Tag: lists

All the New Horror Books Coming in March 2023

March 2023’s new horror books, featuring titles from Eric LaRocca, Victor LaValle, Cynthia Pelayo, T. Kingfisher, and more!

This month’s new horror books include a Black frontierswoman with a deadly secret, a dystopian bureaucracy, mermaid horror, all manner of haunted houses, a smorgasbord of short story collections, 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.

March 2023’s new horror books:

  • The Eater of Gods, Dan Franklin (Mar 1, Cemetery Dance): Dan Franklin’s debut supernatural thriller is a tale of grief, of loneliness, and of an ageless, hungry fury that waits with ready tooth and claw beneath the sand.
  • Hospital, Han Song (Mar 1, Amazon Crossing): A twisted, wildly imaginative tale of one man’s mysterious illness and his journey through a dystopian hospital system.
  • Mothered, Zoje Stage (Mar 1, Thomas & Mercer): From the USA Today bestselling author of the international sensation Baby Teeth comes a claustrophobic psychological thriller about one woman’s nightmarish spiral while quarantined with her mother.
  • Every Woman Knows This, Laurel Hightower (Mar 3, Death Knell Press): Dive in for Hightower’s most beloved short stories, all brought together in one collection which includes five brand new tales. Navigate the stormy waters of womanhood with caution as you are about to experience the horrors that every woman knows.
  • The Shadow Galaxy, J. Dianne Dotson (Mar 3, Trepidatio): Among these pages, Dotson captures the longing, regrets, and dreams of those living by the sea, such as in “One Evening in Fogvale.” In “RODER,” a young woman risks her life to help find a robot who captured her heart. “Topaz Sundered” explores an exoplanet mining expedition gone horribly wrong. In “The Queen and the Mountain Laurel,” a young Appalachian girl teaches her father an important lesson with the help of mountain spirits. The poem “Obsidian” eviscerates with raw pain from betrayal. Dotson weaves these and many other tales and poems of mysticism, exploration, horror, pain, nostalgia, and wonder, for no shadow can exist without light.
  • The God of Endings, Jacqueline Holland (Mar 7, Flatiron): By turns suspenseful and enchanting, this breathtaking first novel weaves a story of love, family, history, and myth as seen through the eyes of one immortal woman.
  • A Man Among Ghosts, Steven Hopstaken (Mar 7, Flame Tree Press): After a near-death experience, David finds himself haunted by ghosts in the old Victorian house he is renovating. These tortured souls beg for his help and offer him protection from a demonic presence that wants David dead for a crime he doesn’t remember committing. Even more surprising, he soon learns these are spirits of people who are not yet dead. Is this real, is he hallucinating, or is someone trying to drive him insane? As his paranoia ramps up, he discovers the truth is even more bizarre. The haunting won’t stop until he kills a man named “Fitz.”
  • Monstrilio, Gerardo Sámano Córdova (Mar 7, Zando): Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago’s lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family’s decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses—though curbed by his biological and chosen family’s communal care—threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.
  • My Dear Henry: A Jekyll & Hyde Remix, Kalynn Bayron (Mar 7, Feiwel & Friends): In this gothic YA remix of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, a teen boy tries to discover the reason behind his best friend’s disappearance—and the arrival of a mysterious and magnetic stranger—in misty Victorian London.
  • The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories, Eric LaRocca (Mar 7, Titan): A beautifully crafted, devastating short fiction collection from the Bram Stoker finalist and author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes. Includes an introduction from acclaimed bestselling author Chuck Wendig.
