2021 Adult Horror Releases by Women

Hey so if we haven’t breached this subject yet in the Fright Stuff, I am obsessed with space horror. I don’t know if it’s the vast vacuum of space, or the fact that said vastness isolates and confines you to the strict boundaries of what is basically a haunted house in space, or the tantalizing possibility of the unknown, but I love space horror more than life. So I am beyond excited for Kali Wallace’s forthcoming novel, Dead Space. Sometimes when your big life plans go awry you end up working a dead-end job in an asteroid belt. Hester Marley is a security officer for a mining company, spending her days on petty crimes, when an old friend resurfaces. They’re both survivors of the terrorist attack that ruined Hester’s life, but before she can learn what her friend claims to have discovered about their shared tragedy, he’s murdered. Leaving Hester to search out both his killer, and his secrets.

This forthcoming dark fantasy novel sounds like it’s going to be 110% my thing. Shadowy cabals, espionage, power, deceptions, violence? Yum. Elfreda Raughn can handle the day-to-day duties of serving the Sisterhood of Aytrium, no matter how gruesome. But she will do whatever it takes to avoid becoming pregnant and fulfilling her part in preserving the Sisterhood’s magical bloodline. There are different kinds of sacrifices, and in order to avoid the fate she most despises, Elfreda will have to choose a path that leads her into the upper echelons of the Sisterhood, and a lavish world of parties and power struggles. This is definitely going to be one of those reads where I’m up all night because I couldn’t put it down.

Oh look. More space horror. I told you how much I love space horror, right? A team of former criminals, disbanded in the wake of a mission-turned-disaster, must rejoin forces if they want to uncover what really happened on their last, fateful last job. And if they want to rescue their missing team member. These women, half-clone and half-machine, must return to Dimmuborgir, the site of their past failure, but they are not the only ones in search of the planet’s secret. In a world where the universe’s AI have evolved into an independent force with their own agency and will, the team must face down not only their own pasts but also a sentient force determined to see that humans never regain control.

I mean she had me at sentient ships, so someone just give her my money and I’ll be over here waiting for June.

I admit that I haven’t been able to find much information yet about Flowers from the Sea for all that, according to the publisher’s site, it is due out in September. But that just makes me more curious! I’m willing to wait because this novella sounds fantastic. Survivors of a flooded land exist in isolation, fighting for their continued survival on an ark. Supplies are dwindling, hungry, terrifying sea monsters circle – in other words, circumstances are NOT ideal. Among the survivors is Iraxi, pregnant with a child that may not be entirely human. The future of the ark and its survivors is uncertain, and Iraxi’s own fate may be darker still.

You might remember me shouting enthusiastically about the cover of this book earlier this month, and it’s definitely not just the cover that I’m excited about. This promises to be the very height of Gothic horror goodness and I’m so excited. Jane Shoringfield has a carefully calculated plan: husband, marriage of convenience, the ability to remain independent and pursue meaningful work. She sets her mind on Doctor Augustine Lawrence, and the reclusive physician agrees with one (suitably ominous) condition. His family are the Lawrences of Lindridge hall, a (suitably crumbling heap of a) manor outside of the town, and Jane must never, never go there. But, as these things tend to happen in any good Gothic novel, fateful weather sees Jane stranded at the door of Lindridge Hall on her wedding night, and the haunted, paranoid man within bears little resemblance to the man she thought she married.

Please, universe, just put this in my eyeballs. October is so far away.