The Salt Grows Heavy, Cassandra Khaw (Tor Nightfire 978-1-25083-091-3, $21.99, 112pp, hc) May 2023. Cover by Morgan Sorensen.

Cassandra Khaw is one of the most dis­tinctive voices in contemporary fiction. From science fiction to horror and from literary fiction to surrealism, they can do it all, and their prose is always impeccable. With The Salt Grows Heavy, Khaw has pushed their work into new territory, and it’s a ...Read More

Black Tide, KC Jones (Tor Nightfire 978-1-25079-269-3, $10.99, 256pp, hc) May 2022.

KC Jones’s Black Tide is a blend of horror, sci­ence fiction, and romance that somehow works. Weird, tense, and at times unexpectedly funny, this novel, which is Jones’s debut, has a cinematic atmosphere and a last third that contains enough alien monsters and action to hook fans of science fiction, adventure, and horror equally.

Mike and Beth ...Read More

Where Darkness Blooms, Andrea Hannah (Wednesday Books 978-1-25084-262-6, $18.99, 320pp, hc) February 2023.

YA fiction has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of diversity and the topics it deals with, and Andrea Hannah’s Where Darkness Blooms is a perfect example of how inclusive, deep, and complex the genre of young adult fiction can be, especially when mixed with speculative fiction. At once the story of a group of ...Read More

Bad Cree, Jessica Johns (Doubleday 978-0-38554-869-4, $27.00, 272pp, hc) January 2023.

I love reading books that aren’t supposed to work and somehow not only work but they’re good. The ARC of Jessica Johns’s Bad Cree starts comes with a letter from Doubleday Senior Editor Margo Shickmanter talking about how Johns was told by a writing instructor to never write dreams unless she wanted to bore readers. Johns is Cree, ...Read More

No One Will Come Back for Us, Premee Mohamed (Undertow Publications 978-1-98896-442-3, $18.99, 290pp, pb) May 2023. Cover by Slug Draws.

It’s still early in the year, but I can already tell you Premee Mohamed’s No One Will Come Back for Us is one of the collections I’ll be writing about months from now when I sit down to write about the best books of 2023. Dark, strange, and ...Read More

Ascension, Nicholas Binge (Riverhead Books 978-0-59353-958-3, $16.95, 352pp, hc) April 2023. Cover by Daniel Lagin.

Nicholas Binge’s Ascension is the biggest surprise of 2023 so far. Binge’s first book to be published in the United States, Ascension is a great mix of science fiction, adventure, and horror in which science, history, religion, and philosophy collide in an explosion of ideas and action that will un­doubtedly make its author ...Read More

The Donut Legion, Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland 978-0-31654-068-1, $28.00, 304pp, hc) March 2023.

Author Joe R. Lansdale is one of the most entertaining storytellers working today, and he does it across a plethora of genres and styles. The Donut Legion, Lansdale’s latest, is a mystery novel wrapped in crime fiction and garnished with a dash of horror, a lot of snappy di­alogue, and enough humor to almost overshadow the ...Read More

The Merry Dredgers, Jeremy C. Shipp (Meerkat Press 978-1-94615-446-0, $16.95, 200pp, pb) April 2023. Cover by Tricia Reeks.

Jeremy C. Shipp’s work is always wonderfully weird, and in their latest, The Merry Dredgers, they have embraced weirdness like never before. At once a story of sisterly love, a strange noir nar­rative about a young woman trapped in a crappy job, and a whodunit with a surreal touch that ...Read More

The Haunting of Alejandra, V. Castro (Del Rey 978-0-59349-969-6, $28.00, 272pp, hc) April 2023

The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro is a horror novel that’s not afraid to explore touchy subjects. At once a creepy story of ghosts, curses, and apparitions and a complex narrative that explores identity, grief, loneliness, depression, suicidal thoughts, and the difficulties of a crumbling marriage, The Haunting of Ale­jandra mixes together a ...Read More

The Scourge Between Stars, Ness Brown (Night­fire 978-1-2508-3468-3, $16.99, 176pp, tp) April 2023.

Ness Brown’s The Scourge Between Stars is a perfect blend of science fiction and horror that has enough elements of each to fully satisfy lovers of both. Short, fast, engag­ing, wildly entertaining, and unexpectedly gory, it almost demands to be devoured in one sitting, but packs more than pulpy entertainment and alien forms spilling guts across ...Read More

The Spite House, Johnny Compton (Nightfire 978-1-25084-141-4, $27.99, 272pp, hc) February 2023.

Johnny Compton’s The Spite House is a rare haunted house novel that manages to subvert some of the most common plots associated with this kind of story. It’s also a novel that stays close to horror and the elements of a haunted house narrative while also exploring history, racism, and what it means to protect your family ...Read More

All Hallows, Christopher Golden (Nightfire 978-1-25028-029-9, $17.99, 336pp, hc) January 2023.

Almost every horror lover I’ve ever met has a spe­cial place in their heart for Halloween, the one time of the year when everyone likes the same things we do and it’s okay to enjoy horror without having to explain yourself. Well, Christopher Golden’s All Hallows is the perfect novel for anyone who enjoys the horror, movies, candy, ...Read More

Sister, Maiden, Monster, Lucy A. Snyder (Night­fire 978-1-25082-565-0, $17.99, 272pp, pb) Febru­ary 2023.