  • XCRMNTMNTN, Andrew Hilbert (Mar 7, Ghoulish Books): THIS IS NOT A PORNOGRAPHY. When a pile of shit from space lands near a renowned filmmaker’s set, inspiration strikes. Take a journey up a cosmic mountain of excrement with the director and his film crew as they ascend into madness led only by their own vanity and obsession. This is a nightmare about creation. This is a dream about poop. This is a call to arms against vowels. This is XCRMNTMNTN.
  • Feed Them Silence, Lee Mandelo (Mar 14, Tordotcom): Lee Mandelo dives into the minds of wolves in Feed Them Silence, a novella of the near future.
  • A Manual for How to Love Us, Erin Slaughter (Mar 14, Harper Perennial): A debut, interlinked collection of stories exploring the primal nature of women’s grief—offering insight into the profound experience of loss and the absurd ways in which we seek control in an unruly world.
  • The Memory Eater, Rebecca Mahoney (Mar 14, Razorbill): A teenage girl must save her town from a memory-devouring monster in this piercing exploration of grief, trauma, and memory, from the author of The Valley and the Flood.
  • Piñata, Leopoldo Gout (Mar 14, Nightfire): A Head Full of Ghosts meets Mexican Gothic in Piñata, a terrifying possession tale by Leopoldo Gout.
  • Suburban Monsters, Christopher Hawkins (Mar 15, Coronis): The house at the end of the block with the overgrown lawn. The darkened store window in a forgotten corner of the shopping mall. The colorful characters of a children’s TV show. What dark secrets do they hide? From award-winning author Christopher Hawkins come thirteen tales of the horrors lurking right next door.
  • Beasts of 42nd Street, Preston Fassel (Mar 17, Cemetery Dance): From the award-winning author of Our Lady of the Inferno comes another tale of New York in the Bad Old Days: a saga of murder, bloodshed, and betrayal set against the backdrop of Times Square at the height of its decadence and depravity.
  • Imago and Other Transformations, Erica Ruppert (Mar 17, Trepidatio Publishing): In the twenty-one stories in Imago and Other Transformations there is faith, found and lost again. There are eldritch horrors and profane rituals. And there are characters caught in circumstances they thought they could control. A woman discovers the cost of the magic to resurrect her lost child. A husband struggles against hungry, old gods to win back his missing wife. A child wields a dangerous power his mother had long hoped to harness for her own. Plagues spread. Cities crumble. And the world that ends for some still goes on…
  • Sleep Alone, J.A.W. McCarthy (Mar 18, Off Limits Press): For the past six years, Ronnie has worked selling merch for a perpetually touring band. Late nights, sweaty clubs, dingy motel rooms, endless roads—as rough as it’s been, there is no other way of life for this band of hungry succubi leaving bodies in their wake. Until she meets the enigmatic Helene. Helene is just as restless, just as lonely, and just as full of secrets. With Helene in tow, Ronnie and the band make their way across the Pacific Northwest, trying to outrun not only their mistakes, but the mysterious disease stalking the band, a disease that devours succubi from the inside out. The hunger is as endless as the road, but maybe Ronnie doesn’t always want to sleep alone
  • A Dark Corner, Celia Dale (Mar 21, Valancourt Books): First published in 1971, Celia Dale’s A Dark Corner is a chilling work of domestic horror that shows how true evil often lurks closer than we think, perhaps even just behind our neighbor’s lace curtains…
  • A Helping Hand, Celia Dale (Mar 21, Valancourt Books): First published in 1966, Celia Dale’s A Helping Hand is a chilling work of psychological terror that explores the true evil that often lurks just behind a respectable façade.
  • Lone Women, Victor LaValle (Mar 21, One World): Blue skies, empty land—and enough room to hide away a horrifying secret. Or is there? Discover a haunting new vision of the American West from the award-winning author of The Changeling. Told in Victor LaValle’s signature style, blending historical fiction, shimmering prose, and inventive horror, Lone Women is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—and a portrait of early twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen.
