Author: Jessica Avery

Oops. Here I am talking about The Last House On Needless Street again. But this Nightfire release is definitely one of the most anticipated titles of 2021.The available synopsis is limited, but full of promise: a serial killer, a stolen child, death, revenge, a (suspiciously) ordinary house, and a dark forest hiding dark secrets. Add to that the tantalizing suggestion that whatever we’re expecting is not to be trusted, and honestly sign me right the heck up.

Along with releasing a new paperback edition of Heuvelt’s lauded witchcraft horror novel, Hex, Nightfire is also releasing a hardcover translation of his 2019 novel, Echo. Following a climbing trip in the Swiss Alps gone wrong, Nick Grevers wakes up to find that his climbing partner Augustin is dead and Nick’s face has been maimed and swathed in bandages. They had been scaling the ominously named Maudit, a little documented mountain, when in its valley they found something waiting for them in the mountain’s shadow. And though Nick has survived, he is haunted by what has transpired. More than even he knows. I’m not sure if this is going to end up being monsters? Ghosts? I’m always down for a little demonic possession? I mean the peak is called Maudit, which basically means damned (feel free to shout at me on Twitter if I’ve got that wrong). But whatever it is that’s haunting Nick is bound to be capital-T terrifying.

That cover though. Definitely one of those books I’ll have to flip upside down when not reading it because talk about creepy! Dark tourism meets horror wedding culture when a group of friends choose an abandoned Heian-era mansion as a wedding venue. But this house has literal skeletons, not in its closets but in its walls and under its floor. Beneath the foundation lies the body of a bride, and the girls who were sacrificed to keep her company rest uneasily between the walls. What should have been a fun night of thrills in a creepy old house turns into a nightmare as the friends find themselves pursued by the lonely, hungry bride. I don’t know about you, but this sounds like total nightmare fuel. I embrace my imminent insomnia

So this sounds AMAZING. Maybe I’m biased by my love of historical horror, or my general dislike of Puritans whom I shall be glad to see get beat down by some gnarly black magic (fingers crossed), but I definitely need to add Slewfoot to my reading list. Abitha is already betrothed to a stranger when she arrives at the Puritan colony that is to become her home, only to find herself widowed almost as quickly as she became a bride. Now she stands alone, grasping at her sudden freedom in the midst of a pious and patriarchal society that would rather see her tucked neatly under the thumb of another man. Slewfoot is a newly woken spirit who like Abitha is searching for his place in the world. Suspicious deaths in the colony give rise to rumors of witchcraft, and Abitha and Slewfoot must decide who they will be and how to survive in a world determined to see them hang.

This anthology, a tribute to the classic 1980 Dark Forces anthology edited by Kirby McCauley, features 12 all-new stories from some of the modern horror genre’s most prominent voices, including Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, Priya Sharma, Caroline Kepnes, and more. With an introduction and a new short story by Josh Malerman of Bird Box fame, and an afterward and story by horror legend Ramsey Campbell. You all know how much I love anthologies as it is, and I’m super excited for a new piece by Priya Sharma! I devoured her collection All the Fabulous Beasts last year and it was so gorgeous.

In this delightfully chilling anthology from Burial Day Press, editor Cina Pelayo and editor and contributor V.Castro have collected 12 tales of terror from some of the most talented Latinx voices in the horror genre, including Hector Acosta, E. Reyes, and Book Riot’s own Laura Diaz de Arce. You all know I love an anthology, but diversity in anthologies has not always (or often) been the horror genre’s strong suit, so celebrate a truly diverse anthology and add Latinx Screams to your 2021 TBR.

Pelayo didn’t contribute a story to the Latinx Anthology, but believe me her work should be on your radar if it’s not already. She recently released a gorgeous but harrowing volume of horror poetry, Into the Forest and all the Way Through, which is a collection of true crime poetry exploring over 100 cases of missing and murdered women in the United States. I also really adore her collection Loteria, inspired by the 54 cards of the titular Mexican game of chance.

A recent release published back in September (which in 2020 time is only a half a decade ago, so really it was practically yesterday), Aiden Thomas’ Cemetery Boys is a stunning paranormal YA debut. 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.

