After another amazing year for horror fiction in 2024, it’s time to look ahead, and if the past year gave us a bounty, then the next is delivering a full-on glut. We’ve got new books from the masters of the genre, long-awaited returns, compelling debuts, and the latest entries in the building careers of horror’s biggest rising stars, all over the next 12 months.
There’s so much horror coming our way in 2025 that it’s impossible to contain in one short list, but these are the 25 titles I’m most excited to read in the new year. Update your pre-orders accordingly.
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman
Release Date: Jan 7 from Quirk Books
Why We’re Excited: Clay McLeod Chapman’s novels are always wonderfully ambitious dives down very emotional rabbit holes, and Wake Up and Open Your Eyes might be his biggest swing yet. I was lucky enough to get an early peek at this one, and I can tell you that the first section of this book features some of the most upsetting horror I’ve ever read. That, and our current national moment, is more than enough to make this one essential.
Publisher’s Description: Noah has been losing his polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of her many conspiracy theories. But when his phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles and his parents locked in a terrifying trancelike state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it.
Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.
But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart–literally–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend glued to a screen. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn–but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?
This ambitious, searing novel from one of horror’s modern masters holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Release Date: January 14 from Berkley
Why We’re Excited: After tackling demons, ghosts, vampires, evil puppets, slashers, and more, Grady Hendrix turns to witches with his latest novel, a period piece that marks his continued growth as a novelist deeply interested in the emotional truths beneath his premises. Hendrix doing a witch book is a good enough reason to get excited, but there’s real power in this one, and it’ll grab you by the heart and the throat.
Publisher’s Description: They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, to give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.
Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.
At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca
Release Date: January 28 from Big Bald Head
Why We’re Excited: Eric LaRocca’s rise as one of horror’s essential voices continues with his second novel, a dark story about grief, longing, and the search for a new kind of existence in the inescapable darkness of one man’s life. Conceptually rich and emotionally potent, it feels a new evolution of fiction like Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, which put LaRocca on the map in the first place.
Publisher’s Description: “If you’re reading this, you’ve likely thought that the world would be a better place without you.”
A single line of text, glowing in the darkness of the internet. Written by Ashley Lutin, who has often thought the same–and worse–in the years since his wife died and his young son disappeared. But the peace of the grave is not for him–it’s for those he can help. Ashley has constructed a peculiar ritual for those whose desire to die is at war with their yearning to live a better life.
Struggling to overcome his own endless grief, one night Ashley finds connection with Jinx–a potential candidate for Ashley’s next ritual–who spins a tale both revolting and fascinating. Thus begins a relationship that traps the two men in an ever-tightening spiral of painful revelations, where long-hidden secrets are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light.
Only through pain can we find healing. Only through death can we find new life.
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
Release Date: February 4 from Liveright
Why We’re Excited: Feito’s latest novel is already in development as a feature film starring Margaret Qualley and Thomas McKenzie, which means there’s plenty of hype for this book. Having had a chance to read it already, I can tell you that hype is definitely deserved. This is a wickedly fun chiller full of twists, drama, and deliciously deranged death.
Publisher’s Description: Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess–she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family–Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .
Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.
Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel
Release Date: February 4 from St. Martin’s
Why We’re Excited: I always like to scope out intriguing debut novels for the coming year, and because this one is being billed as a hybrid of Jordan Peele and Stranger Things, I absolutely can’t resist featuring it. I can’t wait to see what Viel does with this premise and these thematic ingredients.
Publisher’s Description: Twenty-five-year-old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie-but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he’s off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting Calla: recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop.
When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives-and reality-hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.
Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Pelayo
Release Date: March 11 from Thomas & Mercer
Why We’re Excited: Cynthia Pelayo has quickly become a must-read author for horror fans, and with her latest book she returns to her beloved Chicago for another book rich in imagination, heart, and haunting beauty. If you haven’t read Pelayo yet, this is the perfect time to get on board.
Publisher’s Description: It started the night journalist Briar Thorne’s mother died in their rambling old mansion on Chicago’s South Side.
