This Month in Horror || The Best New Horror Books Coming July 2026
July is here, which means longer days, warmer nights, and a whole new crop of horror books ready to ruin your sleep schedule. Whether you want ghosts, monsters, dark fantasy, weird fiction, folk horror, or a little bloodbath with your summer reading, there’s plenty to keep your TBR pile growing.
So grab your sunscreen, lock your doors, and let's take a look at the horror books coming your way in July.
July 7.png)
When fashion influencer and grave robber Poppy Stringer is tasked with retrieving the body of flamboyant rockstar and queer icon Eddie Michaels from the medical examiner’s office, things take a decidedly unexpected turn when the corpse wakes up.
From there? A blood-soaked trip through Palm Springs, supernatural chaos, and a whole lot of fabulousness.
James Sugre has lived for centuries, but he’s never been this broke. After bad investments, missed crypto trends, and spending most of his time in his coffin because he can’t afford to go out, this vampire is ready to try anything to escape capitalism. So naturally, he starts a business turning humans into vampires for cash. Immortality is forever. Unfortunately, so are the bills.
Before Dracula, there were the Brides. Told across two timelines through letters, diaries, and psychiatric reports, this gothic retelling puts the women at the center of literature’s most famous vampire story. As love, illness, nightmares, and a mysterious man in black draw four women toward Transylvania, one question hangs in the air: There were meant to be four.
Paris, 1869. A coven of vampires runs a theater, follows a strict no-killing-too-many-people policy, and has somehow managed to keep the immortal drama onstage. But with a witch, rival vampires, forbidden attraction, ominous visions, and revolution brewing in the streets, their carefully managed eternity is about to get very messy.
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Two friends. One Ouija board. One massive secret that threatens to tear everything apart.
Honestly, this is exactly why we should stop playing with Ouija boards. Yet somehow, we never learn, do we?
The most addictive video game ever made—and the only way to stop playing is to die. When Margo’s brother becomes one of the game’s victims, she sets out to expose the people behind it before the game launches nationwide. Unfortunately, Fun Times at the Bloodbath has other plans, and soon the entire country is playing. Game over? More like game over for everyone.
Persephone Green doesn’t have a heartbeat—but she does have something ancient and inhuman stirring where her heart should be. When she meets the equally strange Sebastian, ghosts begin swarming around them, flowers bloom from the dead, and the two are pulled into a cross-country conspiracy involving a deserted facility, government agents, and Persephone’s deeply inconvenient mother. A supernatural road trip, a love story, and a battle over the fate of the living and the dead? No heartbeat, no problem.
July 14.png)
Three women. One cheating boyfriend. One remote, snow-covered cabin. When their revenge plan ends with their shared ex dead, the getaway turns into a locked-room murder mystery—with the killer trapped inside. As suspicion, secrets, and the freezing wilderness close in, the women must figure out whether one of them is a murderer… or if something much worse is waiting outside. Couples' retreat? More like a killer retreat.
After a violent incident at work, Tamsin escapes to a remote cottage for a fresh start. Unfortunately, her new home is actually semi-detached, and the unsettling woman on the other side of the wall seems to be hiding something. As strange disturbances begin in Tamsin’s house and locals share disturbing stories about the property, her paranoia starts to spiral. The perfect cottage getaway is just one thin wall away from becoming a nightmare.
A horror-movie-themed birthday party at a secluded mansion? What could possibly go wrong? When Tippi starts receiving threatening messages from her supposedly cross-country ex and her guests begin disappearing one by one, she realizes the killer may be closer than she thinks—and the secret she buried may be the reason everyone is in danger. The call is coming from inside the house.
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A group of academics descends into sea caves to study an ancient Cult of the Leviathan. Then the entrance collapses, trapping them underground with strange artifacts, scattered bones, and an ancient trial they never agreed to take. One by one, they’ll be forced to confront their greatest sins. Atone or die.
Eleven-year-old Penelope is already haunted by her father’s disappearance and her mother’s grief when she moves into a yellow house once owned by Sylvia Plath. Then Plath’s ghost begins to appear. As poetry, memory, and reality start to blur, Penelope must figure out whether she’s being haunted by a ghost—or by grief itself. Sometimes the house isn’t the only thing falling apart.
