Author: Jessica Avery

I can’t wait to get my hands on Andrew Joseph White’s new book. You all know how much I love historical horror, the darker the better. Set in 1883, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is about a 16-year-old named Silas Bell, whose violet-eyes have doomed him to a life as a medium for the Royal Speaker Society, married against his will and consigned to the role of Speaker wife. The world is determined to see Silas as a girl, and Silas is determined to do whatever he must to escape the life they have planned for him. But things go from bad to worse when his resistance results in him being shipped off to a “sanatorium” masquerading as a finishing school. It’s really a place full of suffering and the ghosts of those who could not be “reformed” into proper wives. If Silas wants to survive, he’ll have to expose the darkness hiding beneath the school’s respectable facade.

Oh my grimy gods, this book is everything. Bloom packs so much dread and chaotic fallout into its limited page count, and I need you all to read it when it comes out and then come find me where I lie, perishing slowly from how much I am obsessed with this sharp, dark, sapphic disaster. Rosemary and Ash meet at the farmer’s market, where Ash has a stall selling everything from candles and soap to plants and decadent, creatively flavored cupcakes. What starts as a tentative friendship over plant parenthood and Rosemary’s affection for cupcakes quickly becomes a romance. But Ash’s life is full of secrets and lines that she’s determined Rosemary not cross. And Rosemary’s growing obsession with Ash may be blinding her to a dark and frightening truth.

H. E. Edgmon is back with a new book this November! Godly Heathens is more fantasy, technically, not horror, but this tale of a war between gods is dark enough that I feel comfortable sneaking it onto this list. It’s about a group of teens who find themselves embroiled in an ancient divine war. Gem has always had violent, frightening dreams, but they had no way of knowing that those dreams were visions of a past life and a precursor of the danger to come. That’s why they’ve never told their friend Enzo about the dreams, even though Enzo knows everything else about Gem. But when Gem is attacked by someone claiming to be the Goddess of Death, they have to face the possibility that there’s more going on than they can see. Meanwhile, Willa Mae, newly arrived in Gem’s tiny town, seems to have the answers and spins a fantastical story about reincarnated gods, a love that spans the ages, and the wrath of enemies determined to destroy Gem for the actions of the god he used to be.

Nightmare Island is about 12-year-old Serenity who finds herself pitted against an island of faceless monsters with backward feet in an effort to save her little brother. Serenity has always had nightmares, and she’s always hidden those frightening dreams about silver butterflies and shadowy monsters from her parents. But when her younger brother, Peace, starts having nightmares of his own and her parents take him away to the sinister Duppy Island for “treatment,” Serenity starts to question whether the images she’s been seeing in her head were ever nightmares to begin with. Because if she’s suddenly seeing silver butterflies in real life, shadowy monsters can’t be far behind.

An 11-year-old trans boy, Simon, and his siblings, are sent to stay at their grandmother’s strange old house while their parents have the kind of “talk” about their marriage that you don’t have around your young children. But if the knowledge that things in his family are about to change drastically, and the fact that he’s the only one in his family who actually knows he’s a boy named Simon, weren’t enough for a young boy to handle, there’s also something very wrong with his grandmother’s house. Creepy shadows are gathering in the corners. Something is scratching inside the walls. Determined to discover the truth, Simon recruits his sisters into a ghost hunt. Someone is haunting his grandmother’s home and Simon’s going to find out who and why.

Now, obviously, apocalyptic stories don’t always fall under the horror umbrella. Alex Wise vs. the End of the World is actually a middle grade fantasy novel about rising 7th grader Alex Wise who ends up being gifted with powers and charged with stopping the Horsemen of the Apocalypse from ending the world. But hey, it’s got shadow monsters, and of course, there are the sinister figures of the Horsemen themselves. So I’d argue Benton-Walker’s newest definitely has a place in this newsletter! Alex will have to figure out his new powers quickly if he and his ragtag team of co-heroes are going to manage to not only defeat the horsemen and save the world but also save Alex’s sister Mags from the spirit of Death possessing her. Not what you’d call your average summer vacation!

You know what is always a terrible idea? Exploring an abandoned military bunker rumored to have been used for top secret scientific experiments. (She says, knowing that she’d probably do it anyway if given the chance.) Because, I mean, even if the local legends are wrong, you’re still going to be underground in a creepy, abandoned bunker. I’ve seen that horror movie. It seldom ends well. It certainly didn’t end well for Liv, who led her friends on a trip to a former military bunker that, so the stories say, is inhabited by monsters. But it’s just a story, right? Where’s the danger? Well, apparently it’s in that bunker. Because Liv is the only one who gets out alive. She turns up at the local police station, covered in blood, raving about — of all things — killer mermaids.