The nightmares of a woman in white pleading to come home, music switched on in locked rooms, and the panicked fear of being swallowed by the dark…Bri has almost convinced herself that these stirrings of dread are simply manifestations of grief and not the beyond-world of ghostly impossibilities her mother believed in. And more tangible terrors still lurk outside the decaying Victorian greystone.
A serial killer has claimed the lives of fifty-one women in the Chicago area. When Bri starts researching the murders, she meets a stranger who tells her there’s more to her sleepless nights than bad dreams–they hold the key to putting ghosts to rest and stopping a killer. But the killer has caught on and is closing in, and if Bri doesn’t answer the call of the dead soon, she’ll be walking among them.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Release Date: March 18 from Saga
Why We’re Excited: Stephen Graham Jones has been a must-read since Mongrels, but even by those standards The Buffalo Hunter Hunter feels special. Jones’ attempt to put his distinct spin on vampires feels like an important spiritual follow-up to The Only Good Indians, a vital historical horror with a focus on a very particular American tragedy, and a great yarn all rolled into one. Don’t miss it.
Publisher’s Description: A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.
The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T. Wurth
Release Date: March 18 from Flatiron
Why We’re Excited: With White Horse, Erika T. Wurth established herself as an essential new horror voice. Now she’s back with this story of a paranormal investigator and one very specific, very scary hotel room. I can’t get over how great this hook is, and I’ll be reading it as soon as possible.
Publisher’s Description: Olivia Becente was never supposed to have the gift. The ability to commune with the dead was the specialty of her sister, Naiche. But when Naiche dies unexpectedly and under strange circumstances, somehow Olivia suddenly can’t stop seeing and hearing from spirits.
A few years later, she’s the most in-demand paranormal investigator in Denver. She’s good at her job, but the loss of Naiche haunts her. That’s when she hears from the Brown Palace, a landmark Denver hotel. The owner can’t explain it, but every few years, a girl is found dead in room 904, no matter what room she checked into the night before. As Olivia tries to understand these disturbing deaths, the past and the present collide as Olivia’s investigation forces her to confront a mysterious and possibly dangerous cult, a vindictive journalist, betrayal by her friends, and shocking revelations about her sister’s secret life.
When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy
Release Date: April 22 from Tor Nightfire
Why We’re Excited: The author of Mary and Nestlings returns with a werewolf novel, and I’m already sold. Cassidy is one of those authors who can instantly sell you with a new spin on a well-worn trope, and here he’s combined a chase story with a werewolf narrative in a way that feels irresistible. Werewolves are on the rise again, and Cassidy’s take on them is sure to be essential.
Publisher’s Description: One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy’s father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.
As they attempt to evade the boy’s increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first Jess thinks she understands what they’re up against, but she’s about to learn there’s more to these surreal and grisly events than she could’ve ever imagined.
And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.
The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig
Release Date: April 29 from Del Rey
Why We’re Excited: Chuck Wendig’s brand of twisted Americana has already given us modern horror essentials like Black River Orchard and The Book of Accidents, and now he’s back with another dark hook that will send us into the strangest corners of our world. The moment you read the description of this one, you’ll want to know more, and that’s where Wendig truly shines.
Publisher’s Description: Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.
Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere.
One friend walks up–and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.
Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy–and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .
The Night Birds by Christopher Golden
Release Date: May 6 from St. Martin’s
Why We’re Excited: Christopher Golden has a way of creating a sense of dark enchantment in the landscapes of his novels, and The Night Birds sounds like the latest demonstration of this gift. It’s set in Texas, which I always appreciate, but what really grabs you about The Night Birds is the sense of slowly unfolding danger and magic dancing together in its hook. There’s a sense of Gothic power looming in this one, and I’m so excited to read more.
Publisher’s Description: Charlie Book and Ruby Cahill have history. After their love ended in heartbreak years ago, they never expected to see each other again.
