Cassandra Khaw is one of those horror writers whose sentences are symphonies of terror unto themselves. One of the finest prose stylists the genre has to offer right now, their books like Nothing But Blackened Teeth and The Salt Grows Heavy have a certain spellbinding quality, one that reminds us not just of the beauty to be found in the hideous and horrific, but of the endless potential for imaginative new landscapes in the horror space. But even considering Khaw’s formidable bibliography so far, The Library of Hellebore feels like another level of achievement for the author.
Brutal, sumptuous, and packed with unforgettable imagery, it’s not only a must-read for Khaw fans, but the perfect place for new readers to get to know their style of textured, dread-laced storytelling. The titular library is an ancient, ominous space in the middle of the Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted, a mysterious school where young people with extraordinary, potentially apocalyptic abilities are sent in the hope that they can be redeemed, that their dangerous powers and inherent tendency toward darkness can be reshaped into something else.
But as student Alessa Li quickly discovers, Hellebore is less the kind of place that guides its students to success and more the kind of place that eats its students alive…literally. Graduation Day brings with it an attack from the school’s faculty, leaving Alessa and her friends to barricade themselves in the library or be devoured. It’s a hostage situation that also reads like an evil The Breakfast Club, completely with students debating which of them should be sacrificed to the faculty so that the others might live.
While this is happening, Khaw flashes back to Alessa’s beginnings at Hellebore, the strange discoveries she stumbles upon, the way their bedrooms move around the building on their own, and Alessa’s relationship with her roommate, Johanna, who’s key to understanding where Alessa came from and where she’s going. Both in the past and the present we get to know a cast of wickedly fun young people, from the cocky Adam to the smart-mouthed Rowan, and we meet Hellebore’s Librarian, an impossible monster who revs up the urgency of the students’ situation.
Through it all, Khaw reminds us why they’re considered one of the best prose stylists in the horror game at the moment. Every sentence is elegant, evocative, and powerful, laced with detail that drives you to the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next page. Hellebore emerges for the reader slowly, unveiling its secrets like an unfurling flower, many of its secrets half-buried or completely buried even by the novel’s end. If there’s anything I might wish for that this novel doesn’t have, it’s a greater exploration of its setting and the seemingly vast lore lurking behind every object, every door. But that’s the fantasy fan in me always wishing for more lore to study, and not a failing of the storytelling.
In fact, Khaw’s ability to immerse the reader in deeply imaginative layers of their setting while also focusing on the central dilemmas of each of their characters is what makes The Library at Hellebore one of the finest horror books you’re likely to pick up this summer. The fantasy elements are there, but Khaw is much more interested in the deeper concerns of these kids, who’ve been told they’re monsters, who’ve often cultivated monstrous personas, now faced with questions of survival and sacrifice. Helped along by tremendously gruesome imagery – no one writes gore quite like Cassandra Khaw; it’s visceral poetry – Khaw’s exploration of Alessa’s struggles to make it out of Hellebore alive becomes a study of power and who gets to wield it. If you were told your entire life that you’re a monster, then you were pitted against something more monstrous that wants to eat you alive, what would you do? Would you deserve it? Would fighting back even when it’s futile really matter?
These are the questions that linger over The Library at Hellebore, and the way Khaw handles them reaffirms their place as one of the best voices in horror and dark fantasy working right now. It might be Khaw’s best book yet, and it’s definitely one of the 2025 horror novels you won’t want to miss.
The Library at Hellebore is available now wherever books are sold.
Matthew Jackson is a pop culture writer and nerd-for-hire who’s been writing about entertainment for more than a decade. His writing about movies, TV, comics, and more regularly appears at SYFY WIRE, Looper, Mental Floss, Decider, BookPage, and other outlets. He lives in Austin, Texas, and when he’s not writing he’s usually counting the days until Christmas.
