All the New Horror Books Coming in January 2023

January 2023 ushers in a new year and new horror books from an array of authors both new and established. This month’s horrors include a house haunted by fascism itself, mummies, Latinx horror about undocumented workers in the hospitality industry, Italian Gothic suspense, dark fairy tales, suburban Halloween terrors, and more.

These monthly lists are derived from my annual masterlist, but I’ve gotten a good amount of feedback saying the smaller lists are helpful reminders and easier to digest. As always, you can view the full 2023 list right here.

January 2023’s new horror books:

• Abandon, Blake Crouch (Jan 3, Ballantine): A century-old mystery—and a desperate battle to survive—unfold in this newly reissued standalone thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter and Recursion.
• The Devil’s in the Flaws: And Other Dark Truths, David Niall Wilson (Jan 3, Crossroad Press): This new collection of stories from USA Today bestselling, multiple Bram Stoker winning author David Niall Wilson presents twenty-stories and a brand new, unpublished novella. This is the first major collection released since his award-nominated Defining Moments, and the subsequent collection Ennui & Other States of Madness.
• Ghost 19, Simone St. James (Jan 3, Berkley): A woman moves to a town where she becomes obsessed with watching the lives of her neighbors while stuck in a house that refuses to let her leave in this first ever short story from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Cold Cases.
• The Villa, Rachel Hawkins (Jan 3, St. Martin’s Press): From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set at an Italian villa with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.
• Bad Cree, Jessica Johns (Jan 10, Doubleday): In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman’s dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.
• Devil’s Creek, Todd Kiesling (Jan 10, Cemetery Dance): About fifteen miles west of Stauford, Kentucky lies Devil’s Creek. According to local legend, there used to be a church out there, home to the Lord’s Church of Holy Voices—a death cult where Jacob Masters preached the gospel of a nameless god. And like most legends, there’s truth buried among the roots and bones.
• Hell Bent, Leigh Bardugo (Jan 10, Flatiron Books): Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell in #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo’s Hell Bent.
• The Nightmare Man, J.H. Markert (Jan 10, Crooked Lane Books): T. Kingfisher meets Cassandra Khaw in a chilling horror novel that illustrates the fine line between humanity and monstrosity.
• Ragman, JG Faherty (Jan 10, Flame Tree Press): If you love a great horror tale with ancient mummies, a deluded priest and two oddball cops, then you’re in for a treat…
• The Things We Do to Our Friends, Heather Darwent (Jan 10, Bantam): She’s an outsider desperate to belong, but the cost of entry might be her darkest secret in this intoxicating debut of literary suspense following a clique of dangerously ambitious students at the University of Edinburgh.
• Now She is Witch, Kirsty Logan (Jan 12, Harvill Secker): From the snowy winter woods to the bright midnight sun; from lost and powerless to finding your path, Now She is Witch conjures a world of violence and beauty – a world where women grasp at power through witchcraft, sexuality and performance, and most of all through throwing each other to the wolves.
• Extended Stay, Juan Martinez (Jan 17, University of Arizona Press): Haunting and visceral, Extended Stay uses the language of body horror and the gothic to comment on the complicated relationship between the Latinx undocumented experience and capitalism, the erasure of those living and working on the margins, the heavy toll exacted by memory, and the queasy permeability of boundaries that separate the waking world from the world of dreams.
• How to Sell a Haunted House, Grady Hendrix (Jan 17, Berkley): New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.
• In a Lonely Place, Karl Edward Wagner (Jan 17, Valancourt Books): Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) has earned a reputation as one of the finest horror writers of the modern era, but his work has been out of print and nearly unobtainable for many years. His seminal volume In a Lonely Place collects eight of his best tales, including “In the Pines,” a classic ghost story evocatively set in the Tennessee woods, “Beyond Any Measure,” an original take on the vampire story, “River of Night’s Dreaming,” a surreal and nightmarish masterpiece inspired by The King in Yellow, and the author’s most famous tale, “Sticks,” a disturbing story thought by many to have been the basis for The Blair Witch Project. This new edition includes all the stories from the original 1983 edition, plus an additional rare tale and the author’s afterword from the Scream/Press limited edition, and features a new introduction by Ramsey Campbell.
