Author: Jessica Avery

We all know that when ghosts start possessing people or objects, things in a haunted house can get pretty weird pretty quickly. But I don’t think it gets weirder, or creepier, than puppets. Ventriloquist dummies, marionettes, or just your generally creepy hand puppet in the case of Grady Hendrix’s new novel, How to Sell a Haunted House. Here I was thinking I was getting a story about a haunted house, estranged siblings, and deep, dark family secrets. And I did! But I also got Pupkin, the nightmare-inducing, scariest killer puppet in the known world. Louise and Mark Joyner have barely spoken in years. But when their parents die in a tragic accident, the siblings are forced to work together to clear out and sell their childhood home. Mark and Louise both have very different memories of a childhood marred by violence and family secrets, and the longer they spend in the house, the more they begin to realize how strange and dark the truth may be.

When it comes to unique and strange twists on the haunted house trope, be still my black little heart because Mexican Gothic still takes the cake. Because High Place, a crumbling, old mansion that now sits almost forgotten amid high mountains and jagged ravines, isn’t haunted by ghosts. Not in the traditional sense. Noemí’s cousin Catalina marries, falling out of touch with her family until a frantic, barely coherent letter arrives at Noemí’s home, begging for help. Catalina claims that her new husband, Virgil, is trying to poison her and that High Place itself, full of death and rot, is trying to do her harm. Noemí makes the journey into the mountains to discover the truth, but what she finds behind the aging veneer of High Place is much darker than she could have imagined.

So in the strictest terms, the house in Tell Me I’m Worthless is a more familiar take on the haunted house. It has ghosts. It has bad memories lurking within its walls. But the reason I wanted to include it on this list was because the house may be haunted, but the real specter that stalks its halls isn’t some lingering spirit of the once living. It’s hate. Part of what makes the house in Tell Me I’m Worthless so frightening is that there’s no mistreated ghost to sympathize with, no rhyme or reason to the haunting that makes it understandable. It’s just unbridled hatred. When Alice and her two friends entered that house — on the night that only two of them came out again — it was the house’s hate, and what it made them do, that drove the two survivors apart. Ever since, Alice’s whole life has been haunted. She does everything she can to keep the memories and the ghosts at bay, until her ex-friend Ila turns up and asks Alice to go back into the House with her. It’s the only way they’ll ever really know what happened on the night that sent their lives careening in such tragically different directions. It’s the only chance they have to try and save the friend they lost.

So I know that In the Dream House is a memoir, not a novel. Nor is it exclusively horror, though it certainly leans in that direction. But it is, without doubt, a haunted house story, and one of the most interesting takes on a haunting that I’ve ever read. Using the titular “Dream House” as a structure, Machado navigates the memories contained within its walls through a number of narrative elements and classic fiction tropes. Many of which will be familiar to horror readers! It’s probably one of the most unusual and captivating reading experiences I’ve ever had, watching Machado explore the Dream House’s uniquely haunted corridors, and the way in which, when our memories become ghosts, our own bodies can become haunted houses. Like much of Machado’s work, it’s difficult to fully define what makes In the Dream House so compelling — you really just have to experience this particular “haunting” for yourself.

I love Rachel Harrison’s books. So when I found out that her next novel, Such Sharp Teeth, was going to be a werewolf story I knew I had to add it to my reading list. When an animal strike during a late night drive turns into a vicious attack, Rory Morris counts herself lucky to have gotten away with her life. But soon after the attack, Rory starts to notice strange changes in how she looks and acts: unnatural strength, an aversion to silver, and a fixation on the moon. Rory reluctantly returned to her hometown to help her struggling sister, but now she’s turning into a monster and even those she loves most may not be safe around her.