  • Muckross Abbey and Other Stories, Sabina Murray (Mar 21, Black Cat): From a twisted recasting of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, to an actor who dies for his art only to haunt his mother’s house, to the titular “Muckross Abbey,” an Irish chieftain burial site cursed by the specter of a flesh-eating groom—in this collection Murray gives us painters, writers, historians, and nuns all confronting the otherworldly in fantastically creepy ways. With notes of Wharton and James, Stoker and Shelley, now drawn into the present, these macabre stories are sure to captivate and chill.
  • The Shoemaker’s Magician, Cynthia Pelayo (Mar 21, Agora Books): A fabled lost movie. An increasing body count. How much do you risk for art? The second book in Pelayo’s Chicago Saga, following Children of Chicago.
  • The Strange, Nathan Ballingrud (Mar 21, Gallery/Saga Press): 1931, New Galveston, Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt’s gang who have stolen her mother’s voice, destroyed her father, and left her solely with a need for vengeance. At once evoking the dreams of an America explored in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and the harder realities of frontier life in Charles Portis True Grit, Ballingrud’s first novel is haunting in its evocation of Anabelle’s quest for revenge amidst a spent and angry world accompanied by a domestic Engine, a drunken space pilot, and the toughest woman on Mars.
  • Soft Targets, Carson Winter (Mar 22, Tenebrous Press): Two tragedy-obsessed office workers discover that reality itself is fluid and choose to test its boundaries with increasing violence.
  • Abnormal Statistics, Max Booth III (Mar 23, Apocalypse Party): Suburban decay, familial horror, bleak lullabies. Abnormal Statistics is the debut story collection from Max Booth III. Bad times are waiting for you. Featuring 10 reprints and 3 stories original to this collection (including a brand-new novella called “Indiana Death Song”).
  • The Seething, Ben Monroe (Mar 23, Brigids Gate Press): A family’s relocation looked like a chance to relax and regroup—but as they settle into their new home, teenage Kimmie Barnes’ special senses make her the target of something primordial, evil, and utterly malign.
  • Chlorine, Jade Song (Mar 28, William Morrow): In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies… a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming.
  • Greymist Fair, Francesca Zappia (Mar 28, Greenwillow Books): The villagers of Greymist Fair know that the woods are a dangerous and magical place, and that they should never set foot off the road. But when a young tailor discovers a body, her search for the culprit reveals even more strange and dark happenings around her town. From acclaimed author Francesca Zappia, Greymist Fair is a suspenseful and inventive YA murder-mystery infused with magic and inspired by the lesser-known fairytales of the Brothers Grimm.
  • A House With Good Bones, T. Kingfisher (Mar 28, Nightfire): A haunting Southern Gothic from a bestselling master of suspense, A House With Good Bones explores the dark, twisted roots lurking just beneath the veneer of a perfect home and family.
  • In Nightfall, Suzanne Young (Mar 28, Delacorte): In the quaint town of Nightfall, Oregon, it isn’t the dark you should be afraid of—it’s the girls. The Lost Boys meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this propulsive novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Treatment.
  • The Keep Within, J. L. Worrad (Mar 28, Titan): Set hundreds of years after the events of Pennyblade, a theatre manager/bastard brother of the king deals with rumours of a very real folktale murderer and a building whose very existence corrupts the minds of those who see or hear about it.
  • White Cat, Black Dog, Kelly Link (Mar 28, Random House): Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with astonishing consequences in the modern world, from one of today’s finest short story writers—MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow Kelly Link, bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Get in Trouble.

