The Night Crew III: Hunting Ground — Brad Ricks (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Something is slaughtering people in the Arkansas wilderness—and even the Night Crew may not survive what they’re about to find.

When mutilated bodies begin appearing in the Ouachita National Forest, Chief of Police Roy Henderson knows local law enforcement is out of options. His only hope is to call in the Night Crew—a covert team of supernatural operatives led by Michael, a vampire still learning what it means to live with the monster inside him.

What begins as a hunt for a rogue werewolf quickly spirals into something far more dangerous.

As attacks escalate around the town of Mena, Arkansas, Michael finds himself battling on two fronts. In the real world, a growing supernatural threat is pushing the town toward panic. In his mind, mysterious visions connected through blood are pulling him into a terrifying mystery he cannot explain.

Meanwhile, a grieving father forms a vigilante militia, a local police officer struggles to keep supernatural secrets buried, and a park ranger may hold the key to stopping a massacre before it begins.

To survive, Michael must hold his team together, uncover the truth behind the killings, and confront forces more dangerous than anything lurking in the forest.

July 3, 2026 • Novel • Monster & Creature Horror

Island X — Marissa Yarrow (Mad Axe Media)

One thousand lucky celebrities and influencers receive an email invite to an island music festival that no one has ever heard of, with a mere 24 hours to commit to the unknown or refuse what could be the opportunity of a lifetime. Among them are newly sober nepo baby Cassidy and a codependent model named Edie. It’s the party of a lifetime.

Until a sudden death turns the festival on its head.

Or it would, if anyone knew exactly what happened. Those who saw it firsthand suspect a cover-up, while those who didn’t disregard it as a prank.

But shortly thereafter, things on the island start to change. Guests go missing, only to return acting off. Cassidy and Edie remember things that didn’t happen.

Soon they realize their social media feeds are warping their surroundings, and the only way they can leave the island alive is by gaming the algorithm and uncovering the secrets behind its otherworldly power.

July 7, 2026 • Novel • Supernatural Horror

Brokeula — Michael J. Seidlinger (CLASH Books)

A broke vampire’s last ditch effort to escape the blood sucking monster of capitalism through an ill-conceived multi-level marketing scheme.

James Sugre has never been this broke before in his centuries of living. Down and out, he’s had a terrible string of luck investing in companies crippled by fraud and always late to the next crypto-fad. He spends most of his time in his coffin, too broke to go out in public.

As the video game industry reaches record-breaking heights, Sugre tries his luck one more time with his own game studio. When he encounters a game developer and self-professed fan of vampire lore named Lauren, Sugre becomes hopeful that his luck might finally be on the up-and-up.

But the market is rocky, and nothing is as stable as “un-death.” Sugre learns the hard way that a dollar is worth more than a drop of blood. Trading immortality for cash, Sugre and Lauren create a—not entirely legal—business of turning humans into vampires for a fee. The business expands, but Vampire Nation has to protect their own investments, and Sugre learns the hard truth of the system he can’t escape.

July 7, 2026 • Novella • Horror Satire

Brave New Weird Volume Four — Edited by Alex Woodroe (Tenebrous Press)

Twenty-three creators converge to deliver the Bravest, Newest, and Weirdest fiction of 2025!

The fourth volume of the yearly award anthology BRAVE NEW WEIRD, showcasing the best new short works of New Weird Horror & more, sourced from thousands of writers and publications throughout the year. An exciting anthology that spans and blends genres, styles, perspectives, and ultimately aims to highlight the range and depth of the writers of this moment.

July 14, 2026 • Anthology • New Weird Horror

My Monsters Ain’t Like Yours — R. J. Joseph (Quill & Crow Publishing)

At its core, the horror genre is an effective vehicle for exploring human behavior. From within its terrifying boundaries, and lack thereof, we can examine monstrosity. We can determine how monsters are labeled, analyze the actions of those deemed monstrous, and prophesy the impacts this labeling and actions have on the world around us.

Monsters are personal. Monsters are universal. These facts create an intriguing juxtaposition where the things deemed monstrous or frightening can be shaped by personal experiences, while also representing many aspects of the human condition; our fears are much more similar than dissimilar. This means my monsters are absolutely like yours: they are our collective nightmares.

