses are built on blood and with blood they remain.
Now it falls to William, a local priest, and his lover Raven, a pagan witch, to face the ghosts of the house and unlock the secret of the Witch’s lust.