You might remember Goddess of Filth from my list of most anticipated reads of 2021. Well, thankfully, March is that much closer now, because I can’t wait to get my hands on this one! Friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline get together one hot summer night to drink and hold a séance. And it starts out all fun and games, until it’s not. “Not” being Fernanda Exorcist crawling towards her friends, chanting in the language of their Aztec ancestors. A possessed friend, a helpful professor, a “bruja Craft crew”, and one seriously creepy priest guarantee that this is definitely one book I don’t intend to miss.

Definitely one of the must-read books of 2020, Mexican Gothic is beautiful and frightening, which a good horror should be if it possibly can. A frantic letter from a cousin brings Noemí Taboada to High Place, a house far off in the Mexican countryside. Her newly-wed cousin is terrified, the groom is cold but compelling, the patriarch is concerningly interested in her, and the house itself fills Noemí’s head with terrible dreams. In a house full of secrets her only ally is the family’s gentle second son, but even he is not above suspicion.

This is probably my favorite horror collection of all time. It is so absolutely beyond beautiful – as beautiful as it is horrific in some places. Some of the stories in this collection are more instantly recognizable as horror – like the infamous “The Husband Stitch” – and others are more sad or sentimental, underlaid by the knowledge that something has gone terribly wrong. “Inventory”, the first-person recounting of the narrator’s past lovers against the backdrop of an apocalyptic pandemic, has been living rent free in my brain for ages. Especially this year.

Manuela Azul, on the run from her father’s Argentine crime-family, has been living a closely protected life in Miami until the night her surrogate grandmother is the victim of a violent attack that upends Manu’s existence. Alone with no home, and surrounded by the ruins of a life built on lies, Manu goes in search of her real past and her real identity. What she finds is a secret world of magic where she hopes that she can finally belong, but the truth of her identity is more complicated than she knows.

This is my favorite edition of Frankenstein. I mean I’m unapologetically obsessed with Norton Critical Editions anyway because they’re like buying the special edition of a book and having it come with all the bonus features. There are actually more pages of critical and contemporary content in this edition than there are pages in Frankenstein itself! Norton editions tend to be more expensive, but are always worth it.

If you want something a little less academic, but still beautiful and possessing a little something extra, consider this hardcover edition of Frankenstein. It’s one of a collection of horror novels that Penguin curated and released as deluxe hardcovers back in 2013, each of them containing both the collection forward by horror film genius Guillermo Del Toro and a text introduction by a well-known literary personage. The intro for Frankenstein is written by Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian.

This edition for Frankenstein is for if you really want to nerd out. I have the annotated Dracula from this series (also from Norton, this is now a W.W. Norton appreciation newsletter, apparently) and let me tell you these hefty, beautiful editions are chock full of marginalia to make sure that you get the most out of every possible detail of the novel.

This is the most expansive edition on the list, but also the most beautiful. For the art lover, or the Frankenstein devotee, Ethereal Visions’ Illuminated Frankenstein is breathtaking. Really. Do yourself a favor, click through to their product page, and feast your eyes on some of the devastatingly gorgeous illustrations that bring Shelley’s novel to vivid life.

This modern retelling of Frankenstein, set in U.S.-occupied Baghdad, is about a man sewing together body parts to make a single corpse. A corpse that then disappears. Then a string of murders across the city is accompanied by rumors of a hideous, bullet-proof creature. Hadi, who was only stitching body parts together into corpses to force the government to recognize them as people and give them a decent burial, realizes that he has, in fact, created a person. A monster that feeds on human flesh.

Hands down the best film adaptation of Frankenstein out there I swear on the grave fight me. Fight me. Okay don’t fight me. But listen. Every film adaptation of Frankenstein, much like any film adaptation of a novel, takes liberties with its source text. What Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein manages to do, even though it’s excessively (sometimes absurdly) dramatic and at times guilty of questionable costuming choices, is capture the spirit of the novel.