This book. Ya’ll, seriously. It’s so good. It fulfills all the dreams of the little mermaid loving horror fan I once was (and still am, let’s be honest). All Ren Yu wants is to become a mermaid. (And feast on the flesh of tasty sea goers.) She’s already a swimmer, whose love of being in the water butts up against the expectations that she’ll use her skill at swimming to advance in life. Get into a good college on an athletic scholarship. Be successful — a state of being highly defined by everyone in Ren’s life except herself. When really all she wants is to escape from landlocked concerns and sink deep into the ocean until she’s nothing but fins and teeth. She wants to be free, and she’ll stop at nothing to make it happen.

Now Into the Drowning Deep is the obvious pick for this list, I know. It’s a fantastic bit of ocean horror, killer mermaids included, and I’ve actually never featured it in The Fright Stuff before now! So I’d say it’s about time. Seven years before the story begins, a cruise ship called the Atargatis set out for the Mariana Trench with a film crew on board. Their plan was to acquire enough footage and eyewitness testimonies to slap together a “mockumentary” on mermaids, but they found much more than they bargained for. Now a second crew has been brought together to research the fate of the Atargatis, among them Victoria Stewart whose sister was lost when the Atargatis went down. The truth about what happened to her sister can only be found on that same stretch of ocean above the trench, the Atargatis’ last known location, and Victoria isn’t going home without answers. No matter what secrets might lurk beneath the waves.

I have chosen to include Mermaids Never Drown in this week’s list with the caveat that it is an anthology that is not exclusively horror. I’m willing to lay odds that there’s more than one dark and horrifying twist on the mermaid mythos in this collection of 14 stories, given that a few of the authors included frequent the horror genre. However, I cannot promise you an anthology full of JUST flesh eating and bloodied waters. That being said, I’m so beyond excited that Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker are editing another collection like Vampires Never Get Old, and this time around, centering the history of merfolk in folklore and storytelling. And with authors like Kalynn Bayron, June Hur, Kerri Maniscalco, and many others on board, you just know that Mermaids Never Drown is going to be fin-tastic. (I won’t apologize for that, you can’t mako me.)

The damage that family can do when they don’t love you the way they should, just the way you are, is at the heart of this gorgeous retelling of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When Gabriel Utterson was sent to London by his father to study medicine he fell head over heels in love with fellow medical student Henry Jekyll. But it’s hard to hide a love that burns that brightly, and before long rumors and whispers begin to follow Henry and Gabriel, forcing them to separate. When Gabriel returns to London after a long summer away, it becomes instantly clear that something is wrong with Henry, and Gabriel is certain that it has to do the with the strange young man, Hyde, who has been seen coming and going from the Jekyll household. If Gabriel cannot discover the truth about what has happened to Henry, he may be at risk of losing the boy he loves forever.

This book, y’all. The slow, unfolding realization of the horrifying truth at the heart of Vera’s childhood. The eerie almost-haunting rooted in the things she doesn’t want to remember. Just so good. Vera returns to her childhood home — the home that her father built — at the behest of her dying mother. But any hopes Vera might have had of loving, tearful reconciliations are dashed soon after she arrives. Her mother is as caustic and distant as ever, and her serial killer father’s ghost lurks around every corner. Possibly literally. Add to that the artist with avaristic intent, and a lascivious interest in Vera’s bloody past, who is currently squatting in the converted garden shed in the backyard, and is it any wonder that all Vera’s darkest memories are coming home to roost?

Speaking of books that fall into the category of “Read This. Just Do It.” When Black Sheep comes out in September, I need you all to run not walk to the bookstore. Okay? Promise. Because this book is the crown jewel of “your family can fuck you up like no other.” I mean after all, that’s why Vesper left her tiny religious community when she was 18. She didn’t believe so she didn’t belong, and having chosen to leave, she couldn’t go back if she wanted to. Until, that is, a wedding invitation arrives and with it an offer: come home. Unable to resist the pull of family after so many years alone, Vesper gets on a train. But back home things aren’t quite like she remembers, and secrets new and old are bubbling to the surface. When one particularly terrifying truth comes to light, Vera will have to reconsider everything she thought she knew about her childhood, her family’s faith, and the people who were supposed to love her.

