New Horror for a New Year

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of those early teen influences in my life that pretty much guaranteed I’d end up a horror fan. So obviously it is my great delight to include Kendare Blake’s forthcoming Buffy Universe novel on this list! Frankie Rosenberg, daughter of our favorite local witch, Willow, is a sophomore at New Sunnydale High (RIP old Sunnydale HS, you went through some shit) when her life is suddenly upended by a new girl who arrives at the school with word of an attack on the annual Slayer convention. With all the Slayers potentially slain (ba dum tish), a new hero must rise to take their place. But as a Slayer-Witch Frankie is the first of her kind, and it will take all the help her new friends can give if she has any chance of preventing (you guessed it!) the opening of the Hellmouth.

Alright my gruesome Gothic lovers, this one’s for you. Get ready for some corpse-stealing hijinks in 19th century Edinburgh and a whole lot of Frankenstein vibes. I had the chance to read this one a bit early and it’s honestly so entertaining, and just the right bit of creepy meets gross. (Like, corpse gore in your hair gross). Hazel Sinnett may have been born a lady, but her only desire in life is to be a surgeon, healing bodies and maybe even finding a cure for the terrible Roman Plague that claimed her older brother’s life. But when her disguise as a boy is uncovered and she’s expelled from her anatomy classes, Hazel finds herself forced to use more nefarious means to continue her studies. Enter Jack Currer, a resurrection man walking a thin line between poverty and plague. Hazel needs bodies, and Jack needs coin. It’s a perfect (and perfectly dreadful) arrangement.

Bonus points for having a cover that is drop dead GORGEOUS.

If you’ve already read your way through Castro’s 2021 releases, Goddess of Filth and The Queen of Cicadas, fear not! Because she’s ready and waiting to kick off your new year with a gorgeous, dark collection of short stories that you won’t want to miss. On the other hand, if you haven’t read any of Castro’s books yet, Mestiza Blood will make an excellent jumping off point! I’ve said more than once that when it comes to exploring a new author, I always go straight for a collection to get the best idea of their range and style. The stories in Mestiza Blood, for example, draw their inspiration from a variety of sources – from urban legends and Mexican folklore, to traditional horror archetypes and personal experience – and once again Castro delivers up the chills and nightmares her readers have come to expect.

This book kind of wrecked me, I’m not going to lie. I mean I expected it to be amazing, but I did not at all expect it to get under my skin the way it did. Such a Pretty Smile is about two figures, a mother and a daughter, and two timelines: Caroline in 2004, the young and talented artist finds herself married to a loser, struggling with her mental health, and unexpectedly pregnant just as a dark, buried secret from her past begins to reveal itself. Then there’s Lila in 2019, Caroline’s young daughter who is secretly in love with her (terrible) best friend Macie, and facing a mental crisis of her own as she chafes under her mother’s anxious control. Though there is evil a plenty to face, and monsters both literal and figurative, at its heart, Such a Pretty Smile is about not just survival after terrible trauma, but also the way in which mothers can hand their trauma down to their daughters, even when trying to protect them.

Content Warnings: there are definite content warnings for rape and sexual assault, child sexual abuse, and kidnapping, among other associated factors, which some readers might wish to avoid. If in doubt, check the early reviews.

This is how you do an anthology, people. This is the kind of TOC I would like to see more of! Over half of the authors in this collection are authors of color, and of the thirty, some total contributing authors about two-thirds are women. And not only is the TOC diverse, it’s also loaded with talent. If you’re looking for an anthology to kick off your 2022, definitely start here. Now, technically, Trouble the Waters is more broadly a SFF/Spec Fic anthology, which means that it’s not 100% horror, but with Nalo Hopkinson, Linda D. Addison, and Maurice Broaddus contributing to the collection, you know at least a few of the stories will be delightfully dark.