Now, as part of his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Book lives aboard the Christabel, a 19th century freighter half-sunken off the shore of Galveston. Over many years, a massive forest of mangrove trees has grown up through the deck of the ship, creating a startlingly beautiful enigma Book calls the Floating Forest. As a powerful storm churns through the Gulf, he intends to sleep on board as usual.
But when he arrives at the dock, he’s stunned to find Ruby there waiting for him. And she’s not alone. With her are a mysterious woman and her infant child, asking Book to hide them safely aboard the Christabel while they’re on the run. Only it isn’t the police who are after them, it’s a coven of witches the woman, Mae, has fled, stealing away the helpless infant for whom the coven had hideous plans…or so Mae claims.
It’s lunacy and Book wants nothing to do with it. But after the way he and Ruby ended things, and the unspoken pain between them, he can’t refuse. Yet even as he brings them out to the ruined ship and its floating forest, there are shadowed figures looming back in Galveston, waiting out the storm. And despite the worsening wind and rain, the night birds are flying, scouring the coastline for their prey.
Never Flinch by Stephen King
Release Date: May 27 from Scribner
Why We’re Excited: Stephen King has made private investigator Holly Gibney into his new personal favorite character, and after the success of Holly he’s returned for another case, another adventure, and another dark threat as seen through Holly’s eyes. King has proven over and over again that you simply can’t miss whatever he comes up with next, which means Never Flinch is essential for King fans and Gibney fans alike.
Publisher’s Description: When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to “kill thirteen innocents and one guilty” in “an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man,” Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help.
Meanwhile, controversial and outspoken women’s rights activist Kate McKay is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour, drawing packed venues of both fans and detractors. Someone who vehemently opposes Kate’s message of female empowerment is targeting her and disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but the stalker is growing bolder, and Holly is hired to be Kate’s bodyguard–a challenging task with a headstrong employer and a determined adversary driven by wrath and his belief in his own righteousness.
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Release Date: July 15 from Del Rey
Why We’re Excited: Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of our most versatile genre authors, able to delve into classic horror tropes and esoteric topics at the same time and weave dark, unforgettable spells. Her latest, The Bewitching, combines historical mystery with supernatural drama in a way that sounds irresistible, especially coming from the author of books like Mexican Gothic and Silver Nitrate.
Publisher’s Description: “Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches” That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva–stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.
In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.
Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.
Another by Paul Tremblay
Release Date: July 22 from Quill Tree
Why We’re Excited: The author of Horror Movie returns in 2025 with a middle-grade horror novel sure to frighten readers of all ages. Paul Tremblay is at his best when he’s playing in the strange spaces between what makes perfect sense and what makes the kind of sense that would drive you mad, and Another sounds like one of those tales, a book about a strange visitor who just might be something more.
Publisher’s Description: When Casey Wilson’s parents tell him that his friend is coming for a sleepover, he has no idea who that might be. Ever since the Zoom Incident, everyone treats him like a pariah, and his tics are worse than ever.
When Morel appears, he’s not like any friend Casey has ever met. His skin is like clay, and he doesn’t speak. But Casey’s parents are charmed by the strange kid, and it’s nice to have someone to talk to besides his sister, Ally, who is away at college. As his normally loving parents grow distant from Casey, they gush and fawn over Morel. Casey knows something is wrong—but with no end in sight to the sleepover, he’s exhausted. And in the dark, out of the corner of his eye, Morel doesn’t look like a kid at all. . . .
The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw
Release Date: July 22 from Tor Nightfire
Why We’re Excited: Cassandra Khaw is one of the great horror stylists of our era, and their latest book sounds like it might be the most ambitious Khaw novel we’ve gotten so far. The setting alone is one of those things you won’t be able to turn away from, but then the plot kicks in, and the book sounds positively addictive. It’s sure to be one of the must-reads of the summer.
Publisher’s Description: The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.
Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told after she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.
But the Institute is more than just a haven for monsters. On graduation day, the faculty embark on a ravenous rampage, feasting on their students. Trapped in the school’s cavernous library, Alessa and her surviving classmates must do something they were never taught: work together.