Between literature, TV, and film, there are thousands of stories of people traveling into the unknown, remote “American West,” in search of new opportunities or fleeing pasts they hope won’t follow them (though they always do). Lavalle has taken that familiar story and given it a sharp, horrifying twist in Lone Women. It’s the story of a woman who arrives on the Montana frontier to take the U.S. government up on its offer of free land in the wilderness to any homesteader who can settle and keep it. And Adelaide isn’t the only one; there are a number of “lone women” taking their chances on the Montana frontier. But not all of them have come to Montana literally dragging their pasts behind them like Adelaide has, hidden away in the massive steamer trunk that travels with her but always remains locked.

Hailey Piper’s Cruel Angels Past Sundown, published just last week, is the most recent title in Death’s Head Press’ Splatter Western series, whose gorgeous pulpy covers are almost as memorable as the stories they contain. Set in New Mexico Territory in 1882, Cruel Angels Past Sundown is about a woman, Annette, and her husband, whose life together is violently and irrevocably interrupted one day at sunset when a naked, pregnant woman stumbles onto their ranch. Escaping the bloodshed that follows, Annette flees to the nearby town. But the nightmare of that night has followed her to Low’s Bend. If she wants to survive the hell that’s coming, she’ll have to put her trust in new friends and face down an evil more frightening than anything she has yet encountered.

Vampires of El Norte takes place in 1846 in a territory that was once part of Mexico before being annexed into the United States, and is centered around the events that sparked the Mexican-American War. Nena and Néstor were childhood sweethearts growing up on her father’s ranch until the night that Nena was attacked by a terrifying winged creature. Néstor vanished into the night, sure that Nena was dead and that he would be blamed. Years later, they’re brought together again by the looming war with the United States, and find themselves having to set aside their past in order to survive when the violence of the battlefield gives way to an even more horrifying, unnatural danger in the form of the same monsters that once attacked Nena. The only way for Nena and Néstor to protect their home and the ones they love is to work together, or everything will be lost, including their second chance at a life together.

Paula D. Ashe’s We Are Here to Hurt Each Other won the Shirley Jackson for best single-author collection, and rightly so! It’s a dark and horrifying collection of 12 stories full of gore and decay. If you’re a fan of horror that leaves you feeling uneasy in your skin, this is the collection for you. Just looking at that cover creeps me out! Hello terrifying teeth creature of my nightmares. If you’ve been reading Fright Stuff for a while, you know that I love a collection. I think they’re one of the best ways to get acquainted with a new author, so go pick up a copy of We Are Here to Hurt Each Other today.

Angela Slatter won best novella this year with The Bone Lantern. The Bone Lantern is about a woman playing storyteller for the strange creature that visits her campfire one night. Intent on prolonging her survival until she can escape, Selke offers the creature her dinner and spins it a series of dark and fantastical tales. There’s a young witch, trying to survive the court of a dangerous prince with a penchant for killing his wives, a magical harp that was created to help its maker seek revenge, and the story of Selke’s own quest for something called the bone lantern.

Congratulations, last but definitely not least, to Gabino Iglesias, whose The Devil Takes You Home tied for best novel! The Devil Takes You Home is about a man, Mario, who takes a job as a hired gun in order to pay for his daughter’s medical bills. Only to find that he’s particularly good at the violent work his new job entails. But when the job that was supposed to be his last takes a terrifying and inexplicable turn for the worse, Mario will find himself on a dangerous journey through Texas and across the border. There’s $200,000 waiting for him on the other side of this job, and a life beyond his career as a hitman. If Mario can survive long enough to claim it.

Read this book. I’m not even asking, I am full-on Bigolas Dickolas and telling you to read this book, or I will come to your house and serenade you loudly with off-key covers of whale songs until you comply. Because if Daniel Kraus is going to make me cry over whales, I’m taking y’all with me. If you haven’t seen the rave (and fully deserved) reviews making the rounds, Kraus’ tense, beautiful, horrifying survival thriller Whalefall is shaping up to be one of the best new horror books of this year. Jay Gardiner knows the risks he’s taking when he sets off from one of the most dangerous beaches on the West Coast to search for his father’s bones. Diving always comes with risks, but they’ll be worth it if Jay can find his father’s remains and get a break from the guilt that has plagued him since his Father committed suicide a year ago. At first, everything goes according to plan. Until Jay dives too deep and ends up being swallowed by a sperm whale hunting for squid. Trapped in the belly of the massive whale, Jay has one hour to find his way out before his air runs out.