Nobody knows who created the Darkive—a mysterious database of firsthand accounts documenting ghosts, paranormal entities, and unexplained anomalies. When Adam and his best friend, Sol, stumble into a strange abandoned town during a disastrous camping trip, they’re forced to play a game of hide-and-seek. The rules are confusing, the town is empty, and something is definitely hiding with them. Ready or not, here it comes.
July 15
Monsters are personal—but they’re also universal. This collection explores the ways horror helps us examine monstrosity, from who gets labeled a monster to what those labels reveal about ourselves. Because while our monsters may look different, our nightmares have more in common than we think. My monsters aren’t like yours. They’re worse.
July 21.png)
When Malcolm’s dying mother makes him promise to carry her body back to her birthplace in Maine, he expects a difficult journey—not a supernatural road trip through a world waking up to collect an old debt. As violence erupts aboard the train and ancient evils emerge from their hiding places, Malcolm and Violet must get Maggie home before everything buried comes looking for her.
Sixteen-year-old Harrow Lane travels to an island that shouldn’t exist to uncover the truth about her father’s death—and the curse he accidentally gave her at birth. Then the boat sinks, something in the darkness starts laughing, and Harrow discovers that the island has rules she doesn’t understand, creatures that don’t want her there, and absolutely no way to call for help. Add in emotions with human faces, a monster made of pure terror, and the possible end of the world, and you’ve got Inside Out in hell—with significantly worse coping mechanisms.
Thirteen years after her mother vanished, Phinnie “Skinny” Caldwell is still haunted by nightmares of the last time she saw her alive. When the man responsible, Zell Dorsey, returns to their small West Virginia coal camp, Skinny is determined to uncover the truth. But behind Zell’s charming smile lurks something far older—and far more monstrous than the devil himself. Appalachian grief, dark secrets, and oil-slicked monsters? Pass the sweet tea.
Moth knows the Winter Folk are dangerous. Her mother warned her. But when she’s broke, desperate, and offered a housekeeper’s contract at Deerhaven—a secret Appalachian lodge where every winter guest is something other than human—she signs anyway. Decades later, Moth returns to the place that banished her, haunted by memories of the antlered Mr. Oslin, the friends she left behind, and the obsession that may have cost her everything.
After a car crash leaves Junie Daniels with a dead sister, fragmented memories, and a mother too checked-out to plan a funeral, the cheapest grave plot she can find is in a nearby town with a dark history and rumors of even darker magic. When strange things begin happening at the cemetery, Junie and her best friend Omari investigate, only to discover that Williamsville wants both Daniels sisters. And Junie will do anything to protect her sister—even if she’s already dead.
A year ago, Elle made a deal with the devil to save her sister. Now she tends a lighthouse on a desolate island, luring ships to their destruction to pay the price. But when the devil demands more—and a mysterious woman washes ashore—Elle must choose between sacrificing another ship, breaking her sister’s heart, or losing her own soul. Turns out, the devil really does come with hidden fees.
July 28.png)
On a remote Irish island ruled by the church and haunted by old superstitions, eccentric painter Grizela Urquhart has spent forty years as an outsider. Then a young priest is found dead with a diabolical symbol carved into his chest, crows darken the skies, and demonic whispers begin invading Grizela’s mind. As the island descends into hysteria, Grizela must protect the four young girls under her care while confronting the dark secrets lurking beneath Beanna Dubh.
Phil discovers something dying under his deck emitting a horrid stench. When he attempts to remove the corpse, strange things begin to happen, and Phil descends into a strange pit of insanity.
The Hook: Professor Harper Grae studies ghosts, witches, and the occult, but she absolutely does not believe in any of them. Then a cheesy ghost tour leads her to a real murder at a nearly two-hundred-year-old mansion, where she sees something she cannot explain. When Harper discovers another woman was murdered beneath the same cypress tree almost two centuries earlier, she begins to wonder if the Perles Mansion is truly haunted. Turns out, the best way to ruin a skeptic’s day is with a murder and a ghost.
It’s 1887, and the nuns of an isolated Berkshire convent have enough prayers, hard work, and homemade Italian amaro to keep them busy. Then a pack of monstrous Gulo descends from the mountains and attacks the convent. After killing one of the beasts, the sisters decide the best defense is a good offense and head into the snowy wilderness to hunt the rest.
