Between the ephemeral sense of dread that vanishes as quickly as it appears and the all too well-known terror of family vacation, Diavola kept me both frightened and intrigued! It’s a great read for anyone who loves haunted houses, with a dash of family drama!
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne, (List Price: $27.99, Tor Nightfire, 9781250826121, March 2024)
Reviewed by Courtney Ulrich Smith, Underbrush Books in Rogers, Arkansas
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With Dead Silence (a haunted Titantic in space!) and now Ghost Station, Barnes is set to become the queen of intense, claustrophobic space horror! Again with a small crew of deeply disturbed and damaged people, Barnes sets them loose on an icy, abandoned planet to do some dangerous work for an uncaring corporation. Everyone is hiding something. There is a jump-startle behind every closed door and every corner. If it was just these things, that would be great, but under the chills and thrills there are thoughtful explorations of class, the definition of family, the nature of trauma, and opening oneself up to trust and love.
Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes, (List Price: $27.99, Tor Nightfire, 9781250884923, April 2024)
Reviewed by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia
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I love a horror anthology and a final girl story is even better! This book is a mix of powerhouse authors of color that portray strong black women triumphing over baddies – both human and not. Don’t worry, not EVERYONE survives, so you’ll still get lots of heart-pounding terror, thrills, and chills – plus a side of humor in some tales!
The Black Girl Survives in This One: Horror Stories by Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell, (List Price: $19.99, Flatiron Press, 9781250871657, April 2024)
Reviewed by Andrea Richardson, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia
This was a phenomenal debut from Jenny Kiefer! The suspense and mystery were top notch, and the way they explored different generations in the same dreading horror was fantastic. Anyone who loves movies like The Descent would definitely pick up this book and devour it. It was the perfect book to read for a good chill, especially around Halloween season.
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer, (List Price: $18.99, Quirk Books, 9781683693680, January 2024)
Reviewed by Leah Fallon, Birch Tree Bookstore in Leesburg, Virginia
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Mark and Louise hate each other, but when their parents flee their home in the middle of the night and die in a car crash the siblings are forced to re-unite. What happens when you walk into your family home and see the attic door bolted up? Or your mom’s massive puppet collection whose eyes seem to follow you wherever you go? Well, I’m afraid you may have some trouble selling the house. Filled with family secrets, twists, and an uneasy tone that had me on the edge of my seat, this book was WILD and FUN. It had me second guessing everything around me. Did I turn on the TV? Okay, that milk was not there 5 minutes ago.Is someone messing with me?I loved this. It was creepy. It was weird. It was emotional. It was absolutely bonkers in the best way possible!
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix, (List Price: 28, Berkley, 9780593201268, January 2023)
Reviewed by Janisie Rodriguez, Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Florida
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I am more conscious of writing characters with agency than I am of writing “strong” characters. This is in part due to the fact that many of my early drafts flounder when the main characters lack agency, which I then need to address in revisions! With this story, however, I knew from the start I would intentionally give my main character a voice and a choice in her fate. I decided this for two reasons. First, women, especially those who were not members of the elite, are often silenced in the historical record due to the nature of the sources that survive from the pre- and early modern periods. Giving them a voice in fiction is very important to me. Second, female victims who lack agency is one of the great tropes of classic vampire fiction. Writing vampire stories in the post-Twilight era is a deft game of trope-tipping, and I absolutely wanted to knock that trope in particular on its head in a way that felt organic in a historical setting.
― Isabel Cañas, Interview, Nightmare Magazine
What booksellers are saying about Vampires of El Norte
About Isabel Cañas
Isabel Cañas is a Mexican American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, and New York City, among other places, she has settled in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage.
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An exciting collection of creepy tales from both young authors and noted horror greats. The stories within Never Whistle at Night play within the rules of established horror genres, but there is so much variety from story to story; as a fan of all kinds of horror, I was very happy to have basically every itch scratched. “The Prepper” by Morgan Talty, “Collections” by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala, “Wingless” by Marcie R. Rendon, and “Snakes are Born in The Dark” by D. H. Trujillo were my four favorites.
Never Whistle at Night : An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology by Shane Hawk (editor), Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (editor), (List Price: $17.00, Delacorte Press, 9780593468463, September 2023)
Reviewed by Sam Edge, Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
The story of two black teenage siblings, one wrongfully over-sentenced to indefinite time in the titular Reformatory (based on the infamous Dozier School for Boys), the other working from the outside (if you could call Jim Crow-era Florida “outside”) to get her brother out. With a father MIA, having narrowly escaped a lynch mob for trying to unionize, and a mother recently deceased (but not 100% out of the picture), every choice and action made by the teens give the book a one-step-forward-one-landslide-back momentum right up to the last page. Due brilliantly plates an equal parts jailbreak and ghost story, both playing by history’s rulebook, pulling no punches along the way, with neither element hindering the other, which is a feat on its own, but to make it edge-of-seat-worthy with an epic showdown-at-high-noon finish is just extra icing on the icing.