I always knew the COVID-19 pandemic was going to inspire some amazing fiction, and Lucy A. Snyder’s Sister, Maiden, Monster is a perfect example of it. At once a horror story of cosmic proportions, a smart deconstruction of pandemic mayhem, and a timely narrative that delves deep into what happens when we collec­tively face something new, ...Read More

Tell Me I’m Worthless, Alison Rumfitt (Cipher Press 9781838390020, £9.99, 272pp, tp) October 2021. (Nightfire 978-1-25086-623-3, $17.99, 272pp, pb) January 2023.

Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless is not a comfortable read, and that’s a good thing. Raw, strange, and packed with drugs, guilt, grief, vio­lence, slurs, and blood, this is the kind of horror book that inhabits the dark space between spooky horror – in this case, a ...Read More

Daphne, Josh Malerman (Del Rey 978-0-59315-701-5, $19.49, 272pp, hc) September 2022. Cover by Caroline Cunningham.

When I wrote about Josh Malerman’s Goblin in this same space back in 2021, I was already saying we should be talking about the Malerman Mythos given the cohesiveness and recurring themes and places in the author’s oeuvre. Now that I’m writ­ing about Daphne, Malerman’s latest, I’ll add to that: We should also ...Read More

The Witch in the Well, Camilla Bruce (Tor Books 978-1-25030-209-0, $26.99, 308pp, hc) October 2022.

Pulling off novels with various points of view is no easy task, but Camilla Bruce does it beautifully in The Witch in the Well. A story of lost friend­ship, animosity, murder, magic, and writing, The Witch in the Well looks at history and obsession while telling the story of two old friends turned ...Read More

Little Eve, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nichol­son 978-0297609681, 288pp, tp) July 2018. (Tor Nightfire 978-1-25081-265-0, $17.98, 288pp, hc) October 2022.

Catriona Ward’s Little Eve, which won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel in 2018, is an atmospheric narrative that’s as elegant and strange as it is dark and complex. At once a story of religious fanaticism with gothic elements, a chronicle of the downward spiral of a ...Read More

Fairy Tale, Stephen King (Scribner 978-1-66800-217-9, $32.50, 608pp, hc) October 2022. Cover by Kyle Kabel.

The fact that Stephen King can still surprise us is further proof that he’s one of the best living writers, and I say that as someone who recently reviewed the two new and very surprising Cormac McCarthy novels. King’s career is full of books that play across genres and exist in a unique spectrum ...Read More

Old Country, Matt Query & Harrison Query (Grand Central Publishing 978-1-538721-20-9, $28.00, 352pp, hc) July 2022. Cover by Ervin Serrano.

Learning a book came to be because a story be­came popular on Reddit might make some run to read it and turn others away from it immediately. Thankfully, Old Country, written by brothers Matt & Harrison Query after the former wrote a story titled ‘‘My Wife and I ...Read More

Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold, Umar Turaki (Little A 978-1-54203-466-1, $24.95, 256pp, hc) May 2022. Cover by Kimberly Glyder.

It would easy to assume readers want nothing to do with pandemic and post-apocalyptic fiction. It would also be wrong. Even during the worst of the pandemic, fiction about bad things happening to a large number of people were popular. Umar Turaki’s Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold is ...Read More

Anybody Home?, Michael J. Seidlinger (CLASH Books 978-1-95590-409-4, $18.95, 234pp, tp) August 2022.

Writing a novel using second person is tricky. Writing a creepy, bizarre novel in which the use of second person pulls the reader into a dark, violent world where laws are broken and people die is much harder. Michal J. Seidlinger pulls off the latter brilliantly in Any­body Home?, and readers actually end up enjoy­ing ...Read More

Mary, Nat Cassidy (Nightfire 978-1-25026-523-4, $21.99, 416pp, tp) August 2022.

Nat Cassidy’s Mary is an outstanding debut horror novel. It’s also a novel that shouldn’t work. Take, for example, just a few of the ele­ments present in this novel’s wild mix of ideas: ghosts, anxiety, serial killers, an abusive aunt, depression, reincarnation, and insects that aren’t really there. Might sound like too much but, in Cassidy’s capable hands, it ...Read More

The Last Storm, Tim Lebbon (Titan 978-1-80336-042-3, $15.95, 352pp, tp) July 2022.

One of the most amazing things about horror is that tropes can become fresh, unique beasts in the hands of the right writer. Years ago I was sure the zombie genre was dead, no pun intended. Literature about the undead had already done it all and there was no way a new zombie horror novel could make ...Read More

The Mermaid of Black Conch, Monique Roffey (Peepal Tree 978-1845234577, £9.99, 320pp, tp) April 2020. (Knopf 978-0-59353-420-5, $26.00, 240pp, hc) August 2022. Cover art by Sophie Bass.

The Mermaid of Black Conch reads like a fable mixed in with elements of contemporary fiction, a bizarre version of a love story, and a novel about oth­erness and politics. With Caribbean flavor, culture, speech idiosyncrasies, and history permeating the narrative, it’s ...Read More

The Nectar of Nightmares, Craig Laurance Gidney (Underland 978-1-63023-063-0, $16.99, 166pp, tp) July 2022. Cover by Firebird Creative with elements by deryart.

One of the coolest things about reading books with reviewing in mind is that you think about them critically, looking for ways to talk about them once you finally sit down to write your review. I did a quick trip to New York City recently, and Craig ...Read More

Black Mouth, Ronald Malfi (Titan 978-1-78909-865-5, $15.95, 448pp, tp) July 2022.

Ronald Malfi is one of the most consistent pur­veyors of great horror fiction, and Black Mouth is a superb addition to his outstanding oeuvre. A creepy novel about a man getting kids to kill other kids, Black Mouth is a gritty narrative about battling alcoholism and inner demons, leaving the past behind, and the power of friend­ship. It’s ...Read More