Luckily, they have help from the mysterious Long Nun, a warrior-saint from France who claims to have killed werewolves and other vicious creatures. She teaches the sisters to embrace their darker instincts and unleash their inner savages. Nuns with crossbows, monsters in the snow, and a holy war fueled by amaro? Amen.
July 29.png)
New mom Sadie is already struggling with the loss of her identity, autonomy, and sleep when a walk with her three-month-old daughter reveals a secret trail in the woods. At the end is a tiny door surrounded by tiny bones. The trail only appears when Sadie is alone, and something is waiting on the other side. Because apparently motherhood needed one more terrifying thing to worry about.
Jack and Avery think they’ve found the perfect fixer-upper. The strange collage of pornographic clippings in the basement is weird, but probably just part of the house’s quirky charm. Then the house wakes up. Now the walls are bleeding, the house is alive, and it demands homage. Nothing says “dream home” like a sentient house with artistic ambitions and a taste for blood.
July 30
Humanity escaped a dying world through a mysterious gate, only to end up dependent on the Root, a strange plant that provides the food they need to survive. Then a bloody accident creates a new kind of person, and suddenly the Root has something to say. It wants to give humanity a miracle, even if that miracle means transforming their bodies in ways they never asked for. The Root is listening. The Root is whispering. And apparently, the Root has plans for your body.
The summer of 2026 is bringing a seriously eclectic lineup of horror. We have ghosts, witches, vampires, Ouija boards, haunted homes, folk horror, body horror, sea monsters, mysterious bones, and at least one thing hiding under a deck.
In other words: the horror TBR is thriving.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have several books to add to my list and absolutely no room left on my shelves.
Happy reading—and remember: if something under your deck says your name, you did not hear it.
July is here, which means longer days, warmer nights, and a whole new crop of horror books ready to ruin your sleep schedule. Whether you want ghosts, monsters, dark fantasy, weird fiction, folk horror, or a little bloodbath with your summer reading, there’s plenty to keep your TBR pile growing.
So grab your sunscreen, lock your doors, and let's take a look at the horror books coming your way in July.
July 7
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When fashion influencer and grave robber Poppy Stringer is tasked with retrieving the body of flamboyant rockstar and queer icon Eddie Michaels from the medical examiner’s office, things take a decidedly unexpected turn when the corpse wakes up.
From there? A blood-soaked trip through Palm Springs, supernatural chaos, and a whole lot of fabulousness.
James Sugre has lived for centuries, but he’s never been this broke. After bad investments, missed crypto trends, and spending most of his time in his coffin because he can’t afford to go out, this vampire is ready to try anything to escape capitalism. So naturally, he starts a business turning humans into vampires for cash. Immortality is forever. Unfortunately, so are the bills.
Before Dracula, there were the Brides. Told across two timelines through letters, diaries, and psychiatric reports, this gothic retelling puts the women at the center of literature’s most famous vampire story. As love, illness, nightmares, and a mysterious man in black draw four women toward Transylvania, one question hangs in the air: There were meant to be four.
Paris, 1869. A coven of vampires runs a theater, follows a strict no-killing-too-many-people policy, and has somehow managed to keep the immortal drama onstage. But with a witch, rival vampires, forbidden attraction, ominous visions, and revolution brewing in the streets, their carefully managed eternity is about to get very messy.
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Two friends. One Ouija board. One massive secret that threatens to tear everything apart.
Honestly, this is exactly why we should stop playing with Ouija boards. Yet somehow, we never learn, do we?
The most addictive video game ever made—and the only way to stop playing is to die. When Margo’s brother becomes one of the game’s victims, she sets out to expose the people behind it before the game launches nationwide. Unfortunately, Fun Times at the Bloodbath has other plans, and soon the entire country is playing. Game over? More like game over for everyone.
Persephone Green doesn’t have a heartbeat—but she does have something ancient and inhuman stirring where her heart should be. When she meets the equally strange Sebastian, ghosts begin swarming around them, flowers bloom from the dead, and the two are pulled into a cross-country conspiracy involving a deserted facility, government agents, and Persephone’s deeply inconvenient mother. A supernatural road trip, a love story, and a battle over the fate of the living and the dead? No heartbeat, no problem.
