Josie is at rock bottom. Burned out, heartbroken and recovering from an abusive relationship, she lives a haunted existence after returning to her isolated hometown on the edge of the Forest of Dean.

Josie's hopes of a fresh start are horribly derailed when she stumbles across a dead woman's decaying, ant-infested body in the woods. The grim discovery sends her into a downward spiral, forcing her to face uncomfortable truths about the victim and her own past - all whilst battling the swarming black ants that seem to have burrowed into her mind . . . and her flesh.

As Josie struggles with infestations of all kinds, she scratches the surface of an age-old mystery - a masked predator stalks the forest around Ellwood, a place deeply gripped by ancient folklore and strange customs. So when the village dresses up for its annual festival, Josie gets closer and closer to unveiling a monster, and begins to ask herself: Are these dark, crawling insects leading her to uncover the truth?Or is she their next victim?

Details

• Author: Gemma Amor
• Publisher: Hachette Mobius
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 352
• ISBN-13: 9781399745369

To bright and anxious eight-year-old Kay Washington, the worst thing in the world is being alone with the quiet. That’s why Eddie Video makes the perfect imaginary friend: He’s smart, he’s loud, he loves pulling pranks, and he’s always there to chase away the silence.

To mid-forties, down-on-his-luck Ivan, the worst thing in the world happened when he lost his imaginary friend. Now cursed with the ability to see everyone else’s, Ivan makes a living by killing the imaginary friends of adults who couldn’t let go. But when one of Eddie Video’s “pranks” goes too far, Ivan agrees to make an exception and help Kay.

Only Ivan will soon learn that Eddie Video is nothing like the talking ostriches, star bears, and goblin princesses he’s encountered in the past, and it’s going to take a lot more than clumsy haymakers and steak knives to bring him down. A balance of comedy and catharsis, this dual-narrative tackles both the fear of growing up and the scars our childhood leaves behind.

Details

• Author: Robert Brockway
• Publisher: Page Street Horror
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 352
• ISBN-13: 9798890033659

There are locations in this world where the light doesn't seem to reach. Where, no matter how illuminated the place might be, shadows creep in too strongly to fight back. A suspiciously empty gas station rest stop in the middle of the night, littered with googly eyes...a doctor's office, where a bottle of booze and a tear-stained folder wait on the desk...a tech millionaire's haunted kitchen...a Bible-quoting ventriloquist's dingy apartment...a yoga retreat in the middle of the desert, silent except for the screaming.

These locations and more are your destination, and bestselling author Nat Cassidy will be your guide. Featuring the Bram Stoker Award-nominated, critically acclaimed novella Rest Stop (one of Esquire's Best Horror Books of 2024), along with original short stories—some never before published—I Know A Place is a travelogue down twisting side streets and through alleyways where the darkness has eyes...and teeth. Let's hope you make it home in one piece.

Details

• Author: Nat Cassidy; Introduction by Stephen King
• Publisher: Shortwave Publishing
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 496
• ISBN-13: 9798897320165

When the fledgling coastal town of Yamu is rocked by a mass-poisoning attack at the Seaview Parc, a luxury high-rise apartment, Hwayoung is one of many who lost family members. Except, she has never believed that her mother was poisoned.

Now, fueled by grief and a desire for revenge, Hwayoung spends her time hustling to save every penny and bring those responsible to justice. Across town, Doha wakes up in a teddy bear and realizes something sinister has taken his body.

When fate brings Hwayoung and Doha together, the two team up for a revenge quest that will shake the city's shiny façade to its rotten core.

Details

• Author: Yeeun Cho
• Publisher: Run for It
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 304
• ISBN-13: 9780316601245

1884. When Mafalda journeys to Budapest to care for her grieving aunt, her secret love, Lucy, hurries from London to comfort her, with chaperone and lady's maid in tow.

But lady's maid Alice, blessed and cursed with the Sight, is tormented by terrifying visions. When chaperone Eliza falls prey to a disturbing wasting illness, the women hope to seek the healing waters of Transylvania. At a nobleman's invitation, they set out for Castle Dracula.

In the depths of the forest, miles from civilization, their host reveals his true intentions; a monstrous ambition which will tear the women apart.

Not all of them will survive.

Details

• Author: Charlotte Cross
• Publisher: Hanover Square Press
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 400
• ISBN-13: 9781335000965

Victorian Psycho hacked its way into the hearts of readers and critics alike. In this gruesome tale, Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess. But long, listless days spent within the estate's dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family, and Winifred struggles to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. Blissfully, Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for these dear, ugly souls... One of the most horrifyingly beloved novels of the year, Victorian Psycho affirms Virginia Feito as a master of the darkest craft.