All the New Horror Books Coming in February 2023

February 2023’s new horror books, featuring titles from Stephen Graham Jones, Mariana Enriquez, Johnny Compton, Lucy A. Snyder, and more!

This month’s new horror books include a particularly disgusting, especially feminine take on the postapocalypse, a nonfiction history of horror films by and about Black people, a Texas hill country haunted house story with a twist, an 80s folk magic coming-of-age tale, several hotly anticipated sequels, a Vietnamese haunting, 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.

February 2023’s new horror books:

  • Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger, KC Grifant (Feb 2, Brigids Gate Press): In an Old West overrun by monsters, a stoic gunslinger must embark on a dangerous quest to save her friends and stop a supernatural war.
  • Gothic, Philip Fracassi (Feb 3, Cemetery Dance): On his 59th birthday, Tyson Parks—a famous, but struggling, horror writer—receives an antique desk from his partner, Sarah, in the hopes it will rekindle his creative juices. Meanwhile, as Tyson begins to use his new desk, he begins acting… strange. Violent. His writing more disturbing than anything he’s done before. But publishers are paying top dollar, convinced his new work will be a hit, and Tyson will do whatever it takes to protect his newfound success. Even if it means the destruction of the ones he loves. Even if it means his own sanity.
  • Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror of 2022, ed. Alex Woodroe (Feb 6, Tenebrous Press): Meet the Weirdest talent lurking on the cusp of greatness! Discover some new favorite authors! Second guess our decisions! Curse our hubris! We await your anger!
  • Black Dove, Colin McAdam (Feb 7, Soho Press): A deeply imaginative and thrilling novel about grief, single parenting, and the terrifying power of a child’s imagination, dancing on an edge between magical realism and horror, perfect for fans of Stranger Things.
  • The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar, Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris (Feb 7, Gallery/Saga Press): A definitive and surprising exploration of the history of Black horror films, after the rising success of Get Out, Candyman, and Lovecraft Country from creators behind the acclaimed documentary, Horror Noire.
  • Don’t Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones (Feb 7, Gallery/Saga Press): December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.
  • Killer, Peter Tonkin (Feb 7, Valancourt Books): A Paperbacks From Hell reissue of the 1979 classic. Five men and one beautiful woman. Marooned on a floating island of arctic ice. Together they had the equipment and skills to fight the freezing cold, the violently savage storms. Then suddenly from the angry seas the jaws of horror opened wide as nature’s deadliest creature rose from the depths — a huge killer whale of enormous intelligence, incredible power, indestructible endurance, ravenous for human prey….
  • The Night Begins, Abigail Taylor (Feb 7, Luna Press): A story of family rituals, southern folklore, and magic set in rural Texas.
  • Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell (Feb 7, Hogarth): A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family in the “monumental” (The New York Times) debut novel from the International Booker Prize–shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed—“the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time” (Kazuo Ishiguro)
  • The Path Home, A.J. Pellegrino (Feb 7, Read Furiously): A queer reimagining of the classic Persephone and Hades myth filled with nature, magic, and true love. Bryony has just graduated college, and instead of moving to Brooklyn to start her summer fellowship, she has found herself drawn back to her rural hometown in the Adirondacks. A town where she left behind her feelings for her childhood love, Iris. Upon her return home, Bryony notices that the nature surrounding her hometown is dying and no one will talk about Iris.
  • The Spite House, Johnny Compton (Feb 7, Nightfire): A terrifying Gothic thriller about grief and death and the depths of a father’s love, Johnny Compton’s The Spite House is a stunning debut by a horror master in the making—The Babadook meets A Head Full of Ghosts in Texas Hill Country.
  • Such Pretty Flowers, K. L. Cerra (Feb 7, Bantam): A woman investigating her brother’s apparent suicide finds herself falling for her prime suspect—his darkly mysterious girlfriend—in this Southern gothic thriller that Karen Dionne calls “creepy, compelling, and utterly original.”
  • VenCo, Cherie Dimaline (Feb 7, William Morrow): An incredibly inventive, highly anticipated second adult novel—with witches, magic, and a road trip through America—from Cherie Dimaline, the critically acclaimed author of Empire of Wild. 