July 14
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Three women. One cheating boyfriend. One remote, snow-covered cabin. When their revenge plan ends with their shared ex dead, the getaway turns into a locked-room murder mystery—with the killer trapped inside. As suspicion, secrets, and the freezing wilderness close in, the women must figure out whether one of them is a murderer… or if something much worse is waiting outside. Couples' retreat? More like a killer retreat.
After a violent incident at work, Tamsin escapes to a remote cottage for a fresh start. Unfortunately, her new home is actually semi-detached, and the unsettling woman on the other side of the wall seems to be hiding something. As strange disturbances begin in Tamsin’s house and locals share disturbing stories about the property, her paranoia starts to spiral. The perfect cottage getaway is just one thin wall away from becoming a nightmare.
A horror-movie-themed birthday party at a secluded mansion? What could possibly go wrong? When Tippi starts receiving threatening messages from her supposedly cross-country ex and her guests begin disappearing one by one, she realizes the killer may be closer than she thinks—and the secret she buried may be the reason everyone is in danger. The call is coming from inside the house.
.png)
A group of academics descends into sea caves to study an ancient Cult of the Leviathan. Then the entrance collapses, trapping them underground with strange artifacts, scattered bones, and an ancient trial they never agreed to take. One by one, they’ll be forced to confront their greatest sins. Atone or die.
Eleven-year-old Penelope is already haunted by her father’s disappearance and her mother’s grief when she moves into a yellow house once owned by Sylvia Plath. Then Plath’s ghost begins to appear. As poetry, memory, and reality start to blur, Penelope must figure out whether she’s being haunted by a ghost—or by grief itself. Sometimes the house isn’t the only thing falling apart.
Nobody knows who created the Darkive—a mysterious database of firsthand accounts documenting ghosts, paranormal entities, and unexplained anomalies. When Adam and his best friend, Sol, stumble into a strange abandoned town during a disastrous camping trip, they’re forced to play a game of hide-and-seek. The rules are confusing, the town is empty, and something is definitely hiding with them. Ready or not, here it comes.
July 15
Monsters are personal—but they’re also universal. This collection explores the ways horror helps us examine monstrosity, from who gets labeled a monster to what those labels reveal about ourselves. Because while our monsters may look different, our nightmares have more in common than we think. My monsters aren’t like yours. They’re worse.
July 21
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When Malcolm’s dying mother makes him promise to carry her body back to her birthplace in Maine, he expects a difficult journey—not a supernatural road trip through a world waking up to collect an old debt. As violence erupts aboard the train and ancient evils emerge from their hiding places, Malcolm and Violet must get Maggie home before everything buried comes looking for her.
Sixteen-year-old Harrow Lane travels to an island that shouldn’t exist to uncover the truth about her father’s death—and the curse he accidentally gave her at birth. Then the boat sinks, something in the darkness starts laughing, and Harrow discovers that the island has rules she doesn’t understand, creatures that don’t want her there, and absolutely no way to call for help. Add in emotions with human faces, a monster made of pure terror, and the possible end of the world, and you’ve got Inside Out in hell—with significantly worse coping mechanisms.
Thirteen years after her mother vanished, Phinnie “Skinny” Caldwell is still haunted by nightmares of the last time she saw her alive. When the man responsible, Zell Dorsey, returns to their small West Virginia coal camp, Skinny is determined to uncover the truth. But behind Zell’s charming smile lurks something far older—and far more monstrous than the devil himself. Appalachian grief, dark secrets, and oil-slicked monsters? Pass the sweet tea.
.png)
Moth knows the Winter Folk are dangerous. Her mother warned her. But when she’s broke, desperate, and offered a housekeeper’s contract at Deerhaven—a secret Appalachian lodge where every winter guest is something other than human—she signs anyway. Decades later, Moth returns to the place that banished her, haunted by memories of the antlered Mr. Oslin, the friends she left behind, and the obsession that may have cost her everything.
After a car crash leaves Junie Daniels with a dead sister, fragmented memories, and a mother too checked-out to plan a funeral, the cheapest grave plot she can find is in a nearby town with a dark history and rumors of even darker magic. When strange things begin happening at the cemetery, Junie and her best friend Omari investigate, only to discover that Williamsville wants both Daniels sisters. And Junie will do anything to protect her sister—even if she’s already dead.
A year ago, Elle made a deal with the devil to save her sister. Now she tends a lighthouse on a desolate island, luring ships to their destruction to pay the price. But when the devil demands more—and a mysterious woman washes ashore—Elle must choose between sacrificing another ship, breaking her sister’s heart, or losing her own soul. Turns out, the devil really does come with hidden fees.
