Each month the Ladies of Horror Fiction team posts all of the books we are aware of that will be releasing during that month. If you are involved in the process of publishing a horror book written by a female author, please reach out to us and let us know so we can help to spotlight the book’s release!
Ghost Stories: Forgotten Classic Tales edited by Lisa Morton & Leslie Klinger
The ghost story has long been a staple of world literature, but many of the genre’s greatest tales have been forgotten, overshadowed in many cases by their authors’ bestselling work in other genres. In this spine-tingling anthology, little known stories from literary titans like Charles Dickens and Edith Wharton are collected alongside overlooked works from masters of horror fiction like Edgar Allan Poe and M. R. James.
Acclaimed anthologists Leslie S. Klinger (The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes) and Lisa Morton (Ghosts: A Haunted History)set these stories in historical context and trace the literary significance of ghosts in fiction over almost two hundred years—from a traditional English ballad first printed in 1724 through the Christmas-themed ghost stories of the Victorian era and up to the science fiction–tinged tales of the early twentieth century.
In bringing these masterful tales back from the dead, Ghost Stories will enlighten and frighten both longtime fans and new readers of the genre.
Including stories by:
Ambrose Bierce, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Olivia Howard Dunbar, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Georgia Wood Pangborn, Mrs. J. H. Riddell, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Scott, Frank Stockton, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton.
Expected publication: April 2nd 2019 by Pegasus Books
The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
A thrilling, atmospheric debut with the intensive drive of The Martian and Gravity and the creeping dread of Annihilation, in which a caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival.
When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck—enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother—meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane.
Instead, she got Em.
Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre’s falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash—and a lash. And Em has secrets, too . . .
As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies—missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em’s motivations—drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, her control giving way to paranoia and anger, Gyre severs her connection with Em and the outside world. On her own in this mysterious, deadly place, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, Gyre must overcome more than just the dangerous terrain and the Tunneler which calls underground its home if she wants to make it out alive—she must confront the ghosts in her own head.
But how come she can’t shake the feeling she’s being followed?
Expected publication: April 2nd 2019 by Harper Voyager
Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver
1906: A large manor house, Wake’s End, sits on the edge of a bleak Fen, just outside the town of Wakenhyrst. It is the home of Edmund Stearn and his family – a historian, scholar and land-owner, he’s an upstanding member of the local community. But all is not well at Wake’s End. Edmund dominates his family tyrannically, in particular daughter Maud. When Maud’s mother dies in childbirth and she’s left alone with her strict, disciplinarian father, Maud’s isolation drives her to her father’s study, where she happens upon his diary.
During a walk through the local church yard, Edmund spots an eye in the undergrowth. His terror is only briefly abated when he discovers its actually a painting, a ‘doom’, taken from the church. It’s horrifying in its depiction of hell, and Edmund wants nothing more to do with it despite his historical significance. But the doom keeps returning to his mind. The stench of the Fen permeates the house, even with the windows closed. And when he lies awake at night, he hears a scratching sound – like claws on the wooden floor…
Wakenhyrst is a terrifying ghost story, an atmospheric slice of gothic, a brilliant exploration of the boundaries between the real and the supernatural, and a descent into the mind of a psychopath.
Expected publication:April 11th 2019 by Head of Zeus
Kraulaak by Sara Marks
It seems like a small, quiet library in a small New England town. Underneath is a secret that enslaves them all. Kraulaak, a frozen wasteland, demands sacrifices, waiting on the other end of a concealed portal.
These eight stories consider different points of views: the children who know something is wrong, the reporter who stumbled on something strange, two of the librarians managing the portal, and even Kraulaak itself. What is Kraulaak and what does it want? Explore this hungry world with author Sara Marks.
Expected publication: April 8th 2019 by Illuminated Myth Publishing
The Last Ghost and Other Stories by Marie O’Regan
The Last Ghost And Other Stories is the latest collection from Marie O’Regan. Here you will find “The Last Ghost”, a young girl’s tale of loss; “In The Howling of the Wind”, a small boy waiting for his parents in a house suddenly grown strange; “Someone To Watch Over You”, the story of a protective phantom; “The Cradle in the Corner”, a slightly different haunting; “Play Time”, a cautionary tale on the dangers of playing out alone at night; “Sleeping Black”, a tale of vengeful spirits awoken by a house’s new tenants, and “Suicide Bridge”, a love story with a difference.
