Author: Jessica Avery

Being able to see the dead is just a part of who Jake Livingston is, just like being one of the only Black kids in his exclusive prep school, or being less popular than his well-liked older brother. But while being a teenager can be an endless series of threats–social, emotional, physical–some more serious than others, at least the dead can be relied upon to be predictable. Most are just harmless fragments of lost life, stuck in a loop of their own death. Sad but safe. Until Sawyer, a powerful vengeful ghost with the ability to put Jake’s very life in danger. In life, Sawyer committed a terrible act of violence, shooting six kids at a local high school and then himself. In death he has plans, and those plans require Jake.

There are a lot of amazing horror books coming out this summer (Seriously. My bank account weeps.), but this one is particularly high on my radar. Two girls–Logan, whose dads are the stars of the popular TV ghost hunting show ParaSpectors, and Ashley, a Snakebite native whose boyfriend has gone missing–face off against a small town full of secrets, slipping slowly into chaos. The ghost of Ashley’s boyfriend has begun haunting her and the only only one she can trust is Logan, even as their investigation into the town’s secrets threatens everything they believe they know about Snakebite, their families, and themselves.

Sometimes friendships end quietly. Transitions in our lives nudge us apart from the people we thought we knew better than everyone, and who we thought we’d know forever, and we just drift apart. It’s so gradual you don’t even notice it happening until they’re gone. Andrew and Eddie were best friends, closer than brothers. And when Eddie left to start his graduate program, Andrew knew that he’d be only six months behind him. Until that day, a few days before Andrew was supposed to leave for Nashville, when Eddie died by suicide and left behind a life that Andrew realizes he knew nothing about. A secret life full of strangers and grisly phantoms, lies, secrets; a dark, ugly family history and an Eddie he never knew who spent his days bouncing from a cutthroat academic world to a seedy underground world of vice and violence. Now it’s up to Andrew to discover who his friend really was before Eddie’s secret life can consume him as well.

Are you tired of me talking about this book yet? Not sorry! I’m so excited about this book. I finally have an ARC on my Kindle and it is just staring me down, waiting for me to finish my pre-determined reading list for this month. Though if any book can tempt me to break from The List, it will probably be Flowers for the Sea. 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.

Jessica, is there anything that Hailey Piper writes that you won’t buy? Probably no. Particularly when it has to do with vagina dentata – because you know that’s going to be wild. Also have you seen that cover? It’s so pink! I love it! When Yaya Betancourt discovers that she has spouted teeth in her vagina, she assumes that it is a side effect of a pharmaceutically-induced genetic condition that she and thousands of others developed in the womb with a little help from AlphaBeta Pharmaceutical. Whoops. But when she realizes that ABP is determined to hunt her down after her incident of toothy sprouting, and when her condition suddenly… worsens, Yaya has to consider the possibility that there may be another, darker motive behind ABP’s pursuit.

Quick Note: If you don’t want to wait until the trade paperback release in November, there are still a few weeks to pre-order a special hardcover edition!

I’m a big fan of anything Piper writes at this point, but this was particularly my brand of horror. Set in the New York City of the ‘90s, where it’s easy for people to just disappear and never to be seen again, Worm’s protagonist Monique is on a quest to find her missing girlfriend, Donna. But she’s not the only one who has disappeared in recent days, and as other impoverished women start to vanish from the city streets, Monique begins to hear rumors of monsters stalking the city’s underbelly. In order to save Donna, Monique must follow the rumors deep into the world below New York, a subterranean kingdom of creatures, cultists, and an even more terrible, ancient evil lurking there in the dark.

Okay, so, not actually from the last few years. Technically Zárate’s cult vampire novella was published in 1998, but this gorgeous translation by David Bowles finally made this title available to English-language readers just this year. So I’m counting it! The Route of Ice and Salt is a queer retelling of a small portion of the plot of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: the journey of the doomed Demeter. Varna to Whitby is a route the steadfast captain of the Demeter has traveled many times, alone among his men, dreams full of longings and pleasures he cannot permit himself. But something about this journey is different. Wrong. Rumors spread that something evil is stalking the captain’s ship and the crew are uneasy, looking to their captain to protect them.

There are not enough dark fantasy polyamory stories in my life. Which is probably why I bought The Ravenous Dark before I even knew what it was really about. Throw in some magic and undead spirits and honestly what else do you need? In Thanopolis, undead spirits are used to control and guard the magically gifted. People like Rovan, whose life was upended when her magic was revealed. Now, surrounded by deceit and danger, she finds herself falling for both a rebellious princess, and the very spirit that now controls her body and soul. But can she trust them? Or will a dangerous secret that threatens all of Thanopolis force her to choose: give into her heart, or betray those she loves.