Dimaline’s Indigenous horror novel isn’t technically a werewolf story, it’s a Rogarou story (like the ones that Dimaline learned from her family). And a Rogarou isn’t exactly the wolfman-type monster we often associate with the concept of werewolf. It’s a trickster figure in Métis stories, actually, but it does bear some resemblance to the figure of the werewolf. Empire of Wild is about a woman, Joan, who is searching for her lost husband when she suddenly stumbles upon a man in a revival tent who looks and sounds just like Victor… but doesn’t have any of his memories. The man claims to be a charismatic preacher called Eugene Wolff, who has been ministering to the local Métis population, and he’s never heard of Victor. If Joan wants her husband back, she will have to find a way to remind him who he really is, before the sinister mission behind Wolff’s ministry comes to light.

Blackwater is so queer, and so delightful, and I love it to pieces. True, it’s not going to be the scariest werewolf story you’ll ever read. But it definitely has its moments, and the art styles and color choices really set the mood for this creepy, atmospheric graphic novel. The story takes place in the haunted town of Blackwater, Maine where strange, supernatural happenings are an every day occurrence, if you know where to look. Two teenagers, Tony Price and Eli Hirsch, who couldn’t be more different, become unlikely friends (and a whole lot more) as they set out to solve the mystery surrounding Blackwater. But when Tony is bitten by a monster, he finds himself busting out in teeth and fur, and it suddenly becomes clear just what kind of creature has been stalking the woods around their small town.

Yes, please, I very much would like to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a gorgeous, Gothic novel about a crumbling manor full of decaying splendor and terrible secrets. When Indigo married her husband, she made him promise her one thing: he would never ask about her past. With her fortune, and their love, they would live happily ever after, and nothing about who Indigo was or where she came from mattered in the face of their beautiful future. Until word of a dying family member forces the newlyweds to return to Indigo’s childhood home. In the House of Dreams, the past that Indigo tried to leave behind surrounds the newlyweds, and how can her bridegroom not ask questions when so many of the house’s secrets seem to be Indigo’s as well.

Speaking of books that I’ve been long anticipating and can’t wait to get my hands on! I’ve loved Cassandra Khaw’s work ever since I first got my hands on their novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth, and I’m so excited for their newest novella, The Salt Grows Heavy. A dark and fantastical tale about a mermaid and a strange doctor who set out together through the heart of the taiga, a wild subarctic forest*. Deep in the forest — as in all the best and most terrifying stories — our travelers come upon three surgeons charged with the keeping of a village full of eerie, ageless children and find themselves in terrible danger.

(*Yes I looked up what the taiga is, and yes I have a new biome to be obsessed with. Please give me all your boreal forest horror stories.)

Give me all the queer retellings of classic Gothic novels, always. In The Alchemy of Moonlight, a retelling of Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Emile escapes his aunt’s guardianship when she threatens to disown him for being gay unless he promises to marry and secure his inheritance. But while hiding out as a servant in the home of Count Montoni, Emile realizes he may be in as much danger among strangers as he was among family. A murder on the estate only furthers Emile’s suspicions, while also bringing two new men into his life — one of whom is Montoni’s nephew, Henri. When Emile’s identity is suddenly revealed, however, things take an even darker turn. Montoni forces the entire household out of the mansion and into the isolated and forbidding walls of Udolpho Castle. If Emile wants to survive with both life and love intact, he’ll have to find a way to escape and foil the sinister Count’s plans, because the longer he remains trapped in Udolpho, the greater the danger grows.

After Hide completely blew my mind last year, there’s no way I won’t be preordering White’s 2023 novel, Mister Magic. There’s nothing better than a creepy “cult classic” children’s program that, while it lives on in the memories of its generations of devoted fans, mysteriously vanished without a trace after being shut down by a tragic accident. No recordings of Mister Magic, nor any clue as to who created it or why, survive. The remaining members of its cast remember, though, and they hold tight to the happiness they felt when all five were part of Mister Magic’s Circle of Friends. When they belonged. Thirty years after the accident, the five are reunited at a remote compound in the desert and it’s like they were never apart. Unfortunately, their reunion may be more than it first appeared. They all came to the compound by choice, but there’s a lot about that tragic day they don’t remember, and secrets about Mister Magic that they may have chosen to forget.

