A Selection of Horror Books Released, 9 to 15 Feb 2025

14 horror books this week

Themes: Supernatural, psychological, dark fantasy, dystopian, small town, vampire, sci-fi, monster, and medical horror

Beta Vulgaris – Margie Sarsfield

Small town horror

A young woman’s seasonal job working a sugar beet harvest takes a surreal turn.

Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, hoping the paycheck from the sugar beet harvest will cover the rent on their Brooklyn apartment. Amidst the grueling work and familiar anxieties about her finances, Elise starts noticing strange things: threatening phone calls, a mysterious rash, and snatches of an ominous voice coming from the beet pile.

When Tom and other coworkers begin to vanish, Elise is left alone to confront the weight of her past, the horrors of her uncertain future, and the menacing but enticing siren song of the beets.

But Not Too Bold – Hache Pueyo

Monster horror

The old keeper of the keys is dead, and the creature who ate her is the volatile Lady of the Capricious House⁠: Anatema, an enormous humanoid spider with a taste for laudanum and human brides.

Dália, the old keeper’s protégée, takes up her duties, locking and unlocking the little drawers in which Anatema keeps her memories. If she can unravel the crime that led to her predecessor’s execution, Dália might just be able to survive long enough to grow into her new role.

But there’s a gaping hole in Dália’s plan that she refuses to see: Anatema cannot resist a beautiful woman, and she eventually devours every single bride that crosses her path.

Casual – Koji A. Dae

Dystopian horror

Valya’s neural implant is amazing.

Its game-like app, CASUAL, has managed her depression and anxiety, stabilized her mood, and helped the infertile Valya get pregnant. But new laws forbid her from using the device when she’s sole caregiver for her infant. Her gaslighting ex won’t help her, and she can’t afford a nanny, so her obstetrician insists that Valya wean off CASUAL before giving birth.

Despite a will to quit and a supportive new love interest in her birthing class, disabling CASUAL turns Valya’s anxiety into full-blown panic attacks. Her psychiatrist offers to enrol her in a controversial clinical trial that would place a tandem implant in the baby and allow Valya to keep hers active.

Valya must decide whether she should attempt parenting without CASUAL or install a minimally tested device in her vulnerable child.

The Clubhouse – James G. Carlson (editor)

Horror anthology

New short stories from twelve of the hottest horror authors out there. This anthology is a grab bag of tasty treats, has a little bit of everything that the genre has to offer.

Contributing authors: Brian Asman, Thomas R. Clark, Ashley Lister, James G. Carlson, Merrill David, David Irons, Ash Ericmore, Dani Brown, Chase Will, A.J. Spencer, Aaron Lebold, Ryan C. Thomas.

The Crimson Road – A.G. Slatter

Dark fantasy horror

A tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises.

Violet Zennor has had a peculiar upbringing. Training as a fighter in underground arenas, honing her skills against the worst scum, murderers and thieves her father could pit her against, she has learned to be ruthless. To kill.

Until the day Hedrek Zennor dies. Violet thinks she’s free, then she learns that her father planned to send her into the Darklands, where the Leech Lords reign. Where Violet’s still-born brother was taken years ago.

Violet steadfastly refuses. Until one night two assassins attempt to kill her and it becomes clear that she’s going to have to clean up the mess her father made.

Fear of the Deep – Julie Hiner

Monster horror

Bailey, a lifeguard with a heavy metal heart and a Jack Daniel’s addiction, has long avoided the deep sea since a haunting accident. San Diego’s sunny shores provide a façade of normalcy, where her nights are drowned in music and whiskey, and her days are spent keeping a safe distance from the ocean’s grasp.

But the sea has a way of claiming what it wants. The discovery of a woman’s body, marked by peculiar and familiar bite marks, washes up on her beach, forcing Bailey to confront the fears she’s been running from. Deep beneath the waves, something sinister lurks, a nightmare born from genetic engineering gone awry. As Bailey delves deeper into the mystery, she finds herself entangled in a web of horror and science fiction, where sea creatures of the darkest depths become terrifyingly real.

With each tide, the line between reality and nightmare blurs, pulling Bailey into a psychological maelstrom. Her journey is not just a battle against the horrors emerging from the deep but a fight to overcome the demons within herself.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker – Jeff Rice

Vampire horror

In 1972, The Night Stalker took America by storm, becoming the highest-rated TV movie at the time and spawning a second movie and a cult series, all starring Darren McGavin. The story of a blood-sucking psycho on the loose in Sin City started with a then-unpublished novel by Las Vegas reporter Jeff Rice.

Now, after years of being out of print, Monstrous Books presents this restored and corrected version of the book that launched one of the beloved and influential characters in TV history.

The book also features a foreword by David Dastmalchian (Late Night With the Devil, Count Crowley), an afterword by Rodney Barnes (Killadelphia), and a profile on Jeff Rice by Mark Dawidziak (The Kolchak Companion).

Print edition has illustrations by Russ Braun (The Boys).

