Gabino Iglesias

Coup de Grâce, Sofia Ajram (Titan Books 978-1-80336-962-4, $19.99, 144pp, hc) October 2024.

Sofia Ajram’s Coup de Grâce is a relentlessly dark and visceral novel about a man on his way to commit suicide who somehow becomes trapped in the endless liminal space of an empty subway station. Beautifully written and claustrophobic in the way only empty liminal spaces can be, this short novel delivers breathtaking lines along with ...Read More

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Brian Evenson (Cof­fee House Press 978-1-56689-709-9, $19.00, 229pp, hc) September 2024. Cover by Jeffrey Alan Love.

When it comes to inhabiting and traversing the interstitial spaces between genres, no one does it better than Brian Evenson. Science fiction, hor­ror, and literary fiction are the main three genres Evenson writes, but the bridges he builds between those genres – and the brilliant way in which he ...Read More

Hot Singles in Your Area, Jordan Shiveley (Unbound 978-1-80018-341-4, $18.00, 208pp, tp) February 2025. Cover by Jack Smyth.

Some books are hard to categorize. Jordan Shiveley’s Hot Singles in Your Area is one of those books. Strangely funny and danc­ing to the strange sound of its own drum, this novel has one foot in body horror and one foot in something akin to bizarro fiction (think authors like Carlton ...Read More

Graveyard Shift, M.L. Rio (Flatiron 978-1-250-35679-6, $16.99, 144pp, tp) September 2024. Cover by Teagan White.

Novellas sometimes feel like tasty morsels you devour in one sitting, and M.L. Rio’s Graveyard Shift demands to be read quickly. In fact, the story takes place in a single night. Between the great pacing, the brief chapters, and the growing mystery at the core of the narrative, this little book is hard to ...Read More

Remedy, J.S. Breukelaar (PS Publishing 978-1-80394-485-2, £25.00, 208pp, hc) August 2024. Cover by Jeffrey Alan Love.

Imagine suddenly being attacked by a creature that comes down from the sky. The thing, which you can’t see well, has big teeth and powerful, sharp talons that dig into your flesh. Now imag­ine this: That horror isn’t the worst thing in J.S. Breukelaar’s Remedy, a curious horror novel that explores the ...Read More

Model Home, Rivers Solomon (MCD 978-0-37460-713-5, $28.00, 304pp, hc) October 2024. Cover by Abby Kagan.

Rivers Solomon’s Model Home is a novel about a haunted house in which said house sits in the background while haunted people take center stage. Stunningly written and full of the kind of trauma that can only come from family, this novel takes the haunted house trope and turns it into something that feels entirely ...Read More

Cicada, Tanya Pell (Shortwave 978-1-95956-534-5, $13.99, 192pp, tp) September 2024. Cover by Alan Lastufka.

Tanya Pell’s Cicada is a fun, fast, pulpy horror novel that’s part survival narrative and part crea­ture feature. It’s also a book that’s packed with tips of the hat and the kind of writing that lets you know an author is really a fan of the genre and has a great time doing what they ...Read More

Hampton Height, Dan Kois (Harper Perennial 978-0-06335-875-1, $16.99, 208pp, tp) September 2024. Cover by Jackie Alvarado

Dan Kois’s Hampton Heights: One Har­rowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is very much like its title in that it shouldn’t work, but it somehow does. Entertaining, touching, and funnier than I expected, this short novel about a group of kids spending a night trying to sell newspaper subscriptions in ...Read More

Crypt of the Moon Spider, Nathan Ballingrud (Nightfire 978-1-25029-173-8, $17.99, 85pp, tp) August 2024. Cover by Sam Araya.

Nathan Ballingrud is one of the finest purveyors of speculative fiction working today, and Crypt of the Moon Spider, the first book in what will be The Lunar Gothic Trilogy, further cements him as one of the strongest voices in the field. Wonderfully atmospheric and very strange, Crypt of the ...Read More

Drill, Scott R. Jones (Word Horde 978-1-95625-209-5, $19.99, 256pp, tp) August 2024. Cover by Matthew Revert.