If you’re looking for something more romantic, delightfully queer, and more moderately scary (versus scare your pants off scary) for your Pride TBR, Aiden Thomas’ Cemetery Boys is the book for you. Yadriel is determined to prove to his traditional family that he is a real brujo so that they will finally accept his true gender. But when he sets out to find and free the spirit of his murdered cousin he accidentally summons the ghost of resident school bad boy, Julian Diaz, who now refuses to leave him alone. Until Yadriel helps Julian find out what happened to him, Julian is determined that he isn’t going anywhere.

Why have only one Dracula retelling on a list when you can have two? Plus, I could (and will if you let me) talk about this book forever. A Dowry of Blood is the story of Dracula’s brides, told from the perspective of Constanta, the first of three brides whom Dracula creates to be his companions over the course of the novel. It is written as a farewell letter to the man she loved and hated in equal measure, detailing a hundred lifetimes of tenderness, abuse, and the unexpected love that develops between her and her fellow brides. This is one of the best books I’ve read this year, and one of the most beautiful.

You know how much I love carnival and circus horror, but be forewarned: Veronica Henry’s June release may be called Bacchanal, but it’s no party. The titular Bacchanal Carnival conceals a terrible evil behind the veneer of a traveling Depression-era carnival, roaming the South. But Eliza Meeks, its newest member, is unaware of the danger. To her, the carnival is her only way out of Baton Rouge, and she quickly finds herself at home among the troupe of performers, carnies, and barkers, many of whom are far stranger than Eliza and her unusual gift of speaking to animals. She has no idea that an ancient demon resides at the heart of Bacchanal, preying on the innocent, or that she may be the only one capable of defeating it.

I don’t even have words for how excited I am about this book. I basically just spend my days refreshing my Barnes & Noble order page, waiting for it to ship… Okay I exaggerate. But seriously this is going to be complete catnip and I’m so ready. I blame Angela Carter for the fact that I’m helpless in the face of any dark fantasy fantasy retelling of Red Riding Hood. She ruined me, and Whitten is going to finish the job. Red is a Second Daughter, the first in centuries, which means that her one purpose in life is to be sacrificed. The Wolf in the Wood holds the world’s gods captive and every second daughter born is sacrificed in hopes that he might release them. But what she finds in the depths of the Wilderwood is a tangle of lies, and everything she thought she knew about her world comes undone.

(Oh. This one is going to hit me right in the obsessed Dragon Age fan feels, I can already tell.)

At this point if V. Castro writes a book I barely stop to read the synopsis before I buy. Her books are just THAT good. This one, in particularly, I’m super excited for! In 2018, Belinda Alvarez returns to south Texas to attend her best friend’s wedding at a picturesque farm that happens to be the site of an eerie urban legend: La Reina de Las Chicharras. The Queen of the Cicadas. A murdered farmworker in the 1950s made a deal with an Aztec goddess of death to live again and take her vengeance on those who hurt her and those who forgot her. Now, as the legend unfolds, Belinda finds that her life – and that of the farmhouse owner, Hector – is entwined with that of the murdered woman, Milagros. As the two become immersed in the past it becomes clear that Milagros’ fate may be theirs as well.

Okay, so, I’m REALLY excited about this book. Playing up the isolation of a world before cellphones, and the vast emptiness of rural highways, Sager sets the stage for what promises to be a heart pounding new thriller guaranteed to keep us guessing! Charlie Jordan is a grief-stricken college student sharing the long ride home to Ohio with another student she barely knows. Josh claims that he’s hurrying home to help care for his sick father, and Charlie is fleeing her survivor guilt after her best friend fell prey to the Campus Killer, a serial offender stalking the college grounds. But trapped in a car with Josh on an empty highway in the middle of the night, Charlie starts to have doubts about her traveling companion. Now Charlie loves movies, she’s even named after a Hitchcock heroine, so it could just be her murder-fueled imagination talking. But there are holes in Josh’s story, and something in the trunk he doesn’t want her to see.

On a dark and stormy night (yes, literally), a woman on the run takes shelter in an abandoned groundskeeper’s cottage at the edge of a cemetery in the town of Blighty. Frankly, I think it sounds positively peaceful but then again I have noisy neighbors. And technically, so does Keira. Because while to others the cemetery would appear still and silent, Kiera can hear the dead whispering all around her. The cemetery is alive with the ghosts of those recently, and not so recently, departed, led by a woman who died before her time who begins to haunt Keira when she realizes that the living woman can see her. With the clock of her life running down, Keira races to unearth the dark secrets of Blighty’s past that will not let the woman’s spirit rest.

