Sam, visiting her childhood home, discovers her mom living in fear of Sam’s grandmother, the long-dead family matriarch. As the apparent haunting grows more violent, vultures circle the house, and something is deeply wrong with the rosebushes. A playful, heartfelt take on Southern Gothic, where a perfect facade hides family secrets that refuse to stay buried. I love a creepy, touching, and hilarious book, and Kingfisher delivers.
-Reviewed by Lauren
When her 11-year-old son Santiago dies, Magos follows folktale lore and saves a piece of his lung, feeding it as it grows into an ever-more-hungry monster she names Monstrilio. The book follows Magos, her best friend and sometime lover Lena, Monstrilio himself as he grows up, and others. A strange, dark meditation on love, grief, belonging, queerness, and family, seasoned with gruesome body horror and serious creepiness.
-Reviewed by Lauren
By turns nasty, hilarious, and genuinely affecting, Dolki Min’s debut novel follows a stranded alien shapeshifter as they hunt their favorite meal: human flesh. Min explores the psychological horrors of contorting oneself to gendered expectations and the physical horrors of being chased by a murderous extraterrestrial.
-Reviewed by Bailyn
The Thursday Murder Club has been a cheerful, delightful discovery. When I first picked it up I was worried about an "old folk's home" murder, but I was soon cheering and smiling at the surprisingly playful way Osman uses the tropes of the English Detective. I beam after finishing each book.
-Reviewed by Liesl
If you were a fan of Mystic River you will love Small Mercies. Set in Boston’s Southside neighborhood during 1974’s public schools’ desegregation movement, the novel centers around a white mom searching for her missing teen at the same time that a young Black man is found dead. The connection between these events unfolds into a heart-pounding story of love, hate & revenge; shining a light on America’s racism.
-Reviewed by Stacy
There are so many things to love about this book but for me, I love Jones’s ability to blend atmospheric dread and intense violence with a litany of complicated and nuanced themes ranging from revenge to what it means to break away from tradition. The narrative follows Lewis who is a man haunted by an elk hunting trip gone awry. If you like horror literature at all, this book is practically a must read.
-Reviewed by Zack
Lone Women weaves together the fascinating true history of single women homesteaders in the American West and the horrors of family secrets locked away. The first chapter is absolutely gripping, and you’ll NEED to keep reading. LaValle is a bit of a lesser known voice in horror, but he shouldn’t be! This is a superb historical horror filled with well-crafted characters and more atmosphere than gore.
-Reviewed by Julia
House of Leaves is unlike any book you've read before. If you doubt this, flip through its pages. With moments of both horror and beauty, this surreal experience pushes the limits of what a book can be. Strange manuscripts, impossible architecture, and a narrator who is losing grip on reality make for a story steeped in mystery, terror, and utter confusion. Some houses should be left empty—good luck.
-Reviewed by Connor
What happens when a carefully curated wedding guest list has more secrets than the bride knows? This was a book I could not put down, perfect for a stormy day spent on the couch. The book twisted and turned the moment I thought I had it figured out. A great mystery that had me gasping out loud.
-Reviewed by Georgia
The Golden Age of Mysteries is having a well deserved come back. Mysteries that are like the game CLUE, everything is there you just have to solve the crime (or let the fictional detective do it). Benjamin Stevenson's entry into the field is a turducken of a story. It's complicated, it's got a lot of ingredients, and it leaves the reader happy and smiling at having experienced it.
-Reviewed by Liesl
In her haunting feminist horror, Machado remixes myths, folklore, and pop culture tropes while exploring the violence experienced by those living in female bodies. Machado captures humanness like no one else, allowing her characters to feel the strangeness, power, pleasure, and pain of being a woman. Surreal, sensuous, comedic, and queer, these short stories left me full of awe and fully disturbed for days.
-Reviewed by Madison
This unique mystery is based upon a true story of General Drafting Co’s creation of a phantom settlement in a 1930’s highway map. The book explores the power of maps, as well as family relationships and lost identities by weaving together the stories of two cartographers, one in present day and one from the past. This is a must-read for anyone into maps, map-making or magical fiction.
-Reviewed by Stacy
The Ritual is a very effective tale of horror that takes some really fun and unexpected twists. Without giving too much away, four friends go trekking through the Scandinavian wilderness and get lost. As you might expect strife, isolation, and horror follow. This is a great read for fans of the film based on this book, The Blair Witch Project, Deliverance, or Lords of Chaos.
-Reviewed by Zack
I loved Melchor's Hurricane Season, but I think this may be a better book. A poor gardener tolerates an annoying teen from a rich family for the free booze. Eventually, the braggadocious teenager decides that he wants to take what is his by right with fatal results. This short, fast-paced novel made me hate characters that I couldn't turn away from. Melchor had me clamoring for the next page and the one after.
-Reviewed by Brad