My Monsters Ain’t Like Yours reflects this irony through Black feminist intersectional horror at its rawest.

July 15, 2026 • Short Story Collection • Black Feminist Horror

The Flayed Man — Chlore Lauter (Soft Skull Press)

A complex mother-daughter relationship is taken to a new level in this fresh and propulsive novel of family curses, blood-thirsty ghouls, and budding romance set against the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas

Ellis Karsten spends nights working triage in the ER and days having the same conversation with her mom. The early onset dementia is exhausting, but the real challenge is their curse—Ellis’s family must feed daily on blood, or risk becoming mindless, skinless killing machines. When Ellis’s uncle, who supplies their blood, vanishes, she takes it upon herself to find a new source, aided by a prickly paramedic who’s equal parts unpredictable and intoxicating. But as Ellis fights to balance her bloodthirsty nature with a new relationship, her mom’s impossible demands transform into panicked warnings that a fabled monster, “The Flayed Man,” is stalking them.

As she traverses the desert in search of blood, Ellis risks her safety and her family’s secret, until it becomes clear that her mom is right: something ancient and hungry is hunting them, and it has come for her mom. Blood hunger begins to overtake Ellis, transforming her body into something ghoulish and frightening—exactly what The Flayed Man wants. In the end, she must decide who to trust, what she’s willing to sacrifice, and whether she is worthy of a life, and love, beyond her curse—or if she’s going to succumb to instinct and ravage the world.

July 21, 2026 • Novel • Queer Horror Thriller

Into the Deep, Dark Woods — Edited by Kevin J. Anderson and Allyson Longueira (WordFire Press)

Into the Deep, Dark Woods features 28 all-new stories and poems that explore the magic and mystery of the primeval wilderness.

Venture from the decay of a demented pumpkin patch to worlds where dragons hide among the trees and the sycamore beckons the blue ghost fireflies. Face the strangeness of an alien planet, then dine in a themed restaurant that may or may not be staffed with werewolves. 

Edited by New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and award-winning editor Allyson Longueira, along with their Publishing graduate students at Western Colorado University, this page-turning anthology presents new stories by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Jonathan Maberry, Charles de Lint, Sebastien de Castell, and many others. 

Step off the path and into a world where every tree tells a story and every clearing offers a choice. The deeper you go, the darker it gets.  

The darker it gets, the more interesting the light becomes. 

Welcome to the woods. Try not to get lost. 

July 21, 2026 • Anthology • Supernatural Horror

Lovecraft’s Brood — Edited by Ellen Datlow (Tachyon Publications)

Fans of H. P. Lovecraft will rejoice in—and recoil from—these lovingly illustrated and mesmerizing tales of cosmic horror. This long-awaited sequel to the bestselling anthology Lovecraft’s Monsters is once again presided over by expert horror editor Ellen Datlow (FEARS) and award-winning artist John Coulthart, Lovecraft’s Brood is a must-add to any horror fan’s library…or else.

A prison guard and a convict have an affair fueled by the hallucinations of fungal spores. Squatters arrive in a weird train station where they unearth a strange idol. Researchers discover skin thieves instead of normal turtles. A mescal-tasting tour turns utterly terrifying. An old woman stitches a portal that is disrupted by a nameless cat.

Discover the Mythos as you’ve never experienced it before. These dizzying new spins on classic Lovercraftian themes will leave you disoriented but hopefully sane (we make no promises).

July 21, 2026 • Anthology • Cosmic Horror

Offerings for Ordinary Gods — Ali Trotta (CLASH Books)

Pulling from the symbolism of tarot cards and fairytales, this speculative horror poetry collection recenters the power from altars of ordinary gods back to our highest self.

Rooted in archetypes, magick, and myths, this poetry collection takes on real-world issues and feminist constraints, echoing the still-pertinent issues that women face today. Whether it’s a fresh take on the Persephone myth or recasting Medusa’s trite traditional depiction as a villain, these pages unfold with an unflinching look at love, grief, loss, risk, and finding strength when you need it the most.

