A Selection of Horror Books Released, 17 to 23 Mar 2024
Themes: Supernatural, psychological, Frankenstein, revenge, curse, and wilderness horror
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Table of Contents
Adirondack Campfire Stories – James Appleton
Wilderness horror collection
Adapted from Appleton’s popular podcast, Adirondack Campfire Stories features spooky stories, both fiction and non-fiction, that take place in the mountains, on the trails, and at the lakes of real places here in the Park.
Tapping into the folklore of this majestic region, Adirondack Campfire Stories will give readers haunting experiences under the stars for years to come.
A Botanical Daughter – Noah Medlock
Frankenstein horror
Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. In their glass sanctuary, hidden away from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference. For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement workshop, working his taxidermical art. Gregor’s business is exotic plants, lucrative, but harmless enough. Until his latest acquisition, a strange fungus which shows signs of intellect beyond any plant he’s seen, inspires him to attempt a masterwork: true intelligent life from plant matter.
Driven by the glory he’ll earn from the Royal Horticultural Society, Gregor ignores the flaws in his plan: that intelligence cannot be controlled; that plants cannot be reasoned with; and that the only way his plant-beast will flourish is if he uses a recently deceased corpse for the substrate.
The experiment, or Chloe, as she is named, outstrips even Gregor’s expectations, entangling their strange household. But as Gregor’s experiment flourishes, he wilts under the cost of keeping it hidden from jealous eyes.
Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror – Ghoulish Books
LGBTQIA+ horror anthology
A manifestation of ecstasy, heartache, horror and suffering rendered in feverish lyrical prose in sixteen new stories by some of the genre’s most visionary queer writers.
Young lovers find themselves deliriously lost in an expanding garden labyrinth.
The porter of a sentient hotel is haunted within a liminal time loop.
A soldier and his abusive commanding officer escape a war in the trenches but discover themselves in an even greater nightmare.
Parasites chase each other across time-space in hungry desperation to never be apart.
A graduate student with violent tendencies falls into step with a seemingly walking corpse.
Featuring stories from Cassandra Khaw, Joe Koch, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Robbie Banfitch, August Clarke, Son M., Jonathan Louis Duckworth, M.V. Pine, Ed Kurtz, LC Von Hessen, Matteo L. Cerilli, November Rush, Meredith Rose, Charlene Adhiambo, Violet, and Thomas Kearnes.
Forgotten Sisters – Cynthia Pelayo
Psychological horror
Sisters Anna and Jennie live in a historic bungalow on the Chicago River. They’re tethered to a disquieting past, and with nowhere else to go, nothing can part them from their family home. Not the maddening creaks and disembodied voices that rattle the old walls. Not the inexplicable drownings in the area, nor the increasing number of bodies that float by Anna’s window.
To stave off loneliness, Anna has a podcast, spinning ghostly tales of Chicago’s tragic history. But when she captures the attention of an ardent male listener, she awakens to the possibilities of a world outside.
As their relationship grows, so do Jennie’s fears. More and more people are going missing in the river. And then two detectives come calling.
They’re looking for a link between the mysteries of the river and what’s housed on the bank. Even Anna and Jennie don’t understand how dreadful it is, and still can be, when the truth about their unsettled lives begins to surface.
Marmalade – Roland Blackburn
Supernatural horror (re-release)
The lone witness to her father’s grisly murder, recently orphaned Prose Harden finds herself locked away at Everbrook, a group home for emotionally disturbed teenagers, until the police can find enough evidence to charge her. But she knows who killed her father.
They always thought he was imaginary, even when the bodies piled up. But whenever the Marmalade Man arrives, blood follows. As Prose struggles to escape, she discovers that something hungry lurks behind the institution’s walls, she knows her old friend is drawing ever closer.
With nothing left to lose, Prose strikes a bargain with the county psychiatrist: an early release if she explains the death of her mother, the disappearance of her stepmother, and what actually happened in that deserted cabin one week ago.
All she has to do is say his name.
Mesonoxian – Roland Blackburn
Carnival psychological horror (re-release)
Six years have gone by since Elm woke in the ashes of a burnt-out carnival in Tennessee, his wife Doro missing and his leg mangled.
When he finds an impossible flyer for the extinct Mesonoxian Brothers carnival halfway across the country, Elm embarks on a journey to find those responsible for her disappearance, and in doing so find her.
But when people start dying and the otherworldly secrets of the carnival begin to surface, Elm is pitched into an occult nightmare that threatens to tear his mind apart.
Oracle – Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Supernatural horror
On a foggy winter morning, two children discover the impossible: the wreck of an eighteenth-century ship stranded in a field.
One enters the hatch on the deck and is never seen again. And she isn’t the last to disappear.
Soon a government agency begins to investigate, determined to uncover the ship’s secrets before a media storm erupts. They enlist Robert Grim, a retired specialist of the occult, to unravel the mystery, who soon realises the ship could be a harbinger of an ancient doom awakened under the sea.
In a maelstrom of international intrigue and pure terror, Grim must race against time as he comes face to face with an open doorway to the apocalypse.
Shadow of the Hidden – Kev Harrison
Curse horror
It’s Seb’s last day working in Turkey, but his friend Oz has been cursed.
Superstition turns to terror as the effects of the ancient malediction spill over and the lives of Oz and his family hang in the balance.
The Woods All Black – Lee Mandelo
Historical revenge horror
In 1920s Appalachia, Leslie Bruin is assigned to the backwoods township of Spar Creek by the Frontier Nursing Service, under its usual mandate: vaccinate the flock, birth babies, and weather the judgements of churchy locals who look at him and see a failed woman. Forged in the fires of the Western Front and reborn in the cafes of Paris, Leslie believes he can handle whatever is thrown at him, but Spar Creek holds a darkness beyond his nightmares.
Something ugly festers within the local congregation, and its malice has focused on a young person they insist is an unruly tomboy who must be brought to heel. Violence is bubbling when Leslie arrives, ready to spill over, and he’ll have to act fast if he intends to be of use. But the hills enfolding Spar Creek have a mind of their own, and the woods are haunted in ways Leslie does not understand.
Published: 23 March 2024
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