Upcoming Horror From Women Authors, Part II

One list of upcoming books by women writers in horror wasn’t enough, so here’s another in case you haven’t already loaded your totes with new reading material for the year. Before we get started, I’m going to repeat my entreaty from the first list, because it’s important enough that it bears repeating: Buy these books. Borrow these books. Request these books. Post, share, and review these books. Not only are women under attack in this country, but books are, too—especially those with controversial topics and themes, violence, and queer characters. Support these people in any way you can because the horror community is a much richer place with them in it, so I want to thank each and every one of them for putting in so much work and bearing their souls for us in the face of sometimes overwhelming odds and adversity.

Candace Nola: Nubs

Candace Nola’s trophy shelf is a pretty good representation of the kinds of stories she writes. With two Splatterpunk Awards and two additional nominations, Nola’s work leans a little on the—extreme—side. From the monster-hunting Bishop series to the despicably dark schadenfreude of The Vet, Nola’s work glowers behind the motto of her blossoming press, Uncomfortably Dark: “kindness in the dark.”

Her latest work, Nubs, out now on Godless, has a delightfully vague synopsis. “Kitty wants to touch it. Kitty wants to stroke it. Kitty wants to shove it in her mouth and gnaw on it for hours.” Color me curious.

Not content with one new book, though, Candace Nola’s soon-to-be-released Full Throttle: A Dark Dozen Anthology brings together writers like Wrath James White, Christine Morgan, Lisa Vasquez, R.J. Joseph, and more, and had only one mandate for its authors: deliver your most brutal stories without resorting to sexual assault. I love that prompt and cannot wait to dig into some extreme horror, available now on Godless and Amazon on March 31.

Alma Katsu: Fiend

Alma Katsu’s marriage of historical fiction with horror has earned her several Bram Stoker Award nominations, including a win in 2022 for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction for The Wehrwolf, as well as a number of other awards and accolades across a varied catalogue, ranging from fantasy and suspense in The Taker trilogy to spy thrillers Red Widow and Red London, inspired by Katsu’s 30+ year career in intelligence.

Now, Katsu tackles the Succession-esque world of cutthroat family wealth drama with Fiend, in which one of the richest families in the world begins to splinter as their luck turns, adding a healthy dose of the supernatural to keep things fresh. With competing plots to seize power and a fitting narrative challenging greed and inequality, Fiend will be one to bookmark when it finally releases in September.

Cynthia Pelayo: Vanishing Daughters

The first Latina ever to win a Bram Stoker Award, and Cina Pelayo did it with a gut-punch of a poetry collection in Crime Scene. An epic told poem by poem, Crime Scene is an investigation into a serial killer, told in such a way that you almost feel guilty for wanting to peek under the sheet—for picking up the book in the first place. 

Still, nobody does crime thrillers quite like Pelayo, and Vanishing Daughters, which just dropped on March 11, is no different. Bri Thorne is grieving the death of her mother and she’s starting to feel more than a little haunted. Nightmares of a woman in white, music playing from behind locked doors—and oh yeah—a serial killer on the loose, looking to make Bri their next victim.

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Ellen Datlow, ed: Night & Day

A horror anthology edited by the genre’s greatest, Ellen Datlow (The Best Horror of the Year series, Body Shocks: Extreme Tales of Body Horror,  When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson, and dozens of others), Night & Day will be part of the Saga Doubles series from Saga Press, a collection that pairs stories with and against each other in innovative ways. In Night & Day, for instance, one side features stories about what haunts the night while the other showcases the terrors that exist in the light of day. Authors in the collection include Clay McLeod Chapman, Eric LaRocca, Gemma Files, Rachel Harrison, Priya Sharma, and more.

Emma E. Murray: The Drowning Machine and Other Obsessions

In The Drowning Machine and Other Obsessions, Emma E. Murray navigates uncharted waters of love, lust and loss, descending into that most darkest of places: the human (and inhuman) heart. Amidst the spiral and churn, Murray promises you will hear frighteningly realistic tales of parental regret, the death of innocence, carnal yearning, and creeping evil, among other voices of the damned. 

That such a dark and dismal sounding collection could come from the mind of a former elementary school teacher might surprise some, but if you’ve read some of Murray’s other works—stories with sex and cannibals, young, burgeoning serial killers, and more—not only will The Drowning Machine sound right in line, but you’ll know the kind of visceral roller coaster you’re in for when you read this book, which is out now with Undertaker Books. 

And in August, Murray will introduce Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day, through Apocalypse Party Press. Told through multiple POVs, Shoot Me follows Birdie, a grieving mother, as she evades the rage of her abusive partner and the serial killer at-large in her town. Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day has been praised for its “unflinching cruelty and viciousness” by acclaimed splatterpunk author Eric LaRocca, as well as Murray’s “beautiful, but brutal” writing by Cynthia Pelayo—proving without a shadow of a doubt that this book is one that should not be missed. To top it all off, Murray will be donating part of the proceeds to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, giving readers yet another reason to support her work.