This collection conjures hope and heartbreak in equal measure—a reminder that life is not meant to be lived neatly. Offerings for Ordinary Gods is a spell for celebrating the self, unleashing the witch in us all.

July 21, 2026 • Poetry Collection • Speculative Horror

Thorns — Gregory Bastianelli (Flame Tree Press)

A deadly contagion spreads throughout the world, while scientists grapple to find a cure before it’s too late…

Dr. Monica Cucinotta works on the front lines of a hospital in Cassino, Italy, dealing with a deadly contagion that causes thorns to erupt along the surface of the body. When Monica becomes infected with the virus and must leave the hospital, she begins a journey across the dark landscape of a pandemic world where she meets the best and worst of humanity that tests her belief in science and faith as she struggles to return home to her loved ones.

July 21, 2026 • Novel • Dystopian Horror

I Do Not Apologize for My Position on Men — Rae Wilde (Shortwave Publishing)

A collection of standalone sapphic horror short stories, a quadrilogy of connected stories, and an interactive pick-a-path novelette from author Rae Wilde.

A woman forms an electric bond with the cosmic terror behind a gloryhole. Another falls in love with a hurricane. A nihilist and her obsessive paramour find a child after a catastrophic fire. People seduce monsters, monsters seduce people, and the line between person and monster loses meaning.

And that’s all before an interactive pick-a-path survival horror novelette based on the tragedy of the whaling ship Essex.

I Do Not Apologize for My Position on Men will appeal to lovers of Eric LaRocca’s “disaster queers”, Wrath James White’s brutal eroticism, and Paula D. Ashe’s combination of lush prose and devastating violence.

July 21, 2026 • Short Story Collection • Sapphic Horror (Reedition, first pub. 2024)

It’s Under the Deck — Jacy Morris (Sobelo Books)

There is something awful under Phil’s deck.

Something dying.

The stench of death is overwhelming.

When he attempts to remove the corpse, however, strange things begin to happen and Phil unwittingly descends into a pit of insanity…

July 28, 2026 • Novel • Horror

Hail Holy Queens — Chris McGinley (Fringe Press)

It’s 1887.

High in the snow-swept Berkshires sits an isolated Romanesque convent where the nuns turn out bottles of their potent Italian amaro. Henrietta Q, a young woman of high society sent to “recover” there by her controlling husband, observes the sisters’ daily life in her journal.

They pray. They work. Little gets in the way of the sisters’ devotion.

Until . . .

From a cavern lair far above the convent comes a predatory beast: the Gulo, a Hellish thing resembling both wolf and wolverine. In a hideous pack, the creatures ravage the holy women and vanish into the freezing forest hillside. Rather than risk the return of these fiends, the sisters decide to hunt them down.

It’s long odds for the brides of Christ.

But the appearance of a mysterious figure turns the tide in their favor—a tall, striking woman who claims to have vanquished “vicious bêtes” in her native France. The strange warrior-saint gains the trust of the sisters, who dub her the Long Nun. She is the one who will train them in the art of the hunt.

What follows is a true holy war, documented by Henrietta in all its grisly detail.

July 28, 2026 • Novel • Gothic Horror Thriller

Caliope Street — Josh Hanson (Moonstruck Books)

Jack and Avery’s new home on Calliope Street is a fixer-upper’s dream. The lurid collage of pornographic clippings on the basement wall seems like a quirky (and campy) feature. But once the house awakens, what seemed harmless becomes as horrifying as the blood seeping from the carpet. The house is alive. It is intelligent. And it demands homage.

Inspired by the surreal and graphic films of the Italian maestros as well as a meditation on obsession and the relationship between tragedy and art, The House on Blood Street evokes the myth of Orpheus and Euridice, mixing art, love, and death into a modern take on the haunted house.

July 29, 2026 • Novel • Psychedelic Horror • Published as The House on Blood Street by Black Crow Books in the U.K.

Witchcraft in Your Lips — Edited by Steve Berman (Lethe Press)

You have witchcraft in your lips…” wrote Shakespeare—and the sapphic women in this anthology prove it, celebrating feminine power, queer longing, and the enduring magic of love between women.