July 28
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On a remote Irish island ruled by the church and haunted by old superstitions, eccentric painter Grizela Urquhart has spent forty years as an outsider. Then a young priest is found dead with a diabolical symbol carved into his chest, crows darken the skies, and demonic whispers begin invading Grizela’s mind. As the island descends into hysteria, Grizela must protect the four young girls under her care while confronting the dark secrets lurking beneath Beanna Dubh.
Phil discovers something dying under his deck emitting a horrid stench. When he attempts to remove the corpse, strange things begin to happen, and Phil descends into a strange pit of insanity.
The Hook: Professor Harper Grae studies ghosts, witches, and the occult, but she absolutely does not believe in any of them. Then a cheesy ghost tour leads her to a real murder at a nearly two-hundred-year-old mansion, where she sees something she cannot explain. When Harper discovers another woman was murdered beneath the same cypress tree almost two centuries earlier, she begins to wonder if the Perles Mansion is truly haunted. Turns out, the best way to ruin a skeptic’s day is with a murder and a ghost.
It’s 1887, and the nuns of an isolated Berkshire convent have enough prayers, hard work, and homemade Italian amaro to keep them busy. Then a pack of monstrous Gulo descends from the mountains and attacks the convent. After killing one of the beasts, the sisters decide the best defense is a good offense and head into the snowy wilderness to hunt the rest.
Luckily, they have help from the mysterious Long Nun, a warrior-saint from France who claims to have killed werewolves and other vicious creatures. She teaches the sisters to embrace their darker instincts and unleash their inner savages. Nuns with crossbows, monsters in the snow, and a holy war fueled by amaro? Amen.
July 29
.png)
New mom Sadie is already struggling with the loss of her identity, autonomy, and sleep when a walk with her three-month-old daughter reveals a secret trail in the woods. At the end is a tiny door surrounded by tiny bones. The trail only appears when Sadie is alone, and something is waiting on the other side. Because apparently motherhood needed one more terrifying thing to worry about.
Jack and Avery think they’ve found the perfect fixer-upper. The strange collage of pornographic clippings in the basement is weird, but probably just part of the house’s quirky charm. Then the house wakes up. Now the walls are bleeding, the house is alive, and it demands homage. Nothing says “dream home” like a sentient house with artistic ambitions and a taste for blood.
July 30
Humanity escaped a dying world through a mysterious gate, only to end up dependent on the Root, a strange plant that provides the food they need to survive. Then a bloody accident creates a new kind of person, and suddenly the Root has something to say. It wants to give humanity a miracle, even if that miracle means transforming their bodies in ways they never asked for. The Root is listening. The Root is whispering. And apparently, the Root has plans for your body.
The summer of 2026 is bringing a seriously eclectic lineup of horror. We have ghosts, witches, vampires, Ouija boards, haunted homes, folk horror, body horror, sea monsters, mysterious bones, and at least one thing hiding under a deck.
In other words: the horror TBR is thriving.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have several books to add to my list and absolutely no room left on my shelves.
Happy reading—and remember: if something under your deck says your name, you did not hear it.
Looking for more scary reads? Browse all of my horror book reviews.
Review || I Am The Monster Under Your Bed by Emily Zinnikas
I Am The Monster Under Your Bed by Emily Zinnikas Published September 15th 2026 by St. Martins Press
I Am The Monster Under Your Bed by Emily Zinnikas
Something lives under Willa’s bed. As an adult, her fondest childhood memories are of the invisible entity under her bed who taught her how to read. Now thirty-two, Willa is a reclusive but successful painter until a bombshell news report exposes her identity as the controversial survivor of the unsolved Rapture Mystery Slayings, a small-town tragedy that splashed across headlines during her senior year of high school. Six teenagers died in the woods while Willa walked free, and everyone thinks she killed them.
When an old classmate calls about a funeral, Willa reluctantly travels to her sleepy hometown, where the possessed forest that stole her friends looms. The trees whistle for her attention, but she knows better than to listen. And the unexplained knocking from the shadows in the basement of her decaying childhood home is honestly the least of her problems.
As her past pulls her back to the place where she swore she’d never return, Willa is drawn toward the monster she left behind—and becoming the villain her hometown has always believed her to be.