This book, ya’ll. brain exploding noises I was so sure I had it all figured out and White just threw my theories into a puddle and stomped on them. Look, there’s no terrestrial setting creepier than an abandoned amusement park, as far as I’m concerned. So empty, so silent. So many clowns. *Sob*. But White takes that to a whole new level in Hide with a deeply suspicious high stakes game of hide and seek, featuring a cast of players as desperate as their playing field is desolate. This book never stops, not even for a moment. You hit the ground running when Mack is dropped off in the middle of nowhere by a bus, and it’s just a headlong rush towards a nail-biting finale. Mack survived a multi-murder as a child by hiding. Now hiding and surviving on her own are what Mack does best, so this game she’s signed on for should be a piece of cake. And the prize money will finally lift her out of poverty and let her start a new life. All she has to do is make it to the end, which gets harder to do when the bodies start dropping.

So first I have to confess: I have many literary weaknesses in this life, and polar horror is definitely on that list. Add to that the fact that All the White Spaces is queer, historical adventure/survival horror, and it was pretty much a guarantee that I was going to love this book. Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic-bound ship, escaping his family and the pretty box of a life they would trap him in if he let them. The captain of the ship is his hero, a giant among men who cut his teeth on adventure, and who Jonathan would follow anywhere. Even into disaster. When a fire strikes the ship, the crew has no choice but to flee across the ice to the Antarctic mainland in search of a secure place to overwinter. Only to find an abandoned expedition camp full of nightmares. Something in the long darkness of the Polar nights is stalking the crew, turning their own minds against them, and unless they can find a way off the frozen continent, Jonathan’s first real adventure may be his last.

Oh gosh, what do I even say. I mean, Bathory meets Dracula but its somehow even more Gothic and gay and beautiful than you would expect. House of Hunger is one of those Gothic books where the tension of “some bad thing is coming” is constantly building in the background, and when it finally goes wrong it goes wrong suddenly and in spectacular fashion. Just glorious, Gothic chaos everywhere you look. Depending on who you ask, being a bloodmaid is either a disreputable path to a shameful end, or a golden ticket to a new life of luxury and wealth. Marion decides to take her chances and hope for the latter, because the only thing waiting for her in her old life is abject poverty and murder. When she’s placed in the service of the House of Hunger, one of the richest and most notorious old houses of the North, Marion soon finds herself falling for the enchanting Countess Lisavet. And when Lisavet seems to return her affection, it seems like Marion can finally leave the shadows of her past behind her. Except the House of Hunger has shadows of its own, far darker than anything Marion has encountered before.

My last pick of 2022, and easily one of my favorite books of the whole year (she says, having said the same thing about probably a dozen books at this point, but I mean it every time!). This is another book that’s perfect for those of us currently in the dark, frigid throes of winter (or those of us who wish they were). Leech is a queer medical Gothic horror novel set in a fictional Northern town locked in the depths of a terrible winter that keeps the residents trapped in their homes out of fear of the deadly cold. In the estate that overlooks the town, the house doctor has died violently by his own hand, and it’s up to the newly arrived Doctor, a member of the Institute just like the deceased, to discover the cause. In fact, all of the bodies of the Interprovincial Medical Institute are doctors, because for centuries the Institute has been systematically replacing all the unreliable human doctors with it’s superior bodies, whose mind(s) can overcome any challenge or puzzle the Institute might encounter. Until they can’t. Because the parasitic creature that our Doctor discovers lurking in the cold, might finally be a problem beyond the Institute’s ability to solve.