My obsession with large ships will not permit me to create this list without including at least one haunted ocean liner book, and Alma Katsu’s The Deep is a perfect example of that particular subcategory. But reader be duly cautioned, if you’re looking for a tense, fast-paced read, The Deep is not the one you want. Its excellence lies in its slow-building storytelling and creeping, dread-filled tone. What begins on the Titanic with a forbidden attachment and inevitable tragedy finds its resolution on the equally ill-fated Britannic. Annie, one of the survivors of the Titanic, has brought her demons with her to her stint as a nurse on board the luxury liner turned hospital ship, the Britannic. The past has a way of clinging that even the sea can’t wash away, and when she comes across an unconscious soldier who she recognizes as a young man who absolutely could not have survived the disaster of the Titanic, she is forced to confront her past and question the very memories that haunt her.

Rae Knowles can just have my money because I need this horror novella about Sapphic pirates more than I need life. Or groceries. Out in November from the excellent Brigids Gate Press, Merciless Waters is about a mysterious pirate ship Scylla, crewed only by women with no past. They spend their days roaming the sea, and for Jaq and Lily that’s enough. Their past doesn’t matter, only the present they share. Until, that is, the crew finds a man adrift on the sea and brings him on board. Lured by the promise of something new and unfamiliar, Lily abandons Jaq in favor of the exciting new interloper. But even as Jaq contemplates her options for revenge, strange happenings begin to overtake the crew of the Scylla. Something about the man’s arrival on the ship has caused the members of the crew to start to remember the pasts they lost and how it was they came to be on board the Scylla in the first place. With the truth rising to the surface and the Scylla nearing land, time is running short for Jaq, who faces a difficult choice that will determine not just her future, but that of Lily and all her fellow pirates aboard the Scylla.

Anna came to the distant frontier town of Whisperwood to disappear. Where better to hide from her witch-hunter ex, than a town that doesn’t exist? Whisperwood doesn’t show up on any map, and its population is completely isolated from the outside world. But once inside Whisperwood, Anna soon finds that she can’t leave, trapped inside the town’s borders by an unfamiliar folk magic. The secret to Whisperwood, and to Anna’s freedom, may lie in the strange forest that surrounds the town, but only if she can survive long enough to uncover it. I have been looking forward to Whisperwood and I am so excited that it’s finally making its way into the world tomorrow!

McCarthy’s new Gothic novel is a gorgeous, tragic tale of grief, secrets, folklore, and family curses. Grace Morgan, still trying to come to terms with the death of her mother, moves into the seaside house she inherited in Wales and is forced to confront the family curse that may spell the end of everything she knows and loves. You all know I love a book where the monster/ghost/curse/etc. that threatens the main character is a manifestation of some aspect of themselves that they must face, and I have a particular soft spot for manifestations of grief. So of course I am beyond ready to get my hands on A Moonlit Path of Madness. It also gets bonus points for being partially epistolary!

Wrath James White returns to the printed page with The Ecstasy of Agony, a new collection of hardcore horror stories and poems. If you’ve ever read any of White’s work before, you know it’s not for the faint of heart (looking at you, If You Died Tomorrow I Would Eat Your Corpse), but it always rewards its readers with a terrible sort of beauty, and stories you won’t soon forget. So whether you’re a long time fan or new to White’s brand of horror, I highly recommend picking up a copy of The Ecstasy of Agony when it comes out tomorrow.

I would just like to say: This whole newsletter is Premee Mohamed’s fault. The gorgeous, eerie cover of her recent short fiction collection No One Will Come Back for Us (another beautiful book brought to you by the one and only Undertow Publications!) captivated me and I had to pay it tribute. Combining science fiction and dark fantasy with harrowing cosmic horror, the stories in No One Will Come Back for Us catapult readers from the forgotten realms of ancient gods deep beneath the sea to the vast, merciless depths of space.The only thing guaranteed is that monsters await in all the shadowed, forgotten corners of the world that Mohamed crafts. And they probably have tentacles.