I honestly don’t have words for how excited I am for this book. All I know is that it had me at slasher homage, and August can’t come too soon. Most people think of small towns as intimate places where “everyone knows everyone” and everyone is at home. But when you are an outcast – the one person who doesn’t belong in a town that everyone else calls home – a small town can be the loneliest place in the world. Jade Daniels is the outcast in Proofrock, a small lake town slowly being overrun by gentrification. In her anger and her loneliness, Jade turns to horror for comfort, letting herself get lost in a world of masked killers and revenge. But when Proofrock’s wealthy newcomers begin dying in bizarre ways, Jade realizes that there is a familiar pattern to their deaths. A pattern that only she can see, and that may foretell a massacre in the making.

Lauren’s small town of Smith’s Hollow has a serious amnesia problem. Because they forgot that a year ago her father was found murdered with his heart ripped out, and even though the bodies of two girls have just been found torn apart, Lauren knows that it’s just a matter of time before they’re forgotten too. The police will never find the killer, and everyone will just move on. But somewhere out there in the woods a monster lurks and Lauren is determined to track it down before it can kill anyone else. She’s not going to “just move on” like everyone else, even if hunting the monster means uncovering frightening truths about the small town she calls home.

For Marigold, recently arrived from her California hometown by the sea, Cedarville is supposed to be a new beginning. But there’s something sinister lurking beneath the renovated façade of their new house, tucked between its rundown neighbors like a beacon of revitalization and change. Things move on their own, doors open, lights turn off. Marigold sees shadows, hears voices, and there’s a bad smell inside the house that no one else seems to notice. The more Marigold learns about the house, however, the more she realizes that the danger isn’t contained just within its walls. All of Cedarville is haunted by secrets from its past that will no longer be contained.

In Courtney Gould’s forthcoming small town horror, two girls–Logan, whose dads are the stars of the popular TV ghost hunting show ParaSpectors, and Ashley, a Snakebite native whose boyfriend has gone missing–face off against a small town full of secrets, slipping slowly into chaos. Ashley’s boyfriend was only the first in a string of teenage disappearances, only the dead have returned, and even the weather has turned unnatural. What’s more, the dead are not sleeping easy. The ghost of Ashley’s boyfriend has begun haunting her and the only one she can trust is Logan, even as their investigation into the town’s secrets threatens everything they believe they know about Snakebite, their families, and themselves.

Dark Lullaby was one of those impulse buy books where the minute I read the synopsis I went straight to my buyer of choice and added it to my cart. Toted as Black Mirror meets The Handmaid’s Tale, Dark Lullaby is set in a near future society where parenting is strictly monitored and children not being reared to the exacting requirements of the Office of Standards in Parenting are Extracted. Kit thinks she knows the risks when she decides to have a child, and that she can live up to the depends of the OSIP. But when she comes under the Office’s scrutiny she has to decide how far she will go to protect her family.

Any book about the tragic death of a child is going to be a harrowing read, and Crossroads is as much about grief as it is about ghosts. Chris’ son Trey dies in a tragic car crash and takes her whole world with him. Until the day a drop of her blood falls on her son’s roadside memorial and changes everything. That night Chris sees her son’s ghost outside her window – or so she believes. But is it really her son? Or does something far more sinister lurk behind the face of the child she lost? And how deeply will Chris entangle herself with these dark forces if it means seeing Trey alive again?

Rivers Solomon’s newest book – hot off the presses from its May 4th release! – is about the metamorphic nature of motherhood, and what one mother will do to protect her children from the world in which she was raised. Vern fled the strict religious compound in which she grew up when she was seven months pregnant and took shelter in the woods, where she gives birth to twins. But the community she fled will not give her up so easily, and when Vern is forced to fight back against them her body begins to undergo a series of strange and frightening metamorphoses.

You’ll have to wait a couple of months for Catherine McCarthy’s forthcoming novel Immortelle (July 15) but it is definitely going to be worth the wait. Elinor, a ceramic artist whose work is inspired by her grandmother’s interest in the supernatural, bends her craft to its own supernatural purpose when her daughter Rowena is murdered. Elinor is sure she knows who is responsible, so she crafts an immortelle out of clay in the shape of a starling to try and capture Rowena’s spirit. As word of her skill spreads, Elinor is soon overwhelmed by requests for immortelles, her power growing with each crafting. And as the dead whisper their secrets and the truth about her daughter’s murder is revealed, Elinor begins to craft her terrible revenge.

Zin E Rocklyn’s Flowers for the Sea (October 19) is yet another reason to wish that October would hurry up and get here this year! I’m so excited about this book. 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.