At turns romantic, humorous, reflective, and bold, these stories conjure witches who love, endure, and transform. A novice witch’s fateful encounter with a lonely bog spirit leads to a life built slowly, tenderly, between two outsiders. At a hidden ballet academy, a young dancer navigates adolescence, first love, and magical discipline while fighting to protect their sanctuary from ecological disaster. A middle-school girl summons Bloody Mary in hopes of reaching her estranged sister, only to confront the terrifying strength of feminine rage and myth. Elsewhere, a retiring school nurse discovers she is destined to become a witch who must consume children to stay young—an ethical dilemma she faces with grim delight. A solitary woman, long forced to hide her truth, begins a quiet journey toward reclaiming her magic and her voice. And in a town that never forgets, a woman once marked by witchcraft meets a grieving widow, awakening old magic and older suspicions.

July 2026 • Anthology • Sapphic Horror

Meat Bees — Dane Erbach (CLASH Books)

Jaws with wasps.

By the time Scarlett Sutton arrives at her dad’s cabin in the Smoky Mountains, two locals have already been eaten alive by wasps. Of course, she doesn’t know this yet. All Scarlett knows is her mom finally checked herself into a hospital to take care of her mental health, leaving Scarlett alone with her dad all summer.

After he insists that she get a job, Scarlett accepts a position at nearby Stovetop Outfitters, hoping to spend as much time away from him as possible. She doesn’t expect to trip over a skeletonized corpse beneath the zip-line during one of her shifts—and definitely doesn’t expect to be thrown into a Netflix-style true crime investigation.

The local sheriff’s department is so overwhelmed by these unsolved deaths that when one of the Stovetop Outfitters employees disappears next, Scarlett and her co-workers set out to find him on their own. They discover something much more horrifying: a swarm of yellow jackets stripping the meat off his body. Scarlett never signed up to solve a disgusting mystery, but in order to protect her friends and family, she must defeat the mountain’s darkness and all these godforsaken wasps.

August 4, 2026 • Novel • Coming-of-Age Horror

Penitents — Madeline Blondeau (Ghoulish Books)

Madeline Blondeau’s PENITENTS, a debut trans tribute to New French Extreme cinema and ’70s grindhouse horror set on the rain-slicked coast of the Pacific Northwest, in which a writer runs afoul of a local violent family while attempting to take some space from her partners, set against a backdrop of desperate hook-ups and polyamorous infidelity, this roaring revenge romp spans the course of one blood-soaked weekend around Astoria, Oregon.

“At its heart, PENITENTS is about the walls we put up between each other, and the violent ways in which they are enforced,” says Blondeau, whose work has appeared on The AV Club and TheGamer, amongst other outlets. “It’s one part gory survival thriller, one part allegory on my hope for a better future—for the most wounded among us. Inspired by classic revenge narratives like I Spit on Your Grave and social horror like Frontier(s), I channeled frustrations, fears and dreams into a non-stop roller coaster with lots of blood and sex.”

August 11, 2026 • Novel • Extreme Horror

The Last House on Earth / Death Walks South Boston — Christoph Paul (Shortwave Publishing)

Aliens return to a desolate Earth with enslaved humans to enter a haunted house, and a mummy wakes up in South Boston with only drug dealers and a YouTube film snob to stop it, in two genre-bending horror novellas that make up this double creature feature.

The Last House on Earth: An abducted couple, who love each other more than life itself, find themselves under the thumb of nearly omnipotent aliens. These aliens use a group of humans to navigate a celestial haunted house said to hold the secrets of life and death. Can the couple survive the house and the aliens to finally find peace in their love?

Death Walks South Boston: A crew of outcasts, including a drug dealer and a struggling YouTube streamer, face an ancient ancestral evil that has come back from the dead to take over the world of the living. If they can’t stop it, Death will walk through the entire world and make it into its image.

Across both short novels, the editor-in-chief of cult indie press CLASH Books, Christoph Paul, paints a dark world where the super-rich (human and non-human) own technology, and it’s up to humanity to stop them from spreading evil.

