June’s new horror books include the saga of an emotional vampire who also happens to be an actual vampire, a horror-comedy graphic novel about the world’s worst bachelor party, dark and darker academia, the tale of a serial killer who plays a theme park princess by day, and much 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–they can all be found here. And as always, you can view the full 2023 list right here.
June 2023’s new horror books:
- All the Sinners Bleed, S.A. Cosby (Jun 6, Flatiron): New York Times bestselling and Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author S. A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed is a Southern gothic novel about the first Black sheriff in a small Southern town, and his hunt for a killer.
- Boys Weekend, Mattie Lubchansky (Jun 6, Pantheon): From the award-winning cartoonist and editor of The Nib, a hilarious trans-“final girl” horror graphic novel about a bachelor party gone very, very wrong.
- Killingly, Katharine Beutner (Jun 6, SoHo Crime): Based on the unsolved real-life disappearance of a Mount Holyoke student in 1897—a haunting novel of intrigue, longing, and terror, perfect for fans of Donna Tartt and Sarah Waters
- Maeve Fly, CJ Leede (Jun 6, Nightfire): A provocative debut that is both a blood-soaked love letter to Los Angeles and a gleeful send-up to iconic horror villains, CJ Leede’s Maeve Fly will thrill fans of Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart is a Chainsaw and Caroline Kepnes’ You series.
- The Girls in the Cabin, Caleb Stephens (Jun 8, Joffe Books): This camping trip is Chris’s last chance to keep his family together. His wife is gone and, after what he did, his daughters aren’t speaking to him. But things go wrong as soon as they get to the mountains. Kayla is still so pissed at him, and Emma runs off into the woods. By the time they find her, she’s broken her ankle and there’s a bad storm rolling in. They need shelter, fast. They think they’ve found sanctuary when they come across an old farmstead. The woman inside welcomes them in out of the howling blizzard and straps up Emma’s ankle. But the phone lines are down. The roads are blocked. And the woman in the cabin is not what she seems…
- Everything the Darkness Eats, Eric LaRocca (Jun 13, CLASH): An insidious darkness threatens to devastate a rural New England village when occult forces are conjured and when bigotry is left unrestrained. From the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author of the viral sensation, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Everything the Darkness Eats is a haunting supernatural thriller from a new and exciting voice in genre fiction.
- Maddalena and the Dark, Julia Fine (Jun 13, Flatiron): For fans of My Brilliant Friend and Mexican Gothic, a novel set in 18th-century Venice at a prestigious music school, about two girls drawn together by a dangerous wager.
- The Puzzle Master, Danielle Trussoni (Jun 13, Random House): Reality and imagination collide when an expert puzzle-maker is thrust into an ancient mystery—one with explosive consequences for the fate of humanity—in this fantastical thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Angelology.
- House of Rot, Danger Slater (Jun 14, Tenebrous Press): The pink mold growing on the walls isn’t the worst thing about Elenya and Myles’ brand new fixer upper. There’s also the inexplicable footsteps in the night; the sealed-over windows and doors; the neighbor that hears their screams but can’t be bothered to help. Soon, there’s no leaving at all. No hope of cleaning. And that encroaching mold? It’s practically become a second skin. Welcome to the House of Rot. You’re never getting out.
- The Devil’s Playground, Craig Russell (Jun 20, Knopf): A riveting 1920s Hollywood thriller about the making of the most terrifying silent film ever made, and a deadly search for the single copy rumored still to exist. This is the breakout from Craig Russell, author of The Devil Aspect.
- The Edge of Sleep, Jake Emanuel and Willie Block with Jason Gurley (Jun 20, St. Martin’s Press): What if the whole world fell asleep… and didn’t wake up again? The morning after Independence Day, Santa Mira, California, is so quiet that night watchman Dave Torres can hear the ocean from miles away. Traffic signals blink from red to green over empty intersections. Storefronts remain locked up tight. Every radio station whispers static. And all over town, there are bodies, lying right where their owners left them. Dead right where they slept. Dave—along with his ex-girlfriend, Katie, his best friend, Matteo, and Linda, a nurse he’s just met—struggle to unravel the mystery before sleep overtakes them all. Except the answer to the mystery might lie in the one place that frightens Dave most: His twisted, unnerving dreams. Now Dave and his friends must straddle the liminal boundary between life and death as they fight to save everyone they’ve ever loved—and to keep their eyes open. Because if any of them falls asleep now, it will be the last thing they ever do.