Elizabeth McHugh’s collection of blackout poetry and visual art may be small, but it is powerful. Using the text of Frankenstein itself McHugh has crafted 52 pieces of stunning blackout poetry that stand as both a tribute to and a deconstruction of Mary Shelley’s original novel. If you’re a fan of poetry, Frankenstein, or both, I highly highly recommend this recent release. It’s a love letter to its source text.

Really, Jessica. A Ballet? Yes. Because 1) It’s so beautiful that it actually causes me physical pain, and 2) in this newsletter we respect all the incredible ways that works of horror make their way into the world. Staring Royal Ballet principals Federico Bonelli, Laura Morera and Steven McRae, choreographer Liam Scarlett’s ballet adaptation of Frankenstein (which debuted as part of the company’s 2016/17 season) is a dark and breathtaking. Even if you’re not a ballet fan you should at least watch the clips that the Royal Ballet uploaded to their Youtube channel and see for yourself. Lowell Liebermann’s score is beyond gorgeous.

Claire Legrand (author of Sawkill Girls) is not stranger to dark fiction. Her retelling of The Nutcracker is set in 1899 New York, and follows the story of Clara Stole as she ventures deep into the war-scarred land of Cane to find her missing father. Together with Cane’s cursed and deposed prince Nicholas, Clara must face down the queen of the faeries if she hopes to recover her father and help Nicholas reclaim his throne.

Set in London, 1905, The Nutcracker Bleeds is the terrifying tale of Anne, a young governess who becomes trapped in the nightmarish world of her unstable teenage pupil, Olivia. In this world where toys have come to life to horrible effect, Anne’s only ally is the mysterious Nutcracker doll. As the mice and their terrible Rat King wage war with the toys, Anne must try to get Olivia and herself back to the real world before they become trapped forever.

(His eyes on this cover are FREAKING me out.) In the eight years since the Mouse King’s defeat the Nutcracker has fought to break the curse that keeps him trapped in the form of a doll so that he can take his place as King and make Marie his queen. When a dark secret about his kingdom finally reveals the answer, the increasingly desperate Nutcracker makes the decision to use what he has discovered to break the curse. He will have his crown, and his bride, and his happily ever after. At any cost.

Is it on this list because it’s set in Maine? Maybe. Is it on this list JUST because it’s set in Maine? Certainly not! There’s a lot about What Big Teeth to be excited about. Eleanor has been estranged from her family since they send her away to boarding school. All she has are a few memories from when she was young, and the knowledge that her strange family regarded her as the freak among them. But when she finally finds the courage to return to her home on the rainy coast of Maine she finds them waiting to welcome her home. Everything seems too good to be true – and a sudden death suggests it just might be.

You know I love a short fiction collection. Collections are in fact probably my favorite form of horror, over even novels, because they give you in one go the best picture of an author’s range and talent. Plus horror, as a genre, really shines in short story form. Isabel Yap’s forthcoming debut combines urban legends, immigrant tales, spells, and stories, all into one irresistible collection that I can’t wait to get my hands on.

I’ve written a bit about The Last House On Needless Street on the Fright Stuff before when Nightfire first announced that they’d be handling the American release, and I am so on board with this book. The available synopsis is limited, but full of promise: a serial killer, a stolen child, death, revenge, a (suspiciously) ordinary house, and a dark forest hiding dark secrets. Add to that the tantalizing suggestion that whatever we’re expecting is not to be trusted and honestly sign me right the heck up.

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has put together a crew of friends to follow her to the site of a tragedy that has haunted her since she was a little girl: the vanishing of the residents of the old mining town known now as “The Lost Village”. Her grandmother’s entire family disappeared along with the rest of the village, leaving only two behind – a woman who had been stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned baby. Now Alice is determined to find out why. But no sooner do she and her team set up camp in town, things start to go very, very wrong.