August 11, 2026 • Collection • Supernatural Horror

The Devil’s Pocketbook — Ross Jeffery (CLASH Books)

Erik and Lara are in mourning for their daughter, who was born “incompatible with life”. To get away from their suffocating grief and the ever-present shadow their daughter has cast in their lives since passing, and desperately trying to recover their increasingly rocky relationship, they take a trip to the seaside town of Polperro, in Cornwall. But no sooner have they arrived, than they realise that their grief cannot be so easily eluded. Drawn to the waters, Erik and Lara discover a large Devil’s Pocketbook, and inside: the miracle child they could never have. Scylla.

“You will grieve the grief in The Devil’s Pocketbook. You will bear the hope. You will discover, too, cruel wonder in a pod in a rocky bay, even as you think: get away. Ross Jeffery is the two things you long for most in an author of horror: first, he’s fearless. Second, he’s giving. Giving you, the reader, all that fear instead.”
– Josh Malerman, New York Times best selling author of Bird Box and Daphne

August 18, 2026 • Novel • Horror Thriller (Reedition, first pub. 2023)

Tracking Death — Nikki R. Leigh (Shortwave Publishing)

The 8th book in the Killer VHS Series, hailed as “the modern-day Goosebumps for Adults” by Horror Obsessive.

A group of friends gather regularly to watch their favorite cult horror movie, recorded from a late-night broadcast during their teenage years.

But after their last watch, one of them ends up dead. Soon, they discover this tape isn’t just some harmless thrills and chills, and it isn’t the same movie they saw last time. A new scene is eerily similar to their friend’s recent death, and the following scene might just predict their next tragedy.

Tracking Death is the eighth book in the Killer VHS Series, hailed as “the modern-day Goosebumps for Adults” by Horror Obsessive. Killer VHS Series titles are standalone stories featuring found footage elemnets and nostalgic vibes for horror’s ’80s and ’90s glory days.

August 25, 2026 • Novella • Occult Horror

The Boy at No. 9 Whitlock — L. Stephenson (Truborn Press)

This atmospheric tale blends the tenderness of a coming-of-age story with the creeping dread of long-buried secrets. Pitched in the vein of A Boy’s Life and The Lovely Bones, the novella transports readers to a quiet English village in the summer of 1996, where a troubled boy’s search for connection awakens not only painful truths—but also something far darker that should have remained hidden.

The Boy at No. 9 Whitlock promises a poignant mix of innocence, fear, tears, and unsettling revelations that linger long after the last page. Readers should prepare themselves for a journey that is as emotionally moving as it is chilling.

August 28, 2026 • Novella • Horror (Reedition, first pub. 2024)

Nothing Has Happened to You — Rory Say (Lethe Press)

Nothing Has Happened to You is a collection of short stories where the ordinary twists into the uncanny and the familiar becomes strange. Memory, family, and grief blur with phantoms that may or may not exist, and the smallest moments—opening a door, telling a story, looking into the dark—carry the weight of dread.

A young girl confides in a silent companion no one else can see, who grows smaller each time he returns. A lover reveals she has been dead for years and will soon be forgotten. A tenant discovers his basement suite may not exist at all, except as an echo of guilt. Elsewhere, lost children, haunted objects, and voices from the grave stir quietly at the edges of daily life.

Rory Say, whose work has appeared in Weird Horror, Dark Recesses, Metastellar, The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify and more, writes with precision, lyricism, and an unshakable sense of unease. Each tale is self-contained, yet together they form a world where nothing is certain, and dread lingers long after the last page.

August 2026 • Short Story Collection • Horror

The Bogeyman — Matt Hilton (Severn House)

Come out, come out wherever you are – or wait until the bogeyman catches you! Evil lurks in every corner and the lines between reality and paranormal are blurred in this creepy horror novel by the talented Matt Hilton.

Do you believe in the bogeyman?

Sophie Wade learned early on that the worst types of monsters are humans, and that they’re the only ones to be truly terrified of. But Harclay House could just revive her belief in the bogeyman . . .

Mysterious bumps in the night, doors opening on their own and a strange presence in the air – might a poltergeist be haunting the residence?

Sophie’s choice to move to Harclay House is no coincidence. This is the place where her sister Kelsey vanished without a trace two years ago. But did Kelsey run away, or is there something more sinister at play?