I Am the Monster Under the Bed is an ambitious debut that dreams big, and Zinnikas has some nightmares to share.
There is a lot happening here: multiple plot threads, timelines folding in on each other, flashbacks woven throughout, and there are moments where it gets in its own way. I had to have some faith that it would all converge in some mysterious way.
Willa is an unreliable narrator with survivor's guilt. She's impulsive, possibly a little bonkers, and has childhood trauma dragging her down as well. I actually liked her a lot.
The supernatural elements in particular feel underexplaned, and left me wanting more. The rules of the monster-verse felt fuzzy, and I kept wanting Zinnikas to slow down and let the weirdness breathe and really show itself. Maybe that readers must fill in the blanks is why it works in the end.
It is the kind of finale that makes you sit with the book closed for a second because you didn't see it coming, but it lands exactly right. Surprising and satisfying in equal measure, which is honestly harder to pull off than it sounds for a debut.
Despite the chaos of the middle, even the monster under the bed thinks the ending was worth the wait.
Feature Fiction || The Hematophages: Splatterings by Stephen Kozeniewski
Published March 16th 2026 by French Press Publishing
In a galaxy riven by paranoid greed, profane forces marshal to consume humanity…
- On an abandoned ice moon, broadcasts from a long-dead civilization warp both body and soul.
- On a bizarre medical asteroid, a deranged physician discovers a gruesome “cure” for parasitic infection.
- On a deep space derelict, time becomes utterly meaningless and suffering transcends infinity.
- And on Earth itself, a lake transforms into pure blood and becomes infested with the hate-filled, eel-like aberrations known as…
The Hematophages.
With this quartet of short stories, Splatterpunk Award winner Stephen Kozeniewski is delighted to welcome newcomers to the brutal universe Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer calls “the gold standard for the Space Horror subgenre.”
Meanwhile, veteran ink surfers will find a treasure trove of new material to broaden their event horizons, including extensive background information from the author and a never-before-published tale of alien terror.
So, strap on your boom suit, ready your eye spoon, and try to prepare yourself for…
Splatterings.
Stephen Kozeniewski (pronounced "causin' ooze key") is a Splatterpunk Award-winning author and two-time World Horror Grossout Contest champion. His published work has also been nominated for the Voice Arts and Indie Horror Book Awards, among other honors. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and their two cats above a fanciful balloon studio.
Review || Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen
Published May 26, 2026 by Poisoned Pen Press
The year is 1635.
Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying the gilded skull of a saint.
It is said that if you reunite the saint's skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic's power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing the magic they seek comes at a cost.
At the journey's end, they'll face an impossible choice—one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.
In Bone of My Bone, the Thirty Years' War is never merely a vague historical backdrop. From the opening pages, van Veen establishes the destruction, fear, and complete upending of ordinary life, giving the horror real weight. It's the kind of historical detail that sends you looking things up afterward.
When the horror elements are firing, van Veen absolutely delivers on atmosphere. The necromancy feels eerie and grounded, rooted in the superstitions and religious anxieties of the period, and the gilded skull is its unsettling grinning centerpiece. The Bavarian Forest setting drips with menace, and the threats surrounding it feel treacherous and urgent.
My issues were more with the characters and pacing. The opening pulls you in fast, and the premise is strong, but somewhere in the middle, the momentum just stalls out. It picked back up towards the end, but there were definitely points where I found myself reading more out of commitment than interest. I also wanted more from the characters. Ursula and Elsebeth just didn't click for me the way I wanted them to, so I never felt super invested in what happened to them.
Ultimately, this one hit differently than Blood on Her Tongue. The relationship between Lucy and Sarah was so tightly wound and emotionally raw that the horror felt deeply personal. The dread and the emotional stakes were completely inseparable, so even the quieter moments felt tense. Bone of My Bone has all of van Veen's signature atmosphere and remarkable sense of dread, but without that emotional core at its center, it didn't stick with me quite as much.
Review || What Stalks The Deep by T. Kingfisher
Published September 30, 2025 by Tor Nightfire
The next installment in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton investigating the dark, mysterious depths of a coal mine in America.
Alex Easton does not want to visit America.
They particularly do not want to visit an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a reputation for being haunted.