Nothing could possibly go wrong at a séance. Definitely not. So when friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline get together one hot summer night to drink and summon some fun, it starts out all fun and games. Until it’s not. “Not” being Fernanda Exorcist crawling towards her friends, chanting in the language of their Aztec ancestors. Over the next few weeks Fernanda’s behavior just gets more unusual. The local priest, Father Moreno, is crying demonic possession but Lourdes has a suspicion that it’s something more powerful and much much older than that. She enlists the help of her “bruja Craft crew” and a professor to try and understand what is happening to Fernanda. Hopefully before Moreno’s obsession with her can lead to disaster

Okay so, not technically a new release. But a very exciting reissue from Tor’s upcoming horror imprint Nightfire! Certain Dark Things has been out of print for a bit now and it’s beyond delightful to see it back in publication and available to new readers and old fans. In Mexico City, street kid Domingo is just trying to survive when he meets vampire-on-the-run Atl. Atl is the descendent of Aztec blood drinkers, on the run from a rival vampire clan. Their meeting happens by chance, but as time goes on the two find themselves working together to escape the dark streets with their lives (life and un-life?) intact. Certain Dark Things is praised for, among other aspects, its rich worldbuilding and fascinatingly varied vampire culture.

Alternative pandemics in which things could actually have been worse, take one. As the plague which caused the zombie apocalypse finally wanes, America is busy rebuilding and reclaiming lands overrun by the dead. What is left of the nation’s government is operating out of Buffalo, but they have their eyes set on a bigger prize: Manhattan. The tip of the island, south of Canal St, has been liberated, but even in Zone One there is still clean up work to be done. That’s where Mark Spitz comes in. He’s part of one of the civilian teams charged with eliminating the most docile of the remaining undead. But while the job itself is supposed to be easy enough, Spitz isn’t just slaying monsters in the street. He’s also battling them in his head, assailed by memories of his battle to survive the outbreak and struggling to reconcile himself with the devastated world he now inhabits. And when things start to go belly up in Zone One, he once again finds himself chest deep in the blood and ruin of the end of the world.

Feed is the first novel in Mira Grant’s zombie-tastic Newsflesh Trilogy. Once again, the rider on the pale horse is making the rounds. In trying to cure humanity’s every ill, from cancer to the common cold, a terrible virus was created that spread unchecked. It took over bodies and minds and turned ordinary people into ravenous monsters obeying a primal, fundamental command to feed. 20 years after the virus devastated the population, Georgia and Shaun Mason are chasing the truth in a post-apocalyptic world. Who was responsible for the event now known as the Rising? How did it happen that something meant for good caused so much destruction and death? But when they discover the dark truth behind it all, Georgia and Shaun find themselves faced with an even more fraught situation: the truth will out, but getting it out there might just kill them.

When it comes to zombies who else do we turn to but the father of modern zombie tale? There is no denying that George Romero forever changed the zombie narrative, and without him some of our favorite undead adventures on film or page would not be possible. His passing in 2017 was marked with great sadness by the whole horror community. So when Daniel Kraus, a talented horror author in his own right, was tasked with completing George Romero’s last work – the unfinished The Living Dead – the buzz was, understandably, massive. And most reviewers will agree, Kraus out did himself and in doing so did justice to Romero’s legacy. The Living Dead begins, as zombie stories do, with a body that won’t stay dead. And since zombies are a bit like the rodents of the undead, their numbers quickly spread. Romero and Kraus’s novel follows several simultaneous stories through the incipient apocalypse – an African American teenager and a Muslim immigrant battling the undead in a Midwest trailer park, a death cult taking shape on a US aircraft carrier, a lone news anchor broadcasting to a world that might no longer be listening, and an autistic federal employee compiling data against an unlikely future. Who will survive until the end, and what the end will be, only time will tell.

In a crumbling, dystopian Toronto, young mother Ti-Jeanne helps her grandmother heal the people who live inside the barricaded city. The rich and privileged abandoned the inner city, blocking off the roads and retreating to the surrounding country side. Inside the walls there is no electricity, no modernity – the inhabitants have rediscovered older ways of living, growing food, bartering for goods, and healing through herb lore like that practiced by Ti-Jeanne and her grandmother. But when the rich outside the city start preying on those inside, harvesting their bodes for organs, Ti-Jeanne must embrace an ancient power to face down threats from both without and within the city walls. Even knowing how high the cost might be.