No Mercy – Sean Walusko

Medical horror

It takes less than a second for your entire life to change. One mistake, one wrong move and everything can come undone. Within the walls of Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center lies secrets hidden in plain sight. It is a place where night rules eternal, and personal demons roam free. Where language is pain and madness is release.

For Sam, this one night will last a lifetime.

When a patient comes in nearly dead from a fatal collision, Sam starts to have grotesque visions of the damned and the cursed.

Their suffering cries and cascading ailments close in to haunt his every waking moment while creatures driven by grief crawl across the shadows.

But are they just figments of his imagination or something more?

The Pink Agave Motel & Other Stories – V. Castro

Horror collection

Readers are invited to The Pink Agave Motel, where brutality and intimacy ooze across the pages, exploring the depths of the unhinged imagination and how human desire unlocks the impulse to bite. Influenced by Mexican folklore and a feminist perspective, the stories illuminate a deeper view of how unrequited love affects every type of being alike.

The titular story focuses on Valentina, the proclaimed leader of a creature cohort, who manages hotel guests, until she is enlightened to a carnivorous death on the property. To avoid exposure that threatens her existence, she partners with (the hauntingly handsome) grieving friend of the dearly departed to solve the murder.

Further within these tales, discover a woman who is a fish out of water drinking at a seaside honky tonk, the trapped guests who undergo sexual liberation, and aliens who find the sexiest of disguises.

The Poorly Made and Other Things – Sam Rebelein

Horror collection

There’s something wrong in Renfield County.

It’s in the water, the soil, the wood. But worst of all, it’s in the minds of the residents, slowly driving them mad.

When Lawrence Renfield massacred his family and drew The Giant in his farmhouse with their blood, no one imagined the repercussions. At the very least, the bloodstained wood should have been set aflame, not chopped down and repurposed as furniture, décor, and heirlooms across the county. But that’s exactly what happened.

Now regular people, like you and me, are sitting on, eating with, admiring the cursed wood and reaping the consequences.

These are their stories.

Residue: Paramentals Rising – John Harrison

Sci-fi horror

In the aftermath of a catastrophic New Year’s Eve explosion in the heart of the city, Miki Preston embarks upon a treacherous odyssey into the devastated area known as the Quarantine Zone in search of her famous photojournalist sister, Jennifer, who has disappeared.

With only the help of a disgraced former homicide detective, a cagey teenage street dodger, and a set of provocative photographs her sister left behind, Miki will come face to face with the manifestations of malevolent psychic energy called Paramentals, and the sinister conspiracy that created them.

Scuttler’s Cove – David Barnett

Folk horror

The sea never forgets. The sea never forgives.

Scuttler’s Cove is a working village, nestling in dramatic coastal scenery in Cornwall, where life has gone on uninterrupted for centuries, until this seaside idyll was discovered by the rich.

Now the quaint harbour-front cottages have been snapped up by second-homers and rental companies, and the locals can barely afford to live in their own town.

It is a very different place for Merrin Moon, who left for university at the age of eighteen and never looked back. Now in her thirties, she returns to the Cove for the first time since, after the death of her mother.

She soon discovers that there are forces at play in the village that she could never have imagined. Is someone trying to drive out the second homers? And has their arrival started a chain of events none of them will be able to stop?

For something old and terrible is awakening beneath the town’s hallowed ground. And with it comes a horror that the residents have fought for generations to keep a secret.

Silver Blood – T.L. Morgan

Vampire gothic horror

Cyrus Beldon was born to kill vampires. Or so says his indomitable family legacy.

For generations, the Beldon hunters have kept the peace between humans and vampires, navigating tense diplomacy with the elite Honorable Families and eliminating threats when needed. Cyrus is content to leave the hunting and slaying to his capable older siblings, but when his oldest brother is murdered by Honorable vampires in a shocking break of the truce, Cyrus becomes determined to find out why his brother was not merely killed, but turned into a bloodthirsty creature known as a Wild vampire.

Cyrus’s hunt for information on the monster that became of his brother leads him to discover an experiment suggesting that recently-turned vampires can have their humanity restored, and with this revolutionary possibility within his reach, Cyrus dares to hope for a future in which he can save vampires instead of killing them. He traces the studies back to one of the five Honorable Families, and with the help of studious and infuriatingly proud Lucien Vista, Cyrus delves into vampire biology to seek the core cause of Wild turns—and a cure for them.

Amid multiple high-profile murders, rising tension between the Beldons and the Honorable Families, and dangerous sparks between Cyrus and Lucien, the truce is at a tipping point, and Cyrus and Lucien must decide how far they are willing to go to keep the peace between their families, or if it’s already too late.

You’re Not Supposed to Be Here – Mike Salt

Psychological horror

Gabe has reached the breaking point-feeling like he’s run out of options, he’s determined to end it all.

But when he awakens in a world that mirrors his deepest desires, everything changes.

Now, faced with the life he’s always yearned for, Gabe will do anything to ensure it stays that way.

But lurking in the shadows is a malevolent force bent on tearing it all apart.

Published: 15 February 2025