I had this on pre-order before Meg even formally announced it, so I may be a little biased. I unabashedly love her designs (see my Craft page for examples I’ve cross stitched.)

Another solid slightly supernatural thriller from Sarah Pinborough. Freddie and Emily as dual narrators are not always reliable or likable, as intended by the author and used successfully as a primary plot point..

What if the Roys from Succession got their power from a sinister 1000 year old curse?

Diavola is perfect for fans of modern gothic horror, especially if you like it laden heavily with dark humor.

A creepy read at any age! Paul Tremblay’s first middle-grade novel has everything we didn’t have as Gen X horror loving children who graduated from a doctor (Seuss) to a King (Stephen) with almost nothing in between. (Yes, R.L. Stone is great - but came a little later than middle school for me).

Part folklore, part history, part magic v.science, And the Trees Stare Back is set in 1989 Soviet Estonia where religion is banned and even telling stories about the horrors that may live in the forest is illegal.

The Shivers Collection is made up of five punchy short stories from some of the biggest names in modern horror. (This is an Amazon original, so I regret to inform you that your options for reading are limited. But it is available on Kindle Unlimited, so there’s that.)

When I was a baby hippie who had recently discovered Joni Mitchell and was also a horror lover, maybe 13 years old, I wrote a short story for a class assignment about a daisy whose field was paved over that was reincarnated as a bulldozer and wreaked revenge on all parties involved in the destruction of her field.

I told you it wouldn’t always be horror. Unless you count centuries of being overlooked, forgotten, and oppressed by the patriarchy a horror. Which I do.

The Sundowner’s Dance cannot be reduced to being called a “horror novel” - not that it isn’t because it is: part psychological thriller, part Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it’s also a story of grief: grieving the loss of loved ones and of self and of fear: the fear of death and of losing oneself both physically and mentally.

Alien stories are not my usual go-to, but Mira Grant’s stories are always thrilling, and Overgrowth is no exception.

Modern ideas set in and using the language of Victorian and Gothic novels is having a moment, and I am here for all of it.

A modern, sexy story of a woman who is hungry for love, freedom, life, and sex in the form of a classic Gothic vampire tale.

I remember getting TB tests in elementary school and, as I wanted to be a writer, believing I would eventually suffer  from “consumption” as I insisted on calling it - as some of my favorite writers had, with no real thought to how terrible the disease actually is - nor how widespread and both simple and difficult to treat/cure.

I liked a lot about the characters and the story, but it felt unnecessarily challenging to read with all the dream sequences being difficult to distinguish- and sooo many of them.

Nowhere has the hallmarks of an effective horror tale, creepy children, dark forests, small town, and folklore.

Besides a return to characters I enjoyed from The Firekeeper’s Daughter (10 years later and from the perspective of her now/teenage niece), the sequel Warrior Girl Unearthed was as filled with mystery, family, native lore, and attention to social justice as its predecessor. 

This is a great example of the danger of reducing a book to tropes. If you had pitched a YA, fake dating, hockey romance to me, it would be a hard pass.

I was really excited for this anthology and its theme of lost, liminal spaces. I also appreciated the mix of well-known and unknown authors.

This is the kind of audiobook that I take issue with because it sets such a high bar for audiobooks that I have trouble listening to other productions.