• Tell Me I’m Worthless, Alison Rumfitt (Jan 17, Nightfire): Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless is a dark, unflinching haunted house story that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors through the lens of the modern-day trans experience.
• What Lies in the Woods, Kate Alice Marshall (Jan 17, Flatiron Books): They were eleven when they sent a killer to prison. They were heroes… but they were liars. For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods—no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be. A thrilling novel about friendship, secrets, betrayal, and lies – and having the courage to face the past.
• Nightwood, Elana Gomel (Jan 18, Crystal Lake Pub): Ally is a Ukrainian bride who married a wealthy Californian, Carl Morris. Everything is strange in her new home: the shadowy redwoods, the peculiar neighbors, and the mystery surrounding the death of Carl’s first wife. But Ally is determined to leave her own tragic past behind and to be a good wife and a good American. Escaping darkness is not so easy, however. Ally discovers that her house is situated on the borders of Nightwood, where fairy tales become nightmares and nightmares become reality. And the ruler of Nightwood has plans of his own.
• All Hallows, Christopher Golden (Jan 24, St. Martin’s Press): New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Christopher Golden is best known for his supernatural thrillers set in deadly, distant locales… but in this suburban Halloween drama, Golden brings the horror home.
• Episode Thirteen, Craig DiLouie (Jan 24, Red Hook): From the macabre mind of a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, this heart-pounding novel of horror and psychological suspense takes a ghost hunting reality TV crew into a world they could never have imagined. 
• HorrorScope: A Zodiac Anthology, ed. H. Everend (Jan 24): It is said that destiny is determined by the stars. The signs of the Zodiac can predict who you’ll love, who you’ll hate, and who you’ll become. But the fates written in the stars are not always kind. Sometimes, they’re terrifying. In Horrorscope, you will find 36 dark fantasy poems and short stories all inspired by the Zodiac Signs. Within these pages, you’ll face killer goats, twisted twins and deadly fishies. Open this book, if you dare, and pray that you weren’t born under a bad sign.
• AHH! That’s What I Call Horror: An Anthology of ‘90s Horror, ed. Chelsea Pumpkins (Jan 25): Set during the decade of flannel shirts and neon dolphin Trapper Keepers, Ahh! That’s What I Call Horror is guaranteed to be all that and a bag of haunted chips. You won’t need a dial-up connection to reach the beyond in this time-warp to the ‘90s. With undead grunge rock icons, menacing action figures, family sitcoms gone very wrong, and more: these terror tales will return you to the end of the old millennium.
• Dark Matter Presents: Zero Dark Thirty, ed. Rob Carroll (Jan 31, Dark Matter): Every story published in Dark Matter Magazine is a best-of story to us, and that’s why we had to do something different when choosing stories for the magazine’s first ever trade paperback anthology. Enter Zero Dark Thirty, a curated collection of the 30 DARKEST stories to grace our magazine’s pages during the first two years of publication (2021-2022). These are the most bleak, chilling, downtrodden, upsetting, and straight-up deranged tales the magazine has to offer.
• The Drift, CJ Tudor (Jan 31, Ballantine): Three ordinary people risk everything for a chance at redemption in this audacious, utterly gripping novel of catastrophe and survival at the end of the world, from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man.
• Vampire Weekend, Mike Chen (Jan 31, Mira): Everything you’ve heard about vampires is a lie. They can’t fly. No murders allowed (the community hates that). And turning into a bat? Completely ridiculous. In fact, vampire life is really just a lot of blood bags and night jobs. For Louise Chao, it’s also lonely, since she swore off family ages ago. But when a long-lost relative uncovers Louise’s true identity, things get dangerous—especially when he asks her for the ultimate favor. One that goes beyond just family… one that might just change everything vampires know about life and death forever.
• Mooncalves, ed. John WM Thompson (Jan, NO Press): An anthology of weird fiction and stories from the borderlands of horror; a loose theme of unseen influence pervades through the 23 tales. Features original work from Brian Evenson, Lisa Tuttle, Steve Rasnic Tem, Sofia Samatar, and more. (Hardcover only; ebook will release in March)

Author: Emily Hughes

Emily Hughes wants to talk to you about scary books. Formerly the editor of Unbound Worlds and TorNightfire.com, she writes a newsletter about horror literature and tweets bad puns @emilyhughes. You can find her writing elsewhere on Vulture, Tor.com, Electric Literature, Thrillist, and more. View all posts by Emily Hughes