Posts tagged horror novels
Hell Followed With Us Commentary

Andrew Jospeh White’s YA horror novel Hell Followed With Us is about a group of queer and trans teens surviving Armageddon, heralded by a religious cult, the Angelic Movement, that took over the world using a bioweapon— a disease called the Flood. Our protagonist Benji escapes the cult at New Nazareth and stumbles into the arms of The Watch, a small group from the LGTBQIA+ center in Acheson, Pennsylvania, where he finds community he desperately needs, even and especially at the end of the world. A story about young love, body horror and dysphoria, religious trauma, shedding our skins, grief, being good, and the complexity of having multiple selves, Hell Followed With Us is a gory yet propulsive book for readers who might also like Camp Damascus or The Last of Us.

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Our Wives Under the Sea Commentary

Julia Armfield’s second novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, is a love story— an intimate, evolving love between two women and an awe-struck love for the ocean— tangled up in the sheets with a horror narrative about a submarine dive gone wrong. Our Wives Under the Sea is about the random details that become love stories, the ocean haunting us from within and without, the anxiety of losing a partner, the terror of finding them again, but different, and the pain of evolution.

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Grey Dog Commentary

Canadian speculative fiction writer Elliot Gish’s trot into horror, Grey Dog, sets her apart as a tension-building master with a bold voice and a lot to say. Gish’s wise pace and biting commentary exhilarate. Grey Dog follows 29 year old Ada Byrd, a school teacher, arriving to a new posting in a Canadian small town, where strange things happen in the woods. Ada’s journal documents a story full of queerness and crushes, unmet expectations, betrayals of friendship, miscarriages and lost children, the trials of teaching in Christian towns, witches, and the tantalizing thrill of what you’ll find in the woods.

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The Hacienda Commentary

Isabel Cañas’s debut novel The Hacienda is a gothic, supernatural, haunted house story set in 1823 rural Mexico following the Mexican War of Independence. Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca, others have said, which is a strikingly accurate comparison. The Hacienda is about indigeneity, mother-daughter relationships, colorism and caste, witchcraft and the Inquisition, budding (and forbidden) love, and the determination needed to survive being home.

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The Changeling Commentary

Victor Lavalle’s seventh book, The Changeling (2017), is a surprising and deeply horrifying fairy tale planted firmly in modern day New York City about a family torn apart and the drive to piece it back together again.

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The Writing Retreat Commentary

In Julia Bartz’s The Writing Retreat, we follow a small group of young women writers taking a month-long residency in an old, country manor, hosted by an (in)famous author, Roza, whose motivations begin mysterious but evolve to be sinister. It’s a book about writers and the act of writing. With notes of Shirley Jackson and Hill House, The Writing Retreat is a thrilling, psychological ride about broken friendships, the creative process, queer desire, and scary stories.

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Briardark (Book One) Commentary

S.A Harian’s Briardark is the first book in a horror series about a haunted wilderness— the Deadswitch— where space and time bend and darkness follows a group of researchers, there to study a glacier. An alluring horror read, Briardark is also a fascinating take on climate change, the science of life on earth, guilt, breakups, self purpose, and being lost.

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Mexican Gothic Commentary

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s sixth novel Mexican Gothic is The Haunting of Hill House meets The Last of Us— a spell-binding and surprising story with depth, terror, and charisma.

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The Only Good Indians Commentary

Stephen Graham Jones’s heart wrenching novel The Only Good Indians follows a group of Blackfeet friends, haunted by a past elk hunting trip. Jones’s horror story rips at your soul, reminding us that mistakes can be deadly and that our forebears’ mistakes return to us. And an animal’s bloodthirsty vengeance— a mother animal’s bloodthirsty vengeance— is a different beast than a human’s.

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Piñata Commentary

Leopoldo Gout’s 2023 horror novel Piñata is a jaw-dropping contribution to the exorcism story sub-genre, playing with tropes we know and bringing in new scares that distinguish it among its counterparts. It’s about cursed artifacts, colonization, ancestral interconnectedness across time and space, rage, femicide, and sisterhood.

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Looking Glass Sound Commentary

Acclaimed author Catriona Ward’s most recent novel, Looking Glass Sound, is about murder, the deception, thievery, and magic in the art of writing, witchcraft, the horror of the ocean, and the bonds of friendship.

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The Reformatory Commentary

Tananarive Due’s most recent novel, The Reformatory, is a beyond-horrifying, semi-fictional story about a young man’s torturous imprisonment in the evil Gracetown School for Boys— nicknamed the Reformatory— and his family’s daring efforts in the face of Jim Crow era Florida to free him.

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Camp Damascus Commentary

Chuck Tingle’s Camp Damascus is a thrilling coming-of-age horror story set in rural Montana in a deeply religious community called Kingdom of Pine, which owns and operates the most successful gay conversion camp in the country, Camp Damascus.

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Tell Me I’m Worthless Commentary

Divisive and provocative, Tell Me I’m Worthless is Alison Rumfitt’s debut novel about a fascist haunted house terrorizing Alice, a trans sex worker, Ila, an infamous TERF, and Hannah, the third wheel to Alice and Ila’s fucked up dynamic.

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A Haunting on the Hill Commentary

A Haunting on the Hill is a 2023 sequel to Shirley Jackson’s 1959 classic The Haunting of Hill House, but it is not written by Jackson. Both a disturbing and humorous voice, author Elizabeth Hand introduces us to a totally new cast of characters: a group of friends taking a residency at Hill House to rehearse a play called “Witching Night.” (Unlike the original, Hand’s book includes witches. A very fun addition.)

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