Bonus link: CBC Radio’s IDEAS Radio for the Mind ran an episode called “The Coming Zombie Apocalypse”, which featured Hopkinson as a guest. You can listen to the hour long program on the CBC website and I highly recommend that you do! It is both fascinating and horrifying.

You might remember me talking about Tender is the Flesh when it first came out back in August. It’s premise is a harrowing: in a world in which all animal meat has become poisonous to ingest, humans having become the new livestock of choice. It is a chilling look at how far humanity might go, if only they are given permission. Marcos makes a living processing this “special meat”, all the while trying to focus on numbers, consignments, and processing not on how it really is that he makes his living. Until the day he’s given a “gift”. But the longer he spends with this “live specimen of the finest quality”, the less he is able to see her as just another number and begins to see and treat her like a human being. And with that comes the need to acknowledge the truth of what humanity has become.

I had to get one corn book on this list, obviously. Corn is ALWAYS evil and not to be trusted. And the corn that grows in Phalene, in particular, is not to be trusted. There is a reason that Margot’s mother left the town, and told her daughter nothing about where they’d come from no matter how often she asked. They had no family. No history. Until Margot found a photograph pointing her towards Phalene. But what she finds there is not at all what she expected. Her family’s roots, it seems, run deep and rotten beneath the town, and it soon becomes clear that her mother had good reasons for running.

Forget mutated viruses, radioactive fallout, or pestilences escaped from labs – apparently the real threat of a zombie apocalypse lies in a batch of infected donuts. The annual Recipe Days bake-off in Lubbock, Texas, was already a tense event when the usual crowd of soccer moms and grandmothers with baked goods in hand found themselves going toe to toe with a bunch of party crashing pro wrestlers. But when the suspect donuts transform most of the wrestlers into brain hungry zombies, things really get complicated. The doors to the conventions center are locked, the survivors trapped inside, and it’s mom’s against monsters to see who will survive the day.

This anthology collects 22 stories from authors who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity, all centered around the theme of dark appetites. It explores the connection between food and violence in horror, the frequency of consumption as a theme in the genre, and the sometimes very thin line between eating and being eaten. The intersection is one that Cade is well versed in, being the author of Food and Horror: Essays on Ravenous Souls, Toothsome Monsters, and Vicious Cravings, which – if you’re interested in academic texts about the horror genre – is a fascinating read. From the dangerous culinary temptations of Hansel and Gretel to more modern tales of tasty terrors, Food and Horror lays the groundwork that the authors of the Sharp & Sugar Tooth anthology build their own narratives upon. Authors like Catherynne M. Valente, Damien Angelica Walters, Alyssa Wong, Betsy Aoki, Chikodili Emelumadu, and more.

If you’ve read some of my horror articles for Book Riot you are probably 0% surprised to see a Dawn Kurtagich book on this list, because I am mildly obsessed with her books. They are frightening, atmospheric, and so creative. While And the Trees Crept In does not share the mixed media/found materials format of Kurtagich’s other books, it is nevertheless a spiraling, psychological horror about two young girls in a big, crumbling house that is slowly being devoured by the forest that surrounds it. And the Trees Crept In, with its terrible Creeper Man, is a story of grief, anger, and the choice we make either to face the horrors in our past, or to let them crush us beneath their roots.

Anyone who read their fairy and folktales as a child knows that there is no place darker, more wild, more full of dangers and magic than the forest. So it’s no wonder that dark fantasy is dotted with forests full of frightening things. The titular forest of Lori. M. Lee’s Forest of Souls is the particularly unsettling Dead Wood, domain of the Spider King. It is an ancient wood possessed by the souls of the living, and he uses his influence over the forest to keep the peace between kingdoms. But the forest grows wild and restless. Only a soulguide has the power to hold back the trees, and Sirscha Ashwyn is the first of her kind since before anyone can remember. When she accidentally resurrects her best friend her power is revealed, and she must master her new abilities and force the forest back before the trees of the Dead Wood break free.