  • Wasps in the Ice Cream, Tim McGregor (Feb 7, Raw Dog Screaming Press): Summer 1987: Mark Prewitt’s only priority is to avoid his dad’s new wife and waste time with his friends, but idle nights are the devil’s handiwork. When his friends decide to pull a cruel prank on the reclusive and strange Farrow sisters, Mark regrets caving in to peer pressure. Wanting to make amends, Mark is drawn into the mysterious world of the Farrow girls, finding a kindred spirit in the middle sister, George. She is unlike anyone he’s ever known; a practicing witch who uses folk magic to protect her family. They bond over books, loneliness, and homemade spells. She even invites Mark to join a séance to contact her dead sister, who died under mysterious circumstances. Keeping their relationship secret, Mark learns that living a double life in a town this small is impossible. When the secret is exposed, and his friends plot to punish the witch sisters for stealing one of their own, Mark is forced to choose between these two worlds.
  • The Grief Nurse, Angie Spoto (Feb 9, Sandstone Press): Lynx is a Grief Nurse. Kept by the Asters, a wealthy, influential family, to ensure they’re never troubled by negative emotions, she knows no other life. When news arrives that the Asters’ eldest son is dead, Lynx does what she can to alleviate their Sorrow. As guests flock to the Asters’ private island for the wake, bringing their own secrets, lies and grief, tensions rise. Then the bodies start to pile up.
  • The Whispering Muse, Laura Purcell (Feb 9, Raven Books): At The Mercury Theatre in London’s West End, rumors are circulating of a curse. It is said that the lead actress Lilith has made a pact with Melpomene, the tragic muse of Greek mythology, to become the greatest actress to ever grace the stage. Suspicious of Lilith, the jealous wife of the theatre owner sends dresser Jenny to spy on her, and desperate for the money to help her family, Jenny agrees. But when strange events begin to take place around the theatre, Jenny wonders if the rumors are true, and fears that when the Muse comes calling for payment, the cost will be too high.
  • The Cage of Dark Hours, Marina Lostetter (Feb 14, Tor Books): The second novel in the epic fantasy trilogy from acclaimed author Marina Lostetter, where the defeat of a serial killer back from the dead has pulled the mask off the myths and magics of a fantastical city.
  • The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, Roshani Chokshi (Feb 14, William Morrow): A sumptuous, gothic-infused story about a marriage that is unraveled by dark secrets, a friendship cursed to end in tragedy, and the danger of believing in fairy tales—the breathtaking adult debut from New York Times bestselling author Roshani Chokshi.
  • Like Real, Shelly Lyons (Feb 14, Ghoulish Books): In Shelly Lyons’s debut novel, Like Real, Vic Moss—kenjutsu hobbyist and clueless Lothario—lets vanity dictate his decision to acquire an experimental new-tech prosthesis that promises to evolve into a seamless, realistic looking hand. Instead, it tears from his body, transforms into his clone, and pursues a relationship with the same woman Vic has in his crosshairs—forcing Vic to kill or be replaced. This mind-bending body horror rom-com is a rollicking Cronenbergian gene splice of Idle Hands and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. It’s freaky. It’s fun. It’s LIKE REAL.
  • Monstersona, Chloe Spencer (Feb 14, Tiny Ghost Press): Thelma and Louise meet Godzilla in this queer sci-fi adventure, that will appeal to fans of Erik. J Brown’s All That’s Left In The World and Charlotte Nicole Davies’ The Good Luck Girls.
  • A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Dawidziak (Feb 14, St. Martin’s): A Mystery of Mysteries is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes.
  • The Pledge, Cale Dietrich (Feb 14, Feiwel & Friends): Scream meets Clown in a Cornfield in this young adult horror novel by bestselling author Cale Dietrich featuring a masked killer who targets frat boys.
  • Sing, Nightingale, Marie Hélène Poitras, trans. Rhonda Mullins (Feb 14, Coach House Books): When the curtain rises on Malmaison, it reveals a once-enchanting estate, quietly falling into darkness and ruin, and at the heart of it, a father, one of a long line of fathers who have flourished at the expense of those around them. The silence seems peaceful, but lurking under it is a deep malevolence, scores of ugly and violent secrets kept by cast-off mistresses and abandoned daughters.
  • Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror, ed. Lee Murray & Angela Yuriko Smith (Feb 14, Black Spot Books): From hungry ghosts, vampiric babies, and shapeshifting fox spirits to the avenging White Lady of urban legend, for generations, Asian women’s roles have been shaped and defined through myth and story. In Unquiet Spirits, Asian writers of horror reflect on the impact of superstition, spirits, and the supernatural in this unique collection of 21 personal essays exploring themes of otherness, identity, expectation, duty, and loss, and leading, ultimately, to understanding and empowerment.
  • Bad Omens, Jessica Drake-Thomas (Feb 17, Querencia Press): Bad Omens is a collection of occult and gothic horror poems.
  • Churn the Soil, Steve Stred (Feb 17, Black Void): Two hundred miles north of the town of Basco sits The Border. It’s a quiet, off-the-grid settlement, where the residents have developed a tentative agreement with those that live on the other side of the clearing. But things are about to change forever. As night falls, a teenage girl is brutally murdered as she flees across the clearing. Now, it’s up to Basco PD officers Brown and Reynolds to find her killer. But the truth is far worse than they could possibly imagine, and the more the officers uncover, the bolder the things beyond the clearing grow.