If, like me, you grew up rabidly consuming ’80s fantasy films like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, you need to read The Shadow Glass. Jack used to love his father Bob Corman’s critical flop turned cult puppet fantasy film The Shadow Glass. That is, until his relationship with the film, and his father, soured. Estranged from his father for years, it’s only after Bob’s death that Jack, reluctantly, returns to his childhood home and the memories he buried there. When the creatures that populated his father’s film and Jack’s childhood adventures suddenly come to life, and insist that they need Jack’s help in saving their world, he finds himself catapulted into an impossible adventure to save both the fictional world of Iri and our world from certain destruction.

I have loved every single Alien book that I have thus far picked up with my greedy little hands, and Castro’s Aliens: Vasquez is definitely no exception. Jenette Vasquez was a secondary but unforgettable character in Aliens, and I can’t think of anyone who could have done her life story better justice than Castro. But Aliens: Vasquez isn’t just about Jenette and how she came to be on the ill-fated Hadley’s Hope mission. It’s also about her two children, now grown, who — though their lives have now gone in drastically different directions — also find themselves on a distant planet facing down the same chitinous nightmare creatures their mother did battle with so many years ago.

The hard part of this list wasn’t deciding “if” to include an Eric LaRocca book so much as “which one,” given that he’s had three amazing books published in 2022. But going back through my notes from this year, I realized I’ve yet to sing the praises of You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood on The Fright Stuff, and that’s not an opportunity I want to miss. This was the first of LaRocca’s books I ever read, and I’m so glad I started here. There’s a strange, Gothic-y, gloomy but gorgeous, dreamlike quality to this novella within a novella that instantly fascinated me, and I’ve been auto-buying ever since. To say anymore would be to give too much away! You’ll have to go see for yourself.

Gosh I love this book. I know the phrase “unputdownable” is overused, but I honestly was glued to my copy the whole time. Burn Down, Rise up is an unforgettable, action-packed rush of a horror book, where history and urban legend collide with deadly force. Fifteen year old Raquel’s life has just been upended by a violent attack that left her mother in a coma and infected by some unidentifiable mold-like substance that is slowly killing her. At the same time, Cisco — the cousin of Raquel’s crush Charlize — has disappeared and eye witnesses have identified him as the person who attacked and infected Raquel’s mother. Together, along with two other teens, Raquel and Charlize must venture into a world of ghosts and brutal histories, chasing an urban legend that may hold the key to saving their loved ones. But only if the girls can survive the Echo Game.

I don’t even know that I have the words to describe how much I love Echo. I mean, not only is it scary, gorgeous, and queer, but it’s also (a bit ironically, considering the subject matter!) the book that got me hiking and rock climbing again. It reminded me of what it feels like to stand on a summit and see the world laid out at your feet. It’s also a terrifying Gothic wonderland of a novel about an evil mountain that possesses those who manage to escape its grasp. I mean, what else could you want? And I love Sam. Poor Sam who, by some miracle, got his boyfriend Nick back alive from the accident that killed Nick’s climbing partner. Only to realize that Nick didn’t come home alone. What follows is a harrowing and at times heartbreaking examination of how we learn to let go of those we’ve lost and carry the grief of that loss.

So technically Crema came out before 2022 as a digital comic, but 2022 marked the publication of the paperback edition and brought this gorgeous, ghostly little comic into my life. Crema is about two women falling in love: a barista, Esme, who sees ghosts when she drinks coffee, and Yara whose family has just sold the café that Esme works at. When a strange ghost man beseeches Esme to deliver a message to help reunite him with his lost love, Esme finds herself following Yara to her family’s coffee plantation in Brazil where an old love story has become a curse, blighting the land. But the older the story, the further from the truth.

Hello, do you have time to talk about what is probably the scariest book I read all year? Honestly, sometimes I think about the scenes in this book and still get creeped out. It’s enough to have you eyeing every under bed space and darkened doorway with distrust. A communications crew on their last repair mission finds themselves at the end of known space, picking up an impossible signal from a legendary lost ship. The Aurora, the luxury spaceliner that disappeared on its maiden voyage, gone without a trace. It’s been 20 years, but if it really is the Aurora they’re picking up, the salvage rights could set the soon to be unemployed crew up for life. Provided they can survive what the ghost ship has in store for anyone who dares to board her.