One thing is clear: something is wrong with the house, but will Sophie be able to face whatever’s lurking in the shadows?

September 1, 2026 • Novel • Urban Horror

She’s a Doll — Barbara Truelove (Bindery Books)

Lucy isn’t a normal girl. Ghost. Victim. Killer. She’s a doll on a mission—to find the man who killed her and return the favor.

Lucy McQuinn has been murdered, but she’s not about to go quietly.

If she doesn’t get to keep breathing, then neither does Kyle, her killer. Possessing the body of an antique doll, she sets out on a quest for revenge. But it’s hard when you’re eighteen inches tall and made of porcelain.

For help, she turns to Nicola, a human and fellow outsider with her own reasons to hate Kyle. But in their small idyllic town, no one wants to hear the truth, especially not about such a promising young man. If they can’t expose his crimes, Lucy will have to roll up her lacy little sleeves and teach him a lesson the old-fashioned way—as slowly and painfully as possible.

From LA Times bestselling author Barbara Truelove, She’s a Doll is a ghoulish and gleeful tribute to the unstoppable power of female rage and a love letter to the friends who have our back—in this life and the next.

September 8, 2026 • Novel • Dark Comedy Horror

Kissing Carrion — Gemma Files (Shortwave Publishing)

Finally back in print! The first horror story collection from Gemma Files, the multi-time Bram Stoker Award and Shirley Jackson Award winning author of Experimental Film, and “one of the most powerful and unique voices in weird fiction today” (Paul Tremblay, award-winning author of The Cabin at the End of the World).

This collection of seventeen short stories takes readers into the uniquely twisted mind of “one of Canada’s most promising new horror writers” (Publishers Weekly). From a live necrophilia show starring reanimated corpses to a confrontation between a security guard and inhuman squatters, from who can be found at an all-night laundromat to what lies in wait at the bottom of the sea, from undead addictions to all-consuming obsessions, Kissing Carrion is “a journey through some of the most beautifully rendered visions of darkness and death to be published this past year… Fans of Poppy Z. Brite, Charlee Jacob, and Clive Barker should enjoy this collection immensely” (SF Reader).

September 8, 2026 • Short Story Collection • Horror (Reedition, first pub. 2003)

The Worm in Every Heart — Gemma Files (Shortwave Publishing)

Finally back in print! The second collection from Gemma Files, the multi-time Bram Stoker Award and Shirley Jackson Award winning author of Experimental Film, and whose stories “overwhelm the reader with a true sense of wonder, awe, and horror” (Paul Tremblay, award-winning author of The Cabin at the End of the World).

“Nobody in a Gemma Files story puts a hand on a doorknob and opens the door they shouldn’t—these folks are already in the other side.” (Paula Guran in Horror Garage) The inhabitants of the stories in The Worm in Every Heart include gods and madmen, arsonists and ancient vampires, monsters and mothers who don’t know how to love. No matter where they live—Warsaw during World War II, British India, or modern-day Toronto—their realities are not our own, but ones in which we’ll willingly immerse ourselves for a terrifying moment or two…

September 8, 2026 • Short Story Collection • Horror (Reedition, first pub. 2006)

Darling — Mercedes M. Yardley (Ruadán Books)

Darling has its demons.

Cherry LaRouche escaped the claws of Darling, Louisiana at sixteen. When she returns after her mother’s death, Cherry and her children are forced into a nightmare where evil spreads like infection and the house itself demands her bones.

While Cherry tries to separate fact from fantasy, the locals discover the bodies of several murdered children. When Cherry’s own daughter goes missing, she’s forced to face everything she had fled from and confront the true monsters of Darling.

From Mercedes M. Yardley, three-time Bram Stoker Award winner for Little Dead Red, Love is a Crematorium, and “Fracture,” comes a stunning revised edition of Darling. This Southern Gothic tour de force is the first novel in the interconnected world of The Hunger Garden, where demons and delights both await you.