I have been eyeing Pine for my TBR ever since it came out. It was the cover that first caught my attention. Probably because in Maine we’re born with two radars: deer and evergreens. (I’m joking. Clearly the correct answer is moose and blueberries.) But there was something eerie about even that simple image and I loved it. Then I read the blurb and I loved it more. “The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men”. So beautiful. Lauren and her father live in a small village in the Highlands, surrounded by a dense pine forest. But though the village is small, it’s not a simple place. Strange mysteries, vanishings, and unexplained deaths are common, and that includes the disappearance of Lauren’s mother 10 years ago. Everyone seems to know more than they’re saying, and when a local teen goes missing it becomes uncertain who in the tiny treebound village Lauren can trust.

Switzerland & Germany, Late 18th Century: So I didn’t pick this topic JUST so that I could talk about The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, but I have been trying to sneak this book into a newsletter for weeks. I am more than a little but obsessed with Frankenstein and all its adaptations, but Kiersten White’s YA historical horror is one of my favorite. White recenters Mary Shelley’s original novel around the figure of Elizabeth Lavenza, a hungry, abused, neglected child taken in by the Frankenstein family to be a companion to their strange, frightening son Victor. She grew up doing her best to become indispensable to the family, cementing her place in luxury and ease through her ability to manage Victor’s dark and dangerous moods. But behind Elizabeth’s calm, sweet, tame-the-beast exterior she has teeth and ambition of her own.

New York City, 1899: There is a monster stalking New York, draining the blood from its victims in a manner frighteningly reminiscent of Bram Stoker’s new novel, Dracula. It is almost as if the monster himself has stepped out of the page and haunts the dim streets of the Gilded Age America. Tillie Pembroke’s sister has become a victim of the killer, her neck punctured and her body exsanguinated (I really don’t get to use that word enough). Tillie is determined to discover the truth – human or supernatural – behind her sister’s death, but her desire for the truth wars with her increasing desire for the laudanum that dulls her pain. As hysteria grips the city and the killer’s trail of bodies grows longer, Tillie struggles to discern fact from fiction, reality from opium dream, and begins to wonder who and what she can really trust.

London, 1855: Helena Morrigan’s business is the dead, and the dead are anything but quiet. A mortician and funeral director struggling to make ends meet on the outskirts of London, Helena can free the dead whose souls are trapped in the mortal world. She takes up residence in the home of the newly orphaned Eric, Audrey, and Christian Tarter because the old house is closer to the graveyard, and closer to the souls she seeks to save. But a killer is on the loose, and their violent crimes are complicating Helena’s work. Her business is booming, but she herself is coming under suspicion as the killer’s rampage continues. Soon she finds herself awash in a storm of secrets and blood that threatens to destroy all she has built, and take her life in the process.

Malaya, 1893: Li Lan’s family is bankrupt, which means that despite her genteel birth she has little chance at a comfortable future. Until the day she receives a strange marriage proposal from a wealthy and powerful family. Their only son, Tian Ching, died under mysterious circumstances, and now the family seeks a ghost bride to soothe their son’s restless spirit. It is a rarely used tradition, but one that would see Li Lan secure for the rest of her life. But security isn’t free, and Li Lan soon finds herself being haunted by Tian Ching, who every night draws her into the afterlife – a phantom world parallel to the waking world in which Li Lan finds herself falling for Tian Bai, now heir to the Lim’s in Tian Ching’s place. Torn between the living and the deadr, Li Lan must discover the dark secret behind Tian Ching’s death before she finds ends up trapped in the afterlife forever.

Hungary, 16th century: Anna Darvulia is a scullery maid in the of household the beautiful and terrible Countess Elizabeth Báthory. She catches the Countess’ eye and finds herself being lifted up through the ranks to become the Countess’ chambermaid. No more scraping by in the cramped, dirty servants quarters, unable to provide for her family. Now she is the Countess’ friend and confidante. But blinded by the glamorous Countess’ affections, unable to see how she has been groomed by her patroness, Anna realizes too late that she has been carefully cut off from everyone she knows and loves. And with the bodies piling up around her she knows that she will soon be next.

The second book in this series, Poison Priestess, will be out in April! It will be about Monvoisin and the Affair of the Poisons and I NEED it because I am unapologetically 17th century French garbage.