Details

• Author: Virginia Feito
• Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 208
• ISBN-13: 9781324097785

Celia is so tired of being alone. All she wants is to have a family—to belong to someone. That's why she's going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. There is no grief at Kindred Cove, because there is no suffering. Nothing is ever lost. Celia knows that, at that mysterious island surrounded by that impossible, ever-growing reef -- she will find herself. She's ready to be healed. She's ready to be transformed. She's ready to believe.

Details

• Author: Sarah Gailey
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 432
• ISBN-13: 9781250851758

Rosy Winter is dying. Her husband, Charlie--sweet but out of his depth--tries to be supportive. Her sister-in-law, Sally, is too distracted by her own problems to help. Her students, once a source of delight, are now a daily reminder of Rosy's mortality. So, Rosy succumbs to anguish, allowing a force--murderous, sensual, feverish--to awaken and stir within her. An embodiment of her rage, a twisted joie de vivre, ripping recompense from the world around her.

A powerful feminist retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's Gothic classic, Mrs. Jekyll is a brilliant, evocative, and lyrical story of one woman's refusal to yield her passion for life, even as her body betrays her.

Details

• Author: Emma Glass
• Publisher: Union Square & Co.
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 176
• ISBN-13: 9781454965909

After losing her job and her fiancé and moving back from the city to live with her parents, Shell Pine needs some help. And according to the sign in the window, the florist shop in the mall does too. Shell gets the gig, and the flowers she works with there are just the thing she needs to cheer up. Or maybe it’s Neve, the beautiful shop manager, who is making her days so rosy?

But you have to get your hands dirty if you want your garden to grow—and Neve’s secrets are as dark and dangerous as they come. In the back room of the flower shop, a young sentient orchid actually runs the show, and he is hungry . . . and he has a plan for them all.

When the choices are to either bury yourself in the warmth of someone else’s fertile soil, or face the cold and disappointing world outside—which would you choose? And what if putting down roots came at a cost far higher than just your freedom?

Details

• Author: Sarah Maria Griffin
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 288
• ISBN-13: 9781250910714

It started with a crack that ripped the earth apart. Then out of the bottomless pit creeps a malevolent fog that leaves a deadly trail in its wake.

John Holman is on a secret assignment from the Department of the Environment when he is dragged into the clutches of this oppressive fog. After a series of grisly axe murders, rampaging livestock and the near-loss of his own sanity, it becomes clear to John that this unstoppable fog is destined to twist the minds and devastate the lives of all those it encounters.

Yet the true horror is only just beginning . . .

Details

• Author: James Herbert
• Publisher: Tor Nightfire UK
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 352
• ISBN-13: 9781035058907

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, and shared sense of unfairness of being on the outside through the slasher horror Jones loves, but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this “playful, self-aware, and remarkably gory horror novel” (The New York Times).

Details

• Author: Stephen Graham Jones
• Publisher: S&S/Saga Press
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 384 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-1668022269

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

Details

• Author: Stephen Graham Jones
• Publisher: Saga Press
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 448
• ISBN-13: 9781668075098

From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Sylvia Moreno Garcia and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.

Details

• Author: Stephen Graham Jones
• Publisher: S&S/Saga Press
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 336 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-1982136468

Lou did what the children of parents with backbreaking, poorly paying jobs are supposed to do: pulled up her bootstraps, went to college, and got an office gig with coworkers who won’t stop talking about their multilevel marketing scheme disguised as self-betterment.

When Lou accepts a property appraisal assignment in the rural hills of Ohio, she knows it's her last chance to save her job and keep making rent. But she quickly finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere with a sabotaged truck, her dog, and someone--or something--stalking her through the ancient Appalachian woods.

If she can’t escape the woods in time, she’ll see firsthand that her job isn’t the only thing that wants to eat her alive.

Morsel is The Blair Witch Project meets The Ritual, with a generous helping of The Menu, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Cassandra Khaw, and Paul Tremblay.

Details

• Author: Carter Keane
• Publisher: Tor Nightfire
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 208
• ISBN-13: 9781250392459

In a dystopian near-future, America has fallen on hard times. Sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual grueling match of stamina and wits known as the Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour day and night, without ever stopping. The winner gets “The Prize”—anything he wants for the rest of his life. But the rules of the Long Walk are harsh and the stakes could not be higher. There is no finish line—the winner is the last man standing. Contestants cannot receive any outside aid whatsoever. Slow down under the speed limit and you’re given a warning. Three warnings and you’re out of the game—forever.

Written by King when he was a college student and published in 1979 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Long Walk is an unforgettable and timeless masterpiece that showcases King’s genius for character building and his visionary storytelling.