September 8, 2026 • Novel • Southern Gothic Horror (Reedition, first pub. 2022)

Feed the Tree — Wendy Dalrymple (Quill & Crow Publishing)

From the Queen of Pink Horror comes an erotic new adventure…

How far would you go for love? In the summer of 1889, a young woman, alone in the wilds of the Florida Panhandle, is left to care for her dying father. Broken hearted and out of options, she learns of a swamp witch who can grant wishes. The witch agrees to help her with one exception… she must lure unsuspecting men into the swamp to fulfill her dark needs. She must do unspeakable, awful things, no matter the cost. But above all, she must feed the tree.

*Please be advised: this book contains erotic scenes and horror violence, and may not be appropriate for readers under 18. 

September 15, 2026 • Novella • Erotic Horror

In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts — Gwendolyn Kiste (Creature Publishing)

Stoker winner Gwendolyn Kiste holds up a dark, queer mirror to The Great Gatsby in In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, a haunting exploration of the obsession and control at the edges of an American classic.

In 1955, Daisy Buchanan is found dead in an abandoned West Egg mansion, but her daughter Mel knows she’s really been gone for years. No one knows whether Daisy was murdered, or if it was a simpler, slower death: her yearslong spiral of alcohol, abuse, and helplessness. But when Mel enters the estate, she finds Daisy’s ghost, somehow frozen at twenty-three, and a charming, bleeding phantom that used to be Jay Gatsby.

To free her mother, Mel must carve a path through family secrets and decaying revelers: deep into Gatsby’s starving house as it gorges itself on unfulfilled love and grows stronger every night.

September 15, 2026 • Novel • Historical Horror

The Restorative Artist — Cecil Fenn (Lucent Dreaming)

Embalmer Graham Creer has spent his life helping others face loss, but when he’s struck down by a corpse-carried illness, he is forced to confront his own mortality.

Trapped convalescing in the apartment inside his funeral home, Graham is haunted by the dead resting in his basement mortuary and plagued by fevered visions of his recently deceased lover. Graham pulls apart his relationships, his funeral home, and his past in an attempt to escape the pain of grief, but who is he without the dead?

A dissection of memory and mortality, The Restorative Artist is the debut novel from Cecil Fenn.

September 17, 2026 • Novel • Queer Literary Gothic

Squelch! — Ri Stypula (Merigold Independent)

Car wrecks. Dogs. Crowds. Birds. Their therapist. Worms. Most recently worms. All of these are things Cade is afraid of, the last of which has become uncomfortably present in their life.

Cade is unemployed, agoraphobic, and morbidly obsessed with the high number of suicides occurring around their apartment.

Thrown onto a path of unsettling discovery, loss, and the realization that their reality is not what it seems, Cade must find a way to cope with this shifting paradigm or risk losing their mind entirely.

What starts as a simple curiosity into the suicide of yet another neighbor, leads Cade to the troubling insight into what lives beneath their skin while their reality crumbles around them.

September 21, 2026 • Novella • Queer Body Horror

The Brink — Sophia Adamowicz (Ruadán Books)

Set in the 17th century English countryside, The Brink blends historical and eldritch folk horror in a queer tale of awakening while exploring a darkly hungry Derbyshire Peak District— where the perils may be natural, unnatural, or very human.

When the keeper of a demonic hell hole falls in love with the perfect sacrifice, she must choose: her loyalty to both her family and her village, or salvaging her own chance at happiness.

It is 1642 in Derbyshire, England. Jane Vernon spends her days trying to satiate the hungry spirit that dwells within Elden Hole, a generational curse shared with her siblings. But each sacrifice increases her reluctance, until the offering of one travelling merchant starts unravelling the fabric of murderous duty and exploitation that shapes her life.

Isaac Latimer appears as a wealthy wanderer searching the countryside for his cousin, Sarah, last spotted in the company of an older man. As a guilty conscience drives Jane to join Isaac in his hunt, she catches a glimpse of an unburdened life even while realising nothing is as it seems.

Among sacrifices and betrayals, burgeoning love and decaying lies, the spirit’ s hunger grows alongside threats in the dark, and only a Vernon can decide between death and damnation.