Expected publication: April 9th 2019 by Luna Press Publishing
Second Lives by P.D. Cacek
When four patients spontaneously regain consciousness after being declared dead, their loved ones are ecstatic and words like “miracle” and “miraculous” begin to float around the hospital. But the jubilation is short lived when the patients neither recognize their families nor answer to their names. Each one vehemently claims to be someone else, someone who lived, and died, in the past. When it’s suggested that all four are suffering from fugue states, one of the doctors says that he recognizes a name and verifies he not only knew the girl but was there when she died in 1992. It soon becomes obvious that the bodies of the four patients are now inhabited by the souls of people long dead. A frightened little boy killed in 1956 cries out for his mother from the body of an 81 year old Alzheimer’s patient, the soul of a spinster killed in a Suffragette rally wakes in the body of a new mother; an orthodox Jew, murdered in 1922, opens the eyes of a gay suicide and a teenage girl wakes to discover she’s now in the body of a 45 year old woman. The hospital psychiatrist, after talking with them, dubs the four “The Travelers” and believes they are proof of the transmigration of souls. They are more than just lost souls, he tells the grieving families, they are completely alone and terrified, displaced into bodies that aren’t their own and trapped in a world they can’t understand. If they are to survive they’ll need help and to this end the doctor asks the families to make a supreme sacrifice and do just that: to help these strangers assimilate into society and their new lives. To care for a complete stranger who looks like the loved one they just lost is a hard thing to ask of people. The families have the right to say no, they are under no legal or moral obligation to help; but they do. Spearheaded by the elderly woman whose husband’s body now holds the soul of a frightened child, but still with reservations and not a little anger, they finally agree to accept the strangers wearing their loved ones bodies, and will do everything they can to help “The Travelers” make as smooth and gentle a transition into their new lives as possible.
Expected publication: April 11th 2019 by Flame Tree Press
Lucid by Kristy Fairlamb
Lucy Piper lives a lonely existence on the precipice between life and death. She possesses the horrifying ability to resurrect real-life tragic events in her nightmares, reliving over and over, as if she were there, the last few moments before the victim takes their final breath. Car accidents, drownings, plane crashes – Lucy has seen it all. No one understands what it’s like living death by night and fearing sleep by day.
When Tyler Sims and his family move to town to escape past traumas, Lucy is drawn to him. The two of them are linked through their dreams, and with Tyler’s trust and friendship, hope for a brighter future returns to Lucy’s world. But Tyler’s presence awakens something else in Lucy, and with this new knowledge, she will be forced to make impossible decisions. Decisions that will change history, and the future.
Chilling, haunting and compelling, this novel is the first in a two-part series for fans of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and The Hidden Memory of Objects that will leave you breathless for days.
Expected publication: April 23rd 2019 by Lakewater Press
Section 130 by Katrinka Mannelly
Based on the Dewey decimal system designation for the supernatural – section 130 is a collection of short stories from new author Katrinka Mannelly.
In the library of Katrinka Mannelly’s childhood, Dewey Decimal section 130 contained the supernatural—everything from witches to mermaids, gnomes to poltergeists. Like many children, I devoured these books, working my way through countless titles, studying magical creatures and imagining what encounters with them might be like.
As an adult she is still enamored with the inhabitants of section 130, but life has given her a more cynical view. What if interactions with mythical beings were mundane, or funny, or when special, extraordinary in the most unanticipated of ways?
This is the premise of Section 130, a collection of original short stories averaging 2,000 words in length. Each explores a modern human-supernatural being exchange. Sirens, fey, Sasquatch, Jinn, demons, ghosts, zombies, even tooth fairies in training, and lake monsters have truths to tell us about who we are as people.
Expected publication:April 30th 2019 by Zmok Books
The Invited by Jennifer McMahon
A chilling ghost story with a twist: the New York Times best-selling author of THE WINTER PEOPLE, returns to the woods of Vermont to tell the story of a husband and wife who don’t simply move into a haunted house, they start building one from scratch, without knowing it, until it’s too late…
In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate abandon the comforts of suburbia and teaching jobs to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this charming property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. As Helen starts carefully sourcing decorative building materials for her home – wooden beams, mantles, historic bricks — she starts to unearth, and literally conjure, the tragic lives of Hattie’s descendants, three generations of “Breckenridge women,” each of whom died amidst suspicion, and who seem to still be seeking something precious and elusive in the present day.
Expected publication: April 30th 2019 by Doubleday
Have we missed any other April 2019 LOHF titles you are excited about? Let us know in the comments!
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