- Fresh Dirt From the Grave, Giovanna Rivero (Jun 20, Charco Press): Six tales of a dark beauty that throb with disturbing themes: the legitimacy of revenge, incest as survival, indigenous witchcraft versus Japanese wisdom, the body as a corpse we inhabit. Rivero’s stories pierce the reader like a wound, but in the end also offer possibilities of love, justice and hope. Told with a fierce and fragile lyricism that probes the abysses of the human soul, in Fresh Dirt From the Grave Giovanna Rivero reworks the boundaries of the gothic to engage with pre-Columbian ritual, folk tales, sci-fi and eroticism.
- The Inconsolables, Michael Wehunt (Jun 20, Bad Hand Books): In his first collection, Greener Pastures, Michael Wehunt introduced the world to his singular voice–a poetic, resonant force of darkness and unique terrors. He returns with The Inconsolables, a chilling selection of stories sure to brighten this star of literary horror. Inside, meet masterfully rendered characters who grapple with desires as powerful and personal as the monsters that stalk them from the edges of perception.
- Night’s Edge, Liz Kerin (Jun 20, Nightfire): Liz Kerin’s Night’s Edge is a sun-drenched novel about how monstrous we can be to the ones we love most. Having a mom like Izzy meant Mia had to grow up fast. No extracurricular activities, no inviting friends over, and definitely no dating. The most important rule: tell no one of Izzy’s hunger – the one only blood can satisfy. But Mia is tired of being her mother’s keeper. She’s in her twenties now and secretly longs for a life of her own. One where she doesn’t have to worry about anyone discovering their terrible secret, or breathing down her neck. When Mia meets rebellious musician Jade she dares to hope she’s found a way to leave her home – and her mom – behind. It just might be Mia’s only chance of getting out alive.
- Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories, Agustina Bazterrica, trans. Sarah Moses (Jun 20, Scribner): From celebrated author Agustina Bazterrica (Tender is the Flesh), this collection of nineteen brutal, darkly funny short stories takes into our deepest fears and through our most disturbing fantasies. Through stories about violence, alienation, and dystopia, Bazterrica’s vision of the human experience emerges in complex, unexpected ways—often unsettling, sometimes thrilling, and always profound. In “Roberto,” a girl claims to have a rabbit between her legs. A woman’s neighbor jumps to his death in “A Light, Swift, and Monstrous Sound,” and in “Candy Pink,” a woman fails to contend with a difficult breakup in five easy steps.
- The Only One Left, Riley Sager (Jun 20, Berkley): Bestselling author Riley Sager returns with a Gothic chiller about a young caregiver assigned to work for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre decades earlier.
- Where Echoes Die, Courtney Gould (Jun 20, Wednesday Books): Two sisters travel to an isolated Arizona town to investigate its connection to their mother’s death, but uncover more than they bargained for in this supernatural thriller from the author of The Dead and the Dark.
- The Wicked Unseen, Gigi Griffis (Jun 20, Underlined): The new girl in town is having trouble fitting into a community that believes there’s a secret Satanic cult conducting rituals in the woods. When her crush goes missing, she starts to wonder if the town’s obsession with evil isn’t covering up something far worse. Perfect for fans of Fear Street!
- You’re Not Supposed To Die Tonight, Kalynn Bayron (Jun 20, Bloomsbury YA): At Camp Mirror Lake, terror is the name of the game… but can you survive the night? This heart-pounding slasher by New York Times bestselling author Kalynn Bayron is perfect for fans of Fear Street.
- Dead Eleven, Jimmy Juliano (Jun 27, Dutton): On a creepy island where everyone has a strange obsession with the year 1994, a newcomer arrives, hoping to learn the truth about her son’s death—but finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into the bizarrely insular community and their complicated rules…
- A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories, ed. Richard Z. Santos (Jun 30, Arte Público Press): This riveting collection of horror stories—and four poems—contains a wide range of styles, themes and authors. Creepy creatures roam the pages, including La Llorona and the Chupacabras in fresh takes on Latin American lore, as well as ghosts, zombies and shadow selves. Migrants continue to pass through Rancho Altamira where Esteban’s family has lived for generations, but now there are two types: the living and the dead. A young man returns repeatedly to the scary portal down which his buddy disappeared. A woman is relieved to receive multiple calls from her cousin following Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, but she is stunned to later learn her prima died the first night of the storm! There’s plenty of blood and gore in some stories, while others are mysterious and suspenseful.
- Life Support, Elton Skelter (June, D&T Publishing): A new psychological horror novel.