Details

• Author: Stephen King
• Publisher: Scribner
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 320 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-1668208816

An eerie-looking child’s toy harbors an unimaginable evil. A supermarket is unexpectedly the place where humanity makes its last stand against destruction. A trip to the attic becomes a journey to hell. An idyllic lake conceals a bottomless terror. And a desert island is the scene of the most frightening struggle for survival ever waged.

Featuring the short story “The Monkey” (now a major motion picture) and the novella “The Mist,” which was both a feature film and television series, as well as many other haunting now classic tales, this magnificent collection is enduring and irresistible proof that Stephen King is a true master of the short story form.

Details

• Author: Stephen King
• Publisher: Scribner
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 672 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-1501143502

Aubrey is not what she seems. She's young, beautiful, romantic, obsessive and ... a vampire. All she wants is to be human again, and failing that, she wants to die. But the problem is, she can't. Not by stake through the heart or holy water or crucifix or garlic or fire. And she'd know, she's tried every method ... Twice.

So she's stuck here on this earth, all alone. Even the vampire who made her this way - an aristocratic douchebag called Oscar - has abandoned her.

But everything changes when one fateful night, she meets Jonathan. He's everything Aubrey's ever dreamed of, and what's more, he's her soulmate. Her Bella-Edward story. For the first time in 150 years, she has a reason to hope - eternal life might be bearable after all. So when Jonathan unexpectedly breaks up with her, she'll do anything to get him back.

But that's the exact moment Oscar swoops back into her life. And he has other plans for her. Soon, she's thrown into a world of glamour, glitter, blood and hedonism, a world that has her questioning everything she knows to be true-about life, but also about herself. A world where nothing is simple ... And no-one is safe, either.

Details

• Author: Pip Knight
• Publisher: Hanover Square Press
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 368 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-1335001436

We make monsters in order to destroy them. For thousands of years, we’ve named witches and burned them, suspected demons and exorcised them. When crops die and children fall ill, who better to blame than a monster?

Yana rides from one desolate town to the next, staging grisly displays while the villagers sleep: animal corpses in the public square, eggs filled with blood in the chicken coop. She tells the stricken villagers stories of vampires that stalk the night. Then she eliminates the threat, and sows seeds of hope in her wake.

The village Koprivci is plagued by exceptional illness and misfortune, its children rarely surviving infancy. There, Yana meets Anka: a headstrong orphan who the villagers blame for their curse. As Anka approaches womanhood, the village Captain is grooming her for marriage against her will. Anka is powerless against him—that is, until Yana arrives. Together, the orphan and the vampire slayer hatch a plan: to conjure a monster so vile, it might provide cover for Anka to escape. But their plan quickly takes on a horrifying life of its own...

Inspired by Slavic folklore, She Made Herself a Monster concocts a clever mix of witchery, ghost stories, heresy, and deception to spin a feminist fable about agency and the power of collective action. It is a haunting and astoundingly cathartic tale of two women who will stop at nothing to take control of their fate.

Details

• Author: Anna Kovatcheva
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 288 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-0063436374

Mia Adair isn’t even twenty-five yet, but she’s starting to wonder if her peak has already passed. She’s spent years working at her local bookstore, a job that was supposed to be temporary. As a kid, she experienced a strange sort of fame within the paranormal community thanks to her inclusion in a book that revealed Mia’s ability to talk with the dead. But that was then, and Mia’s “gift” dried up once adolescence set in. These days, she feels like she’s nobody special.

Until she dies in a tragic car crash and reawakens as a vampire…

Forced to leave behind everything she knew, Mia must choose to live with one of two rival vampire families. The Bellamy and Sutton clans share a dark, complicated history that spans centuries. As Mia learns about their age-old traditions and extraordinary powers, along with their forbidden romances and betrayals, she’s drawn toward two very different loves. And as she feels her gift returning, more potent than ever before, Mia realizes she’ll need it to protect innocent lives—and save the only family she has left.

Details

• Author: Celina Myers
• Publisher: Hanover Square Press
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 304 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-0778387855

The first vampire short story in English, The Vampyre by John Polidori, and the first vampire novella, Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, are published together in one volume. The Vampyre, first published in 1819, features Lord Ruthven, a deathly pale yet fatally charismatic nobleman who preys on women of high society and is generally considered as the first fully developed vampire narrative in English literature. It is here accompanied by Alaric Watts’s introduction, with which it was published throughout the nineteenth century, and which contains important supplementary material on vampire beliefs. Carmilla (1871–2) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is a nineteenth-century Gothic novella featuring a protagonist who typifies the long line of female and lesbian vampires in literature, movies, television series, and artwork. In a castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura, a young woman, leads an isolated life with her father. A horse-drawn carriage crashes and an unexpected guest, the mysterious and seductive Carmilla, enters their lives. An early, sophisticated, and influential vampire novel, Carmilla predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by twenty-five years and the film Nosferatu by fifty.

