Whether you fear murder, demons, zombies, or cannibal toddlers, these 2023 releases will keep you entertained and full of spooky season spirit.
Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele
Synopsis: The visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our nation.
A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele’s anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Genre: Anthology, Horror
Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
Synopsis: A small town is transformed when seven strange trees begin bearing magical apples in this masterpiece of horror from the bestselling author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents.
It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there. Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black. Something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.
Publication Date: September 26, 2023
Genre: Horror, Supernatural Thriller
Down the Hill by Susan Hendricks
Synopsis: On February 13, 2017, two teenage girls—13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German—decided to enjoy a day off from school by exploring the popular hiking trails in Delphi, Indiana. Less than 24 hours later, their bodies were found on the north bank of Deer Creek, about a mile from where they were last seen. Former CNN/HLN anchor and veteran broadcast journalist Susan Hendricks takes an investigative deep-dive into the still-unsolved double homicide of two teens in Delphi, Indiana—and its lasting impact on the community
Hendricks digs deeper in into the mystery that has captivated our nation for years, exploring the family’s enduring resilience and advocacy, as well as the rippling impact the case has had on not just Delphi, but the very heart of the American heartland. As a result, this book is more than just a book about a double homicide; it’s about a small town in middle America that’s been haunted by an unfathomable act of violence; it’s about the ways families and communities cope with grief and move forward after tragedy; it’s about the limitations of local law enforcement and the rise of technology in helping to solve cases in new ways. But it’s also about compassion, connection, empathy, and resilience—on a very real, very human level.
Publication Date: September 19, 2023
Genre: Nonfiction, True Crime, Forensic Science
Fever House by Keith Rosson
Synopsis: A small-time criminal. A has-been rock star. A shadowy government agency. And a severed hand whose dark powers threaten to destroy them all.
When leg-breaker Hutch Holtz rolls up to a rundown apartment complex in Portland, Oregon, to collect overdue drug money, a severed hand is the last thing he expects to find stashed in the client’s refrigerator. Hutch quickly realizes that the hand induces uncontrollable madness: Anyone in its proximity is overcome with a boundless compulsion for violence. Within hours, catastrophic forces are set into motion: Dark-op government agents who have been desperately hunting for the hand are on Hutch’s tail, more of the city’s residents fall under its brutal influence, and suddenly all of Portland stands at the precipice of disaster. . . .
Publication Date: August 15, 2023
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction – Apocalyptic
Mister Magic by Kiersten White
Synopsis: Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. But just as generations of cultishly devoted fans still cling to the lessons they learned from the show, the cast, known as the Circle of Friends, have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. The friendship. The feeling of belonging. And the protection of Mister Magic. But with no surviving video of the show, no evidence of who directed or produced it, and no records of who—or what—the beloved host actually was, memories are all the former Circle of Friends has.
Who is Mister Magic? Former child stars reunite to uncover the tragedy that ended their show—and discover the secret of its enigmatic host—in this skin-crawling story of pop culture fandom and ‘90s nostalgia from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hide.
Publication Date: August 8, 2023
Genre: Horror, Suspense
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Synopsis: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film—and awakens one woman’s hidden powers.
Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood. Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.
Publication Date: July 18, 2023
Genre: Supernatural Thriller, Horror
Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker
Synopsis: New York Times bestselling author Chandler Baker’s Cutting Teeth is a witty, thrilling story of parental love that asks: is there anything a mother won’t do for her children?
Darby, Mary Beth, and Rhea are on personal quests to reclaim aspects of their identities subsumed by motherhood–their careers, their sex lives, their bodies. But their children disrupt their plans when an unsettling medical condition begins to go around the Little Academy preschool: the kids are craving blood. Then a young teacher is found dead, and the only potential witnesses are ten adorable four-year-olds.
Publication Date: July 18, 2023
Genre: Domestic Thriller, Psychological Fiction
Lone Women by Victor Lavalle
Synopsis: Blue skies, empty land–and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an absorbing, powerful new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling.
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear. The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it–except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory
Publication Date: March 28, 2023
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Horror, Suspense
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Synopsis: A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even and occupying the farm would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira, and by Birnam Wood; although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?
A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is a brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences; it is a mesmerizing, unflinching consideration of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.
Publication Date: March 7, 2023
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Literary Fiction
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez
Synopsis: A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family in the first novel to be translated into English by the International Booker Prize–shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed—the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.
Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes.
Publication Date: February 7, 2023
Genre: Gothic Fiction, Horror, Translated – Latinx & Hispanic
The Drift by C.J. Tudor
Synopsis: Three ordinary people risk everything for a chance at redemption in this audacious, utterly gripping novel of catastrophe and survival at the end of the world, from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man.
Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass after being evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm. Meg awakens to a gentle rocking; she’s in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board. Carter is gazing out the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, something hiding in the chalet’s depths threatens to escape, and their fragile bonds will be tested when the power finally fails—for good. The imminent dangers faced by Hannah, Meg, and Carter are each one part of the puzzle. Lurking in their shadows is an even greater danger—one with the power to consume all of humanity.
Publication Date: January 31, 2023
Genre: Horror, Psychological Thriller
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