Gemma Amor: Roots of My Fears: Terrifying Stories of Ancestral Horror

Nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel with Dear Laura, a book about a girl, her missing friend, and the dark and twisted “penpal” that claims to know where he is, Gemma Amor knows how to yank and tug at her characters until there’s nothing left. Because of that, I’m quite confident that she’s the right person to helm Roots of My Fears, a new anthology of ancestral horror coming in September from Titan Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. These stories have deep, dark roots, ever-growing, ever-creeping. They are the tales we grew up on, hometown rumors and legends—the things we pass down through our bloodlines—and that should terrify us all.

Not only that, but Amor’s next novel, Itch!, also hits bookshelves later this year—again, highlighting her knack for putting her characters through the ringer. Itch! is “a feminist folk horror novel about an abuse survivor who discovers an ant-infested corpse in the woods near her hometown and becomes slowly wrapped in a nightmarish world of murder, myth and tradition as her sanity is slowly eaten away by crawling little things.” Yes.

Laurel Hightower: The Long Low Whistle

Laurel Hightower is the author of Whispers in the Dark, Crossroads, and dozens more, including The Day of the Door, which has one of the best covers I’ve ever seen on a book—seriously. In 2022, Hightower’s Below, a story about our favorite local cryptid, the Mothman, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction. 

In November, Hightower will join the ranks of Shortwave’s Killer VHS Series with The Long Low Whistle, another cryptid tale, this time about a woman searching for answers about her father’s death decades ago, joining a group of cryptid hunters to penetrate the abandoned mine where he was last seen. Always game for a good cryptid, and the Killer VHS books, this one will be hitting shelves just in time for my birthday!

Sadie Hartmann: Feral & Hysterical: Mother Horror’s Ultimate Reading Guide to Dark and Disturbing Fiction

Sadie Hartmann made waves in 2023 with her excellent reader’s guide 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered, which won the Stoker for Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction. In the time since, Hartmann has made it perfectly clear that she is not one to take her haunted castle and slink away quietly into the night. On August 19, she’ll be releasing her follow-up title, Feral & Hysterical: Mother Horror’s Ultimate Reading Guide to Dark and Disturbing Fiction by Women. 

Feral & Hysterical will include 200+ recommendations organized into reading lists “based on vibes,” which honestly sounds like the best way to organize a book like this. In addition to the recommendations, F&H will feature five new essays from rising voices in the genre, making this an indispensable addition to your library.

Hailey Piper: A Game in Yellow

Hailey Piper. The Worm and His Kings. Queen of Teeth. Benny Rose, the Cannibal King. Other books that presumably don’t have something to do with royalty. Seriously, Piper is on an absolute tear, bringing some of the best queer and cosmic terrors to life since Clive Barker. In A Game of Yellow, Piper takes Robert W. Chambers’s The King in Yellow (what, more kings?) and implanting it between Carmen and Blanca, who aim to use the play’s otherworldly draw as a kind of addictive, kinky aphrodisiac, leading them to horrors they could never have dreamed of. 

She also has a collection of 13 “coming-of-rage” stories coming just a month later in Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, which aims to take our most difficult years of transformation and twist them into new and terrifying shapes, where the monsters are real and you’ll do whatever it takes to get away, or get even. The book will feature stories like “Why We Keep Exploding,” “The Turning,” as well as the previously mentioned and currently out-of-print novella “Benny Rose, the Cannibal King,” which makes this all the more enticing.

Gemma Files: Little Horn: Stories

Little Horn is a collection of fourteen short stories and novelettes, including illustrated title pages by the author, Gemma Files. Files is the award-winning Canadian author of Experimental Film and The Hexslinger series, as well as a number of short stories, five of which were adapted for the TV series, The Hunger. 

To be honest, there’s not much information about this collection yet, though, based on the title, I presume it will include Gemma’s short story “Little Horn,” which first appeared in issue 145 of Nightmare Magazine, but frankly, that’s enough info for me to open my wallet this Halloween season.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia: The Bewitching

Author of Mexican Gothic, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Silver Nitrate, and more, Silvia Moreno-Garcia can always be counted on for a few things: a beautiful, vibrant look at Mexican history, both near and far, a love of horror, and a twisty, supernatural mystery-adventure that’s as personal for her characters as they are thrilling for her readers. 

In The Bewitching, Minerva is a graduate student studying the history of horror literature when, in the course of researching an obscure author, she uncovers a connection to the stories told to her by her great-grandmother about her girlhood. As she learns more, the connection between Minerva, her great-grandmother, and her research subject might be more than coincidental—and could even turn deadly.

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Article by Ande Thomas

Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He is an independent member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and a supporting member of the Horror Writers Association. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.

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