If not, this school will eat them alive…
Spread Me by Sarah Gailey
Release Date: September 23 from Tor Nightfire
Why We’re Excited: The author of Just Like Home is back with a new horror story, and this time Sarah Gailey’s going sci-fi with an erotic take on stories like The Thing. Gailey’s prose is so fluid and gorgeous that we could get lost in any of their books, but a sci-fi/horror novel with this premise is especially enticing.
Publisher’s Description: Kinsey has the perfect job as the team lead in a remote research outpost. She loves the solitude, and the way the desert keeps her far away from the temptations teeming out in the civilian world.
When her crew discovers a mysterious specimen buried deep in the sand, Kinsey breaks quarantine and brings it into the hab. But the longer it’s inside, the more her carefully controlled life begins to unravel. Temptation has found her after all, and it can’t be ignored any longer.
One by one, Kinsey’s team realizes the thing they’re studying is in search of a new host—and one of them is the perfect candidate….
Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
Release Date: July 29 from Atria
Why We’re Excited: With Whalefall, Daniel Kraus delivered one of the best high-concept horror hooks of the last decade. Now, with Angel Down, he just might top it. A historical horror with roots in a World War I legend and a great premise, Angel Down sounds like one of those books that’ll have to be read to be believed, so you’ll definitely want to get your hands on this one.
Publisher’s Description: Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.
What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.
Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Release Date: August 5 from Tor Nightfire
Why We’re Excited: We are in the midst of a really great period for horror books about cursed, fabled, or otherwise dangerous movies. We’ve seen it from Paul Tremblay, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and others, and now we get to see it from Gretchen Felker-Martin. The author of Manhunt and Cuckoo takes on Nazis, lost films, and the suppression of queer sexuality, and I can’t wait.
Publisher’s Description: Ellen, a deeply closeted lesbian spends all her time in solitude, restoring films at a failing archive in 1980s New York City.
When a group of German academics present her with a print of an infamous exploitation film believed to have been destroyed during the Holocaust, Ellen finds herself forced to confront her own repressed sexuality. And the more she works on the restoration, the more obsessed she becomes with its depictions of occult practices and queer debauchery.
She’s soon convinced that the depraved acts portrayed in the film are not fiction, but reality.
And that they’re happening to her.
A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper
Release Date: August 12 from Saga
Why We’re Excited: Hailey Piper, one of the rising queens of modern horror, takes all of her cosmic horror bona fides and turns them on this new riff on Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow. It’s not just a fresh take on one of the most famous pieces of weird fiction ever written. It’s also an erotic thriller from one of the best horror writers working right now, and you won’t want to miss the places Piper is able to take this one.
Publisher’s Description: A kink-fixated couple, Carmen and Blanca, have been in a rut. That is until Blanca discovers the enigmatic Smoke in an under-street drug den, who holds pages to a strange play, The King in Yellow. Read too much, and you’ll fall into madness. But read just a little and pull back, and it gives you the adrenaline rush of survivor’s euphoria, leading Carmen to fall into a game of lust at a nightmare’s edge.
As the line blurs between the world Carmen knows and the one that she visits after reading from the play, she begins to desire more time in this other world no matter what horrors she brings back with her.
The Possession of Alba Diaz by Isabel Canas
Release Date: August 19 from Berkley
Why We’re Excited: With The Hacienda and Vampires of El Norte, Isabel Canas established a place as one of the premier voices in historical horror. Now, Canas takes on demonic possession with this tale of Mexican colonial terror. Canas is fast becoming essential, and this book feels like the next piece of a vibrant, expansive career.
Publisher’s Description: In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong.
Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can’t help but notice her every time she enters a room or the growing tension between them… and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood grows stronger.
In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets, and one another… not knowing that one of these things will spell their doom.
8114 by Joshua Hull
Release Date: August 26 from Clash Books
Why We’re Excited: After delivering memorable horror films (Glorious) and memorable horror novellas (Mouth), Joshua Hull makes his full-length novel debut in 2025 with one of the most buzzed-about titles of the year. Part haunted house (or haunted person?) story, part mystery, all terror, this is a book people have already been talking about for months, which makes it a must-read come the summer.