Penguin Speculative Fiction Special is a hardcover series of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and more published by Penguin Classics. Featuring custom endpapers, specially commissioned cover art, and introductions by scholars and notable figures, these collectible editions celebrate classics that invite us to ask, “What if?” and that, through bold imagination, alternative visions, and magical realms, transform our perception of our world.

Details

• Author: John Polidori
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 192 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-0143139003

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a London house, he makes horrifying discoveries in his client's castle. Soon afterwards, disturbing incidents unfold in England: a ship runs aground on the shores of Whitby, its crew vanished; beautiful Lucy Westenra slowly succumbs to a mysterious, wasting illness, her blood drained away; and the lunatic Renfield raves about the imminent arrival of his "master." In the ensuing battle of wills between the sinister Count and a determined group of adversaries - led by the intrepid vampire hunter Abraham van Helsing - Bram Stoker created a masterpiece of the horror genre, probing into questions of identity, sanity and the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

Penguin Speculative Fiction Special is a hardcover series of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and more published by Penguin Classics. Featuring custom endpapers, specially commissioned cover art, and introductions by scholars and notable figures, these collectible editions celebrate classics that invite us to ask, “What if?” and that, through bold imagination, alternative visions, and magical realms, transform our perception of our world.

Details

• Author: Bram Stoker
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 480 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-0143138990

Four years ago, an unthinkable disaster occurred. In what was later known as the Low-Probability Event, eight million people were killed in a single day, all of them dying in improbable, bizarre ways: strangled by balloon ropes, torn apart by exploding manhole covers, attacked by a chimpanzee wielding a typewriter. A day of freak accidents that proved anything is possible, no matter the odds. Luck is real now, and it's not always good. Vera, a former statistics and probability professor, lost everything that day, and she still struggles to make sense of the unbelievable catastrophe. To her, the LPE proved that the God of Order is dead and nothing matters anymore. When Special Agent Layne shows up on Vera's doorstep, she learns he's investigating a suspiciously—and statistically impossibly—lucky casino. He needs her help to prove the casino's success is connected to the deaths of millions, and it's Vera's last chance to make sense of a world that doesn't. Because what's happening in Vegas isn't staying there, and she's the only thing that stands between the world and another deadly improbability.

Details

• Author: Chuck Tingle
• Publisher: Tor Nightfire
• Print Type: Paperback
• Page Count: 256
• ISBN-13: 9781250398673

Poppy Stringer was born to be a star. An aspiring fashion influencer by day, Poppy moonlights as a grave robber to make ends meet, wheeling and dealing dead bodies across Palm Springs. When her hero, the flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar Eddie Michaels, unexpectedly dies, Poppy gets a call to retrieve his body from the medical examiner's office for a lucrative sum. It could be the last job she'll ever need—if everything goes to plan. But the night's delivery quickly veers off course when Eddie wakes up. Now Poppy must fight for her life if she hopes to survive this blood-soaked joyride of carnage and extravagant entertainment.

Details

• Author: Chuck Tingle
• Publisher: Tor Nightfire
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 240
• ISBN-13: 9781250398567

Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former semi-professional gamer, living with her retired uncle, and working two jobs she doesn’t like. Out of the blue, her estranged mother, a CFO for one of the world’s largest tech companies, offers her a temp job with a payday Julia can’t refuse. One sham interview later, she’s offered the job: to chaperone a man in a vegetative state—one with proprietary AI implanted in his head—from California to the East Coast.

To sum up in Julia’s own words: “You want me to remote control this dead dude across the country.” In a word, yes. But he’s not dead dead.

Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. Worse than the fluid, morphing reality in which he’s trapped, he has no memory of who he is. He certainly doesn’t remember getting the rabbit tattoo on his arm. He only knows that he must find a certain person. Who? He can’t remember.

Using a cell phone modeled after a video game controller, Julia fumblingly navigates the man she calls “Bernie” from the company campus and onto planes and through one of the largest airports in America. All the while, the man endures an ever-changing and worsening nightmare that offers clues as to who he was—and who he must track down. And as their two lives intertwine, Julia and Bernie become unlikely allies and fugitives on a collision course with reality.

Details

• Author: Paul Tremblay
• Publisher: William Morrow
• Print Type: Hardcover
• Page Count: 336
• ISBN-13: 9780063398467