I loved this weird, creepy, queer Lovecraft-inspired YA horror so much, and I am begging you to please read it and then come talk to me. Adelle and Connie are best friends and super fans of an obscure gothic romance novel called Moira. So much so that when offered the opportunity to be transported into the novel and experience the world of Moira for themselves, they decide to take the chance. But inside the pages of Moira, things have gone terribly wrong. Instead of a lush Gothic setting, dripping with romance and velvet, the two girls find themselves trapped in a horror story, surrounded by the creepy servants of the tentacle monster that’s squatting in the harbor, and entangled with the book’s characters in a desperate bid to save both themselves and the fictional world they love

If you love Cassandra Khaw’s more recent books, but have caught yourself thinking: “you know what The Salt Grows Heavy needs? More eyes and tentacles!” Oh jiminy do I have a book recommendation for you. Hammers on Bone, and its sequel A Song for Quiet, are an excellent mix of arcane monsters and hardboiled detective work. A bit Lovecraft, a bit noir, it’ll scratch all your cosmic horror itches (even the ones the tentacles can’t reach). John Persons is a P.I. with a talent for handling the ancient and abominable, being ancient and somewhat abominable himself. Which makes him the perfect person to hunt down the stepfather of his newest client, a man infected with a monstrous alien presence.

My last pick of the week is S.L Coney’s forthcoming, Wild Spaces, a cosmic horror novel about an 11-year-old boy and a dark family secret. He lives with his parents and his dog on the remote South Carolina coast, and his childhood, though isolated, was not unhappy. Until the day his estranged grandfather turns up at the house, and his unwanted visit begins to expose the inconsistencies in the boy’s life that he cared to question before. Now it’s clear that his parents are and have been keeping secrets from him. Things they still refuse to explain. Things that, just maybe, have something to do with the strange and frightening changes happening to the boy’s body, transforming him into something new and monstrous.

The Death I Gave Him is actually the first of two horror/dark fiction Shakespeare retellings on this list. Which, as an eternal English major, I find just so delightful. The name of the game is Hamlet through the lens of a locked room sci-fi thriller, with plenty of murder, gore, and body horror to satisfy any horror reader. A scientist on the verge of a momentous discovery — the defeat of death itself — has his work interrupted in brutal fashion when his father (and co-researcher) is murdered in their lab. In a bid to catch the killer himself, Hayden steals his own research. Only to discover that his father had suspected his death was near and left a message charging Hayden to avenge him. What ensues is a deadly game of whodunnit within the locked down laboratory. There are only four other people in the building besides Hyden, and one of them is a murderer.

Now, see, that’s an Upsetting cover. So squiggly. So wiggly. Slimy. Pulpy. I just love it, and I can’t wait for Brainwyrms to hit shelves this October. I absolutely devoured Rumfitt’s oh so disturbing and terrifying Tell Me I’m Worthless when it came out earlier this year, and I have been eagerly anticipating the release of Brainwyrms ever since. When the aftermath of a transphobia-motivated bombing at her workplace upends Frankei’s life, it leaves her grasping for someway to cope with the fallout. Along the way she finds herself falling hard and fast for a mysterious woman with too many secrets. The more time Frankie spends with Vanya, the more she’s sure Vanya’s hiding something sinister from her, and unfortunately for Frankie, she’s right.

Someone give me this book already. Please, just put it in my hands so I can put it in my eyes. December is such a long time away and, as someone who absolutely adored Wilkes’ All the White Spaces, I am impatient! Taking us back to the cold and the dark, Wilkes steers us towards the Arctic this time, following in the footsteps of William Day who is returning to the ice 13 years after his disastrous Arctic expedition. His then second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has vanished, and if Day can find Jesse, just maybe he can redeemed himself in the eyes of society. But things soon go from bad to worse when Day’s rescue mission descends into chaos and darkness. The ice is unforgiving and its memory is long. Day will have to face the horrors of his own past if he hopes to survive the dark days ahead and bring Jesse home.

Caitlin Marceau’s But A Dream is the aforementioned second Shakespeare retelling on this list, and honestly December can not come fast enough. Because as excited as I am for all the new queer horror we’re getting this year, I am absolutely over the moon that Marceau is giving us a dark retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my absolute favorite Shakespeare play. But a Dream is about a group of four friends whose camping trip in the Canadian wilderness goes awry. Horribly awry. Cataclysmically, terribly, violently awry when they kill and eat what they assume to be a deer but is in fact a witch in disguise. A witch whose magic, upon consumption, produces some very…unpleasant side effects…