But when their old friend Dr. Denton summons them to help find his lost cousin—who went missing in that very mine—well, sometimes a sworn soldier has to do what a sworn soldier has to do...
The third installment in T. Kingfisher's Sworn Soldier series sends Alex Easton somewhere they emphatically do not want to go: America. More specifically, an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a unsavory reputation. When their old friend Dr. Denton calls in a favor to help locate his missing cousin, who was last seen heading into that very mine, well, a sworn soldier answers the call.
I've loved following Alex Easton through the crumbling Usher estate and the fog-draped forests of Gallacia, so naturally I was eager to see where Kingfisher would take them next. And I have to say, the setting of What Stalks the Deep is its strongest asset. The darkness is absolute, the walls press in from every direction, and the silence of the mine is almost intolerable. Imagine being underground with tons of rocks between you and the surface. Kingfisher leans into the claustrophobia beautifully, and we experience it alongside Easton.
Kingfisher has always excelled at writing characters who feel lived-in and real, and that hasn't changed. Alex's particular brand of practicality bumping up against the inexplicable never gets old, and watching them navigate the landscape of rural West Virginia with acerbic bewilderment is funny. Angus remains a steadfast, grounding presence, and there's something quietly satisfying about the way these three have settled into each other. If you've come to love these characters across the earlier books, revisiting them is still a joy, even if the horror is light.
Where What Stalks the Deep loses a little steam, unfortunately, is in the horror itself. The monster at the center of this story never quite reached the level of wrongness that Kingfisher achieved with her possessed hares in What Moves the Dead — that specific, skin-crawling sensation of something familiar twisted just slightly out of true. Once the monster is revealed, it's almost...cute?
What Stalks the Deep is by no means a bad book. Kingfisher is too skilled a writer for that, and I'll pick up whatever Alex Easton adventure comes next without hesitation. But for me, the Sworn Soldier series has yet to top What Moves The Dead.
Review || The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw
Published July 22, 2025 by Tor Nightfire
A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and The Atlas Six who are hungry for something a little more diabolical.
The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.
Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.
But there’s more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa’s class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school’s library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.
Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?
I've made no secret of the fact that Cassandra Khaw and I have history. They have a permanent spot on my auto-read list, for better or worse. These Deathless Bones was my introduction. The Salt Grows Heavy was vibrantly weird. And then The Dead Take the A Train with Richard Kadrey showed up and proved that Khaw's particular brand of chaos only gets grittier with a collaborator. I think it's worth stating upfront that I came into The Library at Hellebore with some goodwill because I know anything by Khaw requires a certain mood and commitment.
The premise is pure, unhinged fun — a school full of the world's most genuinely dangerous kids who could end the world if left unsupervised. Anti-Christs, Ragnaröks, a boy who reads omens in his own entrails. Ya know, just your average kid. On graduation day, the eldritch faculty decide the student body looks delicious, and the school gets turned into a slaughterhouse. The survivors hole up in the library and try not to die while something ancient and hungry hunts them through the aisles. What follows is part melee, part dark academia fever dream, part Khaw being utterly themselves. It is exactly as chaotic as it sounds.
But the prose! I stand by everything I've ever said about Khaw being a lot. Dense vocabulary, long sentences, writing that demands you gnaw your way through it. Khaw writes like they're conducting a symphony with a chainsaw at a tea party. If you ever wanted to increase your vocab, it's here. Lush and sharp and genuinely strange, with a quality that makes even the most grotesque moments feel almost beautiful. It makes you feel slightly (okay, completely) unhinged for appreciating it.
As far as characters go, Alessa is a solid protagonist. Prickly, damaged, dangerous in ways she's still figuring out. The crew she ends up trapped with is where it gets interesting. This is very much a found family situation, except everyone in the family could unmake reality if sufficiently pissed off. I liked them. I wanted more of them, honestly, which leads me to the complaint. Khaw tells this story in fragments which is...not my fav. I wanted more space with everyone trapped in that library than the fractured timeline allowed. It's the kind of structure that warrants a reread... maybe. On the first pass, it just got in its own way.
If you've never read Khaw before, I'd start with one of the shorter stories to calibrate your palate first and decide if you're a fan. But if you already know, The Library at Hellebore is the kind of book that reminds you exactly why you showed up in the first place. It's bloody, it's weird, it's gorgeous, and it's absolutely convinced of its own feral vision.
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