Told though a series of surviving records, reports, transcripts, and journal entries, The Dead House is the story of two girls and the tragic burning of Elmbridge High School. Twenty-five years after the fire that killed three people, and the disappearance of Carly Johnson, a diary is found in the wreckage of the school that belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, Carly’s twin. A girl who supposedly never existed. This book takes “unreliable” narrator to a whole other level as Carly and Kaitlyn’s opposing stories emerge, leaving readers to try and figure out what happened all those years ago at Elmbridge, and which of the two narrators is really who she says she is.

Serpentine is technically more dark fantasy than horror, but I really wanted to include it on this list because ”beautiful young women slowly undergoes a monstrous transformation while discovering her true self” is an A+ trope that we see a lot of in the horror genre, and one that I personally adore. Pon’s novel is inspired by Chinese mythology, and tells the story of Skybright who is struggling to fit into the world around her as she contends with a dark secret that drives a wedge between who she wants to be and who she is becoming.

When the Barretts’ 14-year-old daughter Marjorie develops what appears to be acute schizophrenia, and all medical attempts to help her fail, the family turns to the church for aid. But a local priest’s suggestion that he perform an exorcism on Marjorie is tainted with suspicion when he also invites a camera crew to accompany him. Then tragedy strikes. Fifteen years later, Marjorie’s little sister Merry agrees to an interview about the events of that night, and as buried memories surface, it soon becomes clear that what she remembers, and what she’s been told, are two completely different stories.

Ghost Summer‘s selection of 15 short stories and a novella really showcases Tananarive Due’s impressive range. It’s an excellent introduction for new readers, and a must-read for already existing fans. From hauntings, to monsters, to buried secrets and dark family histories, Ghost Summer is full of rich, gothic settings and creeping horrors. Also, zombies! And, fair warning, a section of viral/contagion/zombie horror stories in this collection that will for real leave your skin crawling.

This is a profoundly weird, body horror-heavy sci-fi novel by Japanese author Mariko Ōhara. In it, Sample B #3, an escaped cyborg who was designed to adapt to his environment by assuming the form of whatever creature he digests a part of, takes refuge in an AI-controlled house that is possessed by the spirit of a murdered child named Jonah. When the house is besieged with Sample B trapped inside, he finds Jonah’s dead body beneath the house and knows there’s only one way out. He consumes Jonah, and the two become one being, undying, that is more than human and more than cyborg.

Argentinian author Mariana Enríquez’s collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, recently translated into English for Hogarth Press, is a phenomenal collection of horror stories with a sharp sociopolitical edge, all set in contemporary Argentina. Her stories feature witches, ghosts, preternatural obsessions, undead babies, and more. They turn the terrifying and fictional into a commentary on everything from illness, to the way we treat and police female bodies, to the depths of darkness that only the humans can create.

Translated into English for the first time, this collection of horror stories from Marathi writer Ratnakar Matkari is perfect for fans of terrifying short fiction. with a new horror on every page — and everything from tormented ghosts, to killer imaginary friends, and an undying woman who cheats death itself, Darkness is meant to keep you up at night, clinging to the light. And if the stories don’t haunt your dreams, that cover might, because it is genuinely creepy! That’s a “shelve it so you can’t see it watching you” cover.

TW: Suicide mention

Best known for her mystery series about the cases of attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir shows off her horror skills in I Remember You, a terrifying ghost story often compared to the works of Stephen King or John Ajvide Lindqvist. Three friends undertake the renovation of an isolated old house, only to realize that they aren’t as alone in their remote location as they might have believed. There is something in the house with them, and it does not want them there. Nearby, an elderly woman commits suicide and, to the shock of the doctor investigating the death, the woman was apparently obsessed with his missing son. Two seemingly unrelated incidents may have more to do with each other than it would first appear.