Publisher’s Description: After returning to his hometown, Paul, the beleaguered host of a small-time podcast, discovers a longtime friend committed suicide in the dilapidated ruins of Paul’s childhood home. Desperate to find answers, Paul interviews friends and locals hoping to find closure. He finds himself in a chilling downward spiral of his memories and the land he grew up on. Has his past caught up with him or is there something far more sinister at play?
Joshua Hull, screenwriter of Glorious, brings an edge of horror film expertise to this story of small-town haunting, trauma, and grief that just won’t let go. 8114 roots out the rot of a small town’s past and unravels the memories we must face to survive the present.
Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
Release Date: September 9 from Berkley
Why We’re Excited: Rachel Harrison’s done vampires, werewolves, witches, and Satanists. Now, she’s turning her one-of-a-kind imagination on a demonically possessed house in this story of a woman with a strange inheritance, a messed-up family, and a demon problem. One of horror’s brightest stars just keeps churning out must-read books.
Publisher’s Description: Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so-glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parent’s messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped Alex of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house.
After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation.
Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward
Release Date: October 7 from Nightfire
Why We’re Excited: Catriona Ward is one of our great architects of unforgettable horror settings, and with Nowhere Burning she might have outdone herself. Set in the burned-out shell of a movie star’s former ranch, this book combines childhood fears with a celebrity’s dark past and weaves it all through Ward’s own particular narrative magic. The author of Looking Glass Sound and Little Eve remains essential.
Publisher’s Description: In the middle of the night, Riley pulls her younger brother Oliver out of bed, and the two run away from home. Riley is intent on joining a group of teenagers squatting in the abandoned ruins of an infamous movie star’s ranch, Nowhere. For actor Leaf Winham, Nowhere was a place to hide from his fame, and to hide his crimes–until a fire ravaged his home and exposed him as a murderer.
It is rumored that the ranch nestled in the peaks of the Rocky Mountains is now home to a group of feral children, a place where adults cannot enter, and Riley hopes to find a new family there. But the Nowhere Kids are fierce in defending their turf and their clan, and Riley quickly realizes that while she and Oliver may have left the devil they knew, this group is a new type of diabolical.
For something dark lives in the burned shell of Nowhere, something which asks a terrible price for sanctuary…
Little Horn by Gemma Files
Release Date: October 14 from Shortwave Publishing
Why We’re Excited: Gemma Files is arguably the finest writer of horror short fiction working right now, which means any new collection from her is an event. With Little Horn, we get the first new Gemma Files book since 2023, and more than a dozen stories, each with their own dark spell to cast.
Publisher’s Description: Little Horn is a collection of fourteen short stories and novelettes, including illustrated title pages by the author.
King Sorrow by Joe Hill
Release Date: October 23 from William Morrow
Why We’re Excited: Arguably the single biggest horror publishing event of the year, King Sorrow is Joe Hill’s first novel since The Fireman nearly a decade ago, and marks the triumphant return of one of the genre’s best. Steeped in dark fantasy and the emotional ties that bind fellow outsiders, King Sorrow is bound to be one of the year’s biggest books in any genre, but as horror fans, we’re especially lucky to have it come along just before Halloween.
Publisher’s Description: Arthur Oakes is an outsider. His mother is in prison, his father is long gone, so he spends his time lost in the legends of English mythology. Then one unintended incident – one moment of standing up for another underdog – leaves his mother in danger and him with orders to steal rare books from the college library. And the events that will unfold from that single act of bravery will lead to slaughter.
Because his gang of six close friends, all outsiders, intend to use a tome bound in human skin in an arcane ritual to summon the notorious dragon-demon King Sorrow to kill their tormentors… They enter into a pact – King Sorrow will kill the couple who have been terrorising the group in exchange for their worship.
But dragons are not to be trusted, and soon they realise this isn’t just revenge. They must repeat the ritual every year – including choosing who their King will kill next…
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.