September 22, 2026 • Novel • Historical Folk Horror

When They Return — Edited by Matthew Henshaw (Get Out of Jail Free Productions)

“High Weirdness meets Mad Genius!” David Busboom, author of Every Crawling Putrid Thing

THEY were here long before sentient beings gave them a name…
THEY have been watching us, and waiting until the time was right…
THEY have started to return, and conscious life on our planet will regret it…

A mosaic of weird horror, eerie sci-fi, and strange conspiracy theory rantings from
Matthew M Bartlett, Tom Breen, Michael A. Cavagnaro, Mat Fitz, Matthew Henshaw,
Jonathan Raab, and “Citizen X”. Will leave you looking anxiously over your shoulder, cowering in fearful paranoia, and hoping you will not be found WHEN THEY RETURN.

September 22, 2026 • Anthology • Sci Fi, High Strange Conspiracy Rantings

Traps and Specters — Philip Fracassi (Shortwave Publishing)

A new collection of short stories and novellas from Bram Stoker Award finalist Philip Fracassi, featuring an introduction by NYT bestselling author Matt Dinniman.

From the mind of Stoker and British Fantasy award-nominated author Philip Fracassi comes fourteen stories of the macabre that will frighten, disturb, and ensnare readers in a dark web of twisted tales.

In these pages you’ll find talking corpses and deadly tombs, misguided exorcists, technology gone wrong, blood-soaked prison riots, and enough vengeful spirits and haunted objects to fill a grave.

With an introduction by bestselling author Matt Dinniman (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Traps and Specters will chill, thrill, entertain, and leave you gasping in shock and terror at the horrors waiting within.

September 22, 2026 • Short Story Collection • Horror

Hollow Folk — Andrew L. Clark (Quill & Crow Publishing)

The night shift at the Holloway was supposed to be quiet. When grad student Ethan Ray clocks in as night auditor at the aging Holloway mountain resort, he expects paperwork, silence, and a paycheck. Instead, reddish-brown lights bleed across the Appalachian sky. Hard winds whip through the trees without making a sound, and mysterious owl gargoyles come to life. 

At 3 a.m., every clock stops. Trapped inside with his co-workers, Kal and Teresa, Ethan realizes the hotel isn’t just old. It’s a boundary. Something ancient has been waiting and is now awake. To escape, they must uncover the Holloway’s secrets, even as unexpected love blossoms between Ethan and Teresa. The problem is, the visions haunting each of them carry the same warning: someone in the hotel cannot be trusted. Gothic romance meets Appalachian folk horror, where the mountains are watching and the dark leaves marks.

September 29, 2026 • Novel • Folk Horror

Desert Radio — Pamela M. Durgin (Word Horde)

“To desert radio—the signals we send out into the abyss—and to everything that answers.”

The California desert hides a lot of things. For Gloria, it is a place to get away from her past and her addictions. Gloria expected to find a quiet place, where salt flats and dunes stretch on and the night sky is littered with stars. What she didn’t expect to find was an oasis, a community, and a job as a late-night DJ on a rock-and-roll radio station.

There is strangeness in the desert. Missing persons. Ancient petroglyphs. Distorted voices on the radio. Ghostly dogs. And more. Government conspiracies, weird rituals, and unfathomable entities that have been visiting the area for centuries.

Sure, the people in the desert are little bit strange, a little bit paranoid. But they’re survivors, just like Gloria.

Things are about to get very weird.

September 29, 2026 • Novel • Cosmic Horror

We, the Missing — Arwyn Sherman (Sobelo Books)

People disappear all the time in Caroline’s fading city. They go off in search of jobs, they follow predatory men, or their addictions swallow them whole. But in the last year, the number of missing has skyrocketed, and Caroline is terrified her unstable, addict mother will be next. Not wanting to lose her only parent, she sets out to find the reason, hoping if she knows what’s going on, she can save her mother.

What she discovers are literal monsters: demons from another dimension and angels so long forgotten by God that some doubt they’re even real. She finds an ally in a new friend, Dani, but it ends up he isn’t even human, and may be more involved in the missing than he’d like to admit. The closer Caroline gets to the heart of the disappearances, the more danger she finds herself in.

The fight for her mother becomes a fight for her survival as she is thrust into a dangerous, supernatural world seemingly bent on making Caroline vanish forever.

September 29, 2026 • Novel • Supernatural Horror