Sometimes you’re reading a book and suddenly ask yourself, “What the hell am I reading?” This can be a bad thing or an excellent thing. In the case of Scott R. Jones’s Drill, it’s the latter. Slightly surreal, angry, smart, Lovecraftian, chaotic, and written with the kind of prose that dances between ...Read More

Your Shadow Half Remains, Sunny Moraine (Nightfire 978-1-25089-220-1, $16.99, 176pp, tp) February 2024.

If you look at someone, you’re dead. Not just dead, but dead in some horrible, violent way. That’s the premise at the core of Sunny Moraine’s Your Shadow Half Remains. Yes, readers familiar with Josh Malerman’s Bird Box may see a similarity to that novel in that premise, but Your Shadow Half Remains is very different, ...Read More

Incidents Around the House, Josh Malerman (Del Rey 978-0-59372-312-8, $28.00, 384pp, hc) June 2024.

After so many great novels – Bird Box, Goblin, Black Mad Wheel, Daphne – perhaps the most impressive thing about Josh Malerman is that he seems to be getting better with each new novel. That’s certainly the case with Incidents Around the House, which is the author’s fastest, sharpest, creepiest novel to ...Read More

How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive, Craig DiLouie (Redhook 978-0-31656-931-6, $19.99, 400pp, ppb) June 2024.

Funny horror is hard to do right, but Craig DiLouie delivers plenty of it in How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive. At once a send up of the movie industry, a brutal horror novel where a lot of people die in horrible ways, and an exploration of art and ...Read More

This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Distur­bances, Eric LaRocca (Titan 978-1-80336-664-7, $22.99, 240pp, hc) April 2024.

Eric LaRocca has quickly established himself as one of strongest and most unique voices in contempo­rary horror fiction. This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances is emotionally charged and full of the kind of strange body horror LaRocca is known for. A collection of four novellas that aren’t afraid to explore humanity, ...Read More

Forgotten Sisters, Cynthia Pelayo (Thomas & Mercer 978-1-66251-391-6, $16.99, 303pp, tp) March 2024. Cover by Olga Grlic.

Cynthia Pelayo has made a name for herself in horror by bringing to the table a mixture of horror, crime fiction, and folklore that always contains a dash of poetry and by telling stories that invariably take place in Chicago, a city that Pelayo always turns into a character in her work. ...Read More

Small Town Horror, Ronald Malfi (Titan Books 978-1-80336-565-7, $27.99, 400pp, hc) June 2024.

It’s hard to find fresh, unique ghost stories. It’s probably even harder to find original narra­tives – horror, mystery, crime, whatever – in which someone is forced to go back to their home­town to face their past. In Small Town Horror, author Ronald Malfi manages to do both. At once a spooky tale about a ...Read More

Black Sheep, Rachel Harrison (Berkley 978-0-59354-585-0, $27.00, 304pp, hc) September 2023. Cover by Katie Anderson.

Horror, perhaps the best dancing partner when it comes to genre because it gets along very well with everyone else, can be a lot of things, and that includes hilarious. Rachel Harrison’s Black Sheep contains all the elements you’d expect from a horror novel – a creepy presence, dread, emotional turmoil, bloody sacrifices, Satan. However, ...Read More

What Kind of Mother, Clay McLeod Chapman (Quirk Books 978-1-68369-380-2, $21.99, 304pp, hc) September 2023.

Clay McLeod’s Chapman’s What Kind of Moth­er is a great horror novel in which creepiness and body horror take a back seat to grief and the horror it pushes people to do. A story that’s as harrowing as it is sad and strange, What Kind of Mother is a superb addition to McLeod’s catalog and ...Read More

The September House, Carissa Orlando (Berk­ley 978-0-59354-861-5, $27.00, 352pp, hc) Sep­tember 2023. Cover by Daniel Brount.

Books that can make you feel things are special, and Carissa Orlando’s The Sep­tember House will make readers feel a lot of different things. The September House is a strange horror novel in which the horror elements are mostly dealt with using the kind of nonchalance people display while waiting in line at the ...Read More

Dead Eleven, Jimmy Juliano (Dutton 978-0-59347-192-0, $27.00, 448pp, hc) June 2023.

Jimmy Juliano’s Dead Eleven is one of the most impressive debuts of 2023. The narrative, which follows a woman’s disappearance on a strange island, has a unique approach that makes it read like a found-footage film. It also mixes a lot of creepy lore, a secretive community stuck in the past in a strange island, and something stalking people ...Read More