  • Ancient Images, Ramsey Campbell (Feb 21, Flame Tree Press): Tower of Fear is a lost horror film starring Karloff and Lugosi. A film historian who locates a copy dies while fleeing something that terrified him. His friend Sandy Allan vows to prove he found the film. She learns how haunted the production was and the survivors of it still are. It contains a secret about Redfield, a titled family that owns a favorite British food, Staff o’ Life. The Redfield land has uncanny guardians, and one follows Sandy home. To maintain its fertility Redfield demands a sacrifice, and a band of new age travellers is about to set up camp there…
  • The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future, Christi Nogle (Feb 21, Flame Tree Press): The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future collects Christi Nogle’s finest psychological and supernatural horror stories. Their rural and small-town characters confront difficult pasts and look toward promising but often terrifying futures. The pieces range in genre from psychological horror through science fiction and ghost stories, but they all share fundamental qualities: feminist themes, an emphasis on voice, a focus on characters’ psychologies and a sense of the gothic in contemporary life.
  • Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country, Matt Ruff (Feb 21, Harper): In this thrilling adventure, a blend of enthralling historical fiction and fantastical horror, Matt Ruff returns to the world of Lovecraft Country and explores the meaning of death, the hold of the past on the present, and the power of hope in the face of uncertainty.
  • Loteria, Cynthia Pelayo (Feb 21, Agora Books): Award-winning author Cynthia “Cina” Pelayo’s acclaimed short story collection Lotería, now with added illustrations and new bonus stories.
  • Sister, Maiden, Monster, Lucy A. Snyder (Feb 21, Nightfire): Sister, Maiden, Monster is a visceral story set in the aftermath of our planet’s disastrous transformation and told through the eyes of three women trying to survive the nightmare, from Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lucy A. Snyder.
  • Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality, Lindsay Wong (Feb 21, Penguin Canada): From the bestselling, Canada Reads-shortlisted author of The Woo-Woo comes a wild, darkly hilarious, and poignant collection of immigrant horror stories. They’ll haunt and consume you in strange and unsettling ways.
  • Where Darkness Blooms, Andrea Hannah (Feb 21, Wednesday Books): Andrea Hannah’s Where Darkness Blooms is a supernatural thriller about an eerie town where the sunflowers whisper secrets and the land hungers for blood.
  • The Writing Retreat, Julia Bartz (Feb 21, Atria/Emily Bestler Books): The Plot meets Please Join Us in this psychological suspense debut about a young author at an exclusive writer’s retreat that descends into a nightmare.
  • The Year of the Storm, John Mantooth (Feb 24, Cemetery Dance): In this haunting, suspenseful novel, John Mantooth takes readers to a town in rural Alabama where secrets are buried deep, reality is relative, and salvation requires a desperate act of faith.
  • Delicious Monsters, Liselle Sambury (Feb 28, Margaret K. McElderry Books): The Haunting of Hill House meets Sadie in this evocative and mind-bending psychological thriller following two teen girls navigating the treacherous past of a mysterious mansion ten years apart.
  • The Secrets of Hartwood Hall, Katie Lumsden (Feb 28, Dutton): A gripping and atmospheric debut that is at once a chilling gothic mystery and a love letter to Victorian fiction.
  • She is a Haunting, Trang Thanh Tran (Feb 28, Bloomsbury YA): A House with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family in this atmospheric horror, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic.
  • The Thing in Yellow, D.T. Neal (Feb 28, Nosetouch Press): When The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers was first published in 1895, the collection of short stories went on to become an inspirational classic of the macabre, particularly the stories of supernatural horror tied to the fictional play of the same name, said to drive anyone who reads it to madness and ruination. Nosetouch Press is proud to offer The Thing in Yellow, a stunning collection of thirteen occult short stories inspired by and honoring the ongoing legacy of the weird fictional universe of The King in Yellow. In this collection, fans of this mythos will find supernatural stories of decadent artists, arcane astronomers, occult assassins, debauched revelers, dazzling automatons, secretive cults, and more, all captive to the corrupting, enigmatic, and seductive machinations of the sinister Yellow King.
  • The Disappearance of Tom Nero, TJ Price (Feb, Spooky House Press): A meta-textual horror novelette that blurs the lines between reality and the written word.

All the New Horror Books Coming in January 2023

January 2023’s new horror books, featuring titles from Jessica Johns, Todd Kiesling, Alison Rumfitt, Christopher Golden, and more!

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)