I promise you I did not make this list just so I would finally have a chance to talk about From Below. But it’s definitely a plus, because this Ghost Ship meets Titanic deep sea horror novel was an instant favorite. It’s intensely claustrophobic, given that our cast is trapped in dive suits, inside a dead ship, at the bottom of the ocean. And every inexplicable thing that happens in the isolated vacuum of the sunken SS Arcadia is made that much more terrifying by the fraught nature of the cast’s presence there. Because while Cove and her dive team might be determined to make their documentary about the previously undiscovered wreck, the metal bones of the Arcadia do not sleep easy, and the dead have other plans.

The Luminous Dead is another one of those books that I am completely obsessed with. Starling had me at “attractive caver gets (literally) in over her head with more than a little help from the equally attractive but untrustworthy person controlling her survival suit, also: giant cave worm things.” Honestly though, where do I even start with how gorgeous and terrifying this book is? Reading it means watching helplessly as Gyre is just dragged through the worst kind of hell, and all the time there’s Em, who seems just as desperate as Gyre is but for different reasons. Reasons that all but guarantee Gyre can’t trust the very woman who can control everything from Gyre’s movement to her emotions with just the push of a button.

Say hello to one of my most anticipated reads for the start of 2023! As you all probably know by now, space horror is my jam and wow am I excited for this novella. The Scourge Between Stars is a bit of a flip on the sci-fi narrative of colonists going forth to seek the stars (and often finding horrors instead) in that it’s actually about what happens after the long dreamed-of colony has failed. Jacklyn Albright is the acting captain of the Calypso, a starship carrying all that remains of humanity. The Calypso is making its slow way back to Earth after humanity’s attempt at colonizing distant space catastrophically failed. And if the lack of food and the dangers of the crushing emptiness of space around them weren’t bad enough, Jacklyn has reason to suspect that there is something alive onboard her ship that shouldn’t be there — an intruder that might kill them all before they ever make it home

If you haven’t read This Poison Heart yet (or it’s recent sequel This Wicked Fate) I highly recommend adding this delightful dark and fantastical YA series to your list. Plants are at the very heart of this book — from Briseis’ magical ability to grow plants from seed to full bloom with just a touch of her hand (a gift that also renders her immune to some of nature’s most deadly poisons) to the amazing and at times frightening gardens that surround the estate that she mysteriously inherits from an Aunt she never knew existed.

I finally get to talk about Eden in a newsletter, yay! It’s one of my favorite works of eco-horror, and is about an uncomfortably near future where the planet has been ravaged by climate change. And humanity’s attempts to save the planet by setting aside Virgin Zones — massive swaths where people have been driven out where the land has been given back to nature — has backfired in frightening ways. Of the zones, Eden is the oldest and the most mysterious. Mainly because people who go into the zone tend not to come out again. Which doesn’t bode well for our cast of adventure racers as they set out to cross the zone in record time, not realizing that Eden has secrets she’ll kill to keep.

Part of the British Library Tales of the Weird series, Evil Roots is a collection of stories from writers of the 19th and early 20th century, all about the great and sinister evils of plants. Readers will likely recognize several of the names on the table of contents, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, H.G. Wells, M.R. James, and more. Each story explores some strange, scary, and often lethal aspect of plant life, be it carnivorous plants of the deep jungle or unsettling experiments involving the merger of botany and biology. It’s a fantastical and frightening homage to the stories that birthed the Killer Plant trope we know and love today.

Listen, I love this collection from top to bottom. But this freaking story has to be the scariest of the lot. I read it ages ago and it STILL gives me the willies just thinking about the Sunflower Man. It’s a breathtaking story about grief and what we think we’d do to get back the ones we love. I know I’ve recommended this collection a few times in The Fright Stuff, but believe me when I say: buy it for “The Sunflower Seed Man,” stay for all the unforgettable stories that Sharma spins.