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, (List Price: $28.99, Saga Press, 9781982188344, October 2023)
Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
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Born with the power to see monsters and ghosts that no one else can, River Rydell’s life has been haunted by the Otherwoods, a supernatural force determined to take River for its own purposes. River has no interest in being a hero and just wants to survive middle school with the fewest monster-related incidents as possible. But when their closest friend is snatched by the Otherwoods, River must gear up to save the day– with their faithful cat, Mr. Fluffy Pancakes, by their side of course. The Otherwoods is equal parts spooky and hilarious with a protagonist readers will find easy to sympathize with and root for. It’s perfect for fans of Thirteens by Kate Alice Marshall and Small Spaces by Katherine Arden.
The Otherwoods by Justine Pucella Winans, (List Price: 17.99, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 9781547612543, September 2023)
Reviewed by Charlie Williams, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi
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Horror movie buff and aspiring film critic Noelle Layne is certain that she would be the Final Girl in any slasher scenario but she never expected that her skills would be put to the test when the "pretend" killer clown at a Halloween party turns out to be the real deal. Now, it will take all of Noelle’s know-how to survive the night and hopefully keep her friends alive with her. Lisa Springer delivers a pulse-pounding thriller that readers will not be able to put down– but be warned, you should read this one in the daylight.
There’s No Way I’d Die First by Lisa Springer, (List Price: 18.99, Delacorte Press, 9780593643174, September 2023)
Reviewed by Charlie Williams, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi
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What an interesting take on modern day parasocial relationships! I loved how it referenced modern fan lingo and even Ao3 with the kidnapping and how it just kept devolving from there. The playlist was a lovely touch as well, it really added to the experience.
Parasocial by Alex de Campi, (List Price: 18.99, Image Comics, 9781534399372, October 2023)
Reviewed by Lana Repic, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia
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“I love horror. I think it’s one of the most expressive, most empathetic genres you can work in. Everyone feels afraid at some point in their life. Reading is a sustained act of telepathy or empathy, and reading horror is even more profound than that: it’s asking people to share real vulnerabilities of yours and open themselves up to their own. It is like going down a tunnel, and hopefully the writer is leading the way with a torch, taking the reader’s hand.
I think it’s because of the difficulty of engaging with it, and having to open yourself up to feelings which society dismisses as being quite childlike. Fear isn’t something we’re particularly interested in dissecting; it’s considered a bit schlocky. But when done right, horror is a transformative experience….” ― Catriona Ward, Interview, The Guardian
What booksellers are saying about Looking Glass Sound
About Catriona Ward
Catriona Ward was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She studied English at the University of Oxford and later earned her master’s degree in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Ward is a three-time winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel: for The Girl from Rawblood, her debut; Little Eve; and The Last House on Needless Street. Little Eve also won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel. Ward is the international bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial.
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“Because I grew up in radio stations, I also grew up with sound as the massive cornerstone of my life. I used my parents’ tape recorders and microphone to record sounds when I was a kid. Later on, I fell in love with film and ransacked the local video store for all the horror movies I could carry home. My best friends were long-dead actors and rubber monsters.” ― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Letter from the Author
What booksellers are saying about Silver Nitrate
About Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of the novels The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Velvet Was the Night, Mexican Gothic, Gods of Jade and Shadow, and a bunch of other books. She has also edited several anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award–winning She Walks in Shadows (a.k.a. Cthulhu’s Daughters). She has been nominated for the Locus Award for her work as an editor and has won the British Fantasy Award and the Locus Award for her work as a novelist.
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Black River Orchard hit me like a combination of Stephen King and really good Magnus Archives episode, in the best of ways. For my fellow booksellers, this book is a mix of Stephen King’s IT and Faust — like if Faust was an apple farmer, and then mix up layers of horror–there’s psychological horror of domestic abuse and being trapped, of seeing people change for the worse. There’s body horror. Hooo boy, there’s body horror. And on top of all of that, I learned about apples!
Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig, (List Price: $29.99, Del Rey, 9780593158746, September 2023)
Reviewed by Alex Mcleod, The Haunted Book Shop in Mobile, Alabama
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Eric Larocca’s newest novel Everything the Darkness Eats weaves cosmic horror with small town prejudice into a tale of creeping dread. Larocca never shies away from the gruesome or the traumatic and weaves these darkest parts alongside love. This Connecticut town is neither cozy nor warm, and is instead full of mysterious and bizarre disappearances, unrestrained bigotry and the dark effects of its most powerful resident Mr. Crowley. Interweaving two resident’s attempts to uncover and stop the horror, Larocca forces his characters to reckon with what means the most to them and to what lengths they’ll go for closure, revenge, and love. Perfect for fans of Clive Barker and other cosmic horror.
Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca, (List Price: 16.95, CLASH Books, 9781955904278, June 2023)
Reviewed by Mikey LaFave, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
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