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!
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
When a young woman clears out her deceased grandmother’s home in rural North Carolina, she finds long-hidden secrets about a strange colony of beings in the woods in this chilling novel that reads like The Blair Witch Project meets The Andy Griffith Show.
When Mouse’s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother’s house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?
Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants…until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.
Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors—because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale.
From Hugo Award–winning author Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher, The Twisted Ones is a gripping, terrifying tale bound to keep you up all night—from both fear and anticipation of what happens next.
Published October 1st 2019 by Gallery / Saga Press | Amazon | Goodreads
A Darker Shade by Laura K. Curtis
What is haunting young Liza Prescott?
Molly Allworth has been in service since leaving college when her mother died. Still, her situation is getting desperate and when the agency offers her a position that sounds too good to be true, she cannot resist.
Soon she finds herself in a remote house in Maine, caring for a little girl who swore she saw her mother’s ghost…before she stopped speaking entirely. Nathaniel Prescott, the child’s father, thinks any belief in the supernatural is absurdly credulous. Molly’s history and heritage, however, have given her a wider view.
There’s a significant bonus for Molly if she lasts the year. But as winter closes in and mysterious, often creepy events begin to occur, even her growing affection for Nathaniel and Liza may not be enough to make her stay.
Published October 1st 2019 by River Hills Press | Amazon | Goodreads
Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery edited by Rachel Autumn Deering and Christopher Golden
Brand-new stories of witches and witchcraft written by popular female fantasy authors, including Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine and Sherrilyn Kenyon writing in their own bestselling universes!
These are tales of wickedness… stories of evil and cunning, written by today’s women you should fear. Includes tales from Kelley Armstong, Rachel Caine and Sherrilyn Kenyon, writing in their own bestselling universes.
Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery will take the classic tropes of tales of witchcraft and infuse them with fresh, feminist perspective and present-day concerns–even if they’re set in the past. These witches might be monstrous, or they might be heroes, depending on their own definitions. Even the kind hostess with the candy cottage thought of herself as the hero of her own story. After all, a woman’s gotta eat.
Bring out your dread.
Published October 1st 2019 by Titan Books | Amazon | Goodreads
Soon by Lois Murphy
A gripping literary horror novel about the death of a haunted town, for fans of Richard Matheson. Winner of the Aurealis Best Horror 2017.
On winter solstice, the birds disappeared, and the mist arrived.
The inhabitants of Nebulah quickly learn not to venture out after dark. But it is hard to stay indoors: cabin fever sets in,
and the mist can be beguiling, too.
Eventually only six remain. Like the rest of the townspeople, Pete has nowhere else to go. After he rescues a stranded psychic from a terrible fate, he’s given a warning: he will be dead by solstice unless he leaves town – soon.
Expected publication: October 15th 2019 by Titan Books | Amazon | Goodreads
Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia
Zora Novak has been framed.
When someone burns down the home of the school janitor and he dies in the blaze, everyone in Addamsville, Indiana, points a finger at Zora. Never mind that Zora has been on the straight and narrow since her father was thrown in jail. With everyone looking for evidence against her, her only choice is to uncover the identity of the real killer. There’s one big problem—Zora has no leads. No one does. Addamsville has a history of tragedy, and thirty years ago a similar string of fires left several townspeople dead. The arsonist was never caught.
Now, Zora must team up with her cousin Artemis—an annoying self-proclaimed Addamsville historian—to clear her name. But with a popular ghost-hunting television show riling up the townspeople, almost no support from her family and friends, and rumors spinning out of control, things aren’t looking good. Zora will have to read between the lines of Addamsville’s ghost stories before she becomes one herself.
Published October 1st 2019 by Greenwillow Books | Amazon | Goodreads
Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan
A shocking collection of dark stories, ranging from chilling contemporary fairytales to disturbing supernatural fiction, by a talented writer who has been compared to Angela Carter.
So here we go, into the dark.
Some things can’t be spoken about in the light of day. But we can visit our fears at night, in the dark. We can turn them over and weigh them in our hands and maybe that will protect us from them. But maybe not.
The characters in this collection find their aspirations for happy homes, happy families and happy memories dissected and imbued with shimmering menace. Alone in a remote house in Iceland a woman is unnerved by her isolation; another can only find respite from the clinging ghost that follows her by submerging herself in an overgrown pool. Couples wrestle with a lack of connection to their children; a schoolgirl becomes obsessed with the female anatomical models in a museum; and a cheery account of child’s day out is undercut by chilling footnotes.
These dark tales explore women’s fears with electrifying honesty and invention and speak to one another about female bodies, domestic claustrophobia, desire and violence. From a talented writer who has been compared to Angela Carter, Things We Say in the Dark is a powerful contemporary collection of feminist stories, ranging from vicious fairy tales to disturbing horror and tender ghost stories.
Expected publication: October 3rd 2019 by Harvill Secker | Amazon | Goodreads
Ninth House (Ninth House Series #1) by Leigh Bardugo
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
Expected publication: October 8th 2019 by Flatiron Books | Amazon | Goodreads
False Bingo: Stories by Jac Jemc
The mundane becomes sinister in a disquieting story collection from the author of The Grip of It
In Jac Jemc’s dislocating second story collection, False Bingo, we watch as sinister forces–some supernatural, some of this earth, some real and some not–work their ways into the mundanity of everyday life.
In “Strange Loop,” an outcast attempting to escape an unnamed mistake spends his days taxiderming animals, while in “Delivery,” a family watches as their dementia-addled, basement-dwelling father succumbs to an online shopping addiction. “Don’t Let’s” finds a woman, recently freed from an abusive relationship, living in an isolated vacation home in the South that might be haunted by breath-stealing ghosts.
Fueled by paranoia and visceral suspense, and crafted with masterful restraint, these seventeen stories explore what happens when our fears cross over into the real, if only for a fleeting moment. Identities are stolen, alternate universes are revealed, and innocence is lost as the consequences of minor, seemingly harmless decisions erupt to sabotage a false sense of stability. “This is not a morality tale about the goodness of one character triumphing over the bad of another,” the sadistic narrator of “Pastoral” announces. Rather, False Bingo is a collection of realist fables exploring how conflicting moralities can coexist: the good, the bad, the indecipherable.
Expected publication: October 8th 2019 by MCD X Fsg Originals | Amazon | Goodreads
The Beautiful (The Beautiful #1) by Renée Ahdieh
In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she’s forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls, Celine quickly becomes enamored with the vibrant city from the music to the food to the soirées and—especially—to the danger. She soon becomes embroiled in the city’s glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group’s leader, the enigmatic Sébastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in the lair of La Cour des Lions, Celine battles her attraction to him and suspicions about Sébastien’s guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.
When more bodies are discovered, each crime more gruesome than the last, Celine and New Orleans become gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the loose—one Celine is sure has set her in his sights . . . and who may even be the young man who has stolen her heart. As the murders continue to go unsolved, Celine takes matters into her own hands and soon uncovers something even more shocking: an age-old feud from the darkest creatures of the underworld reveals a truth about Celine she always suspected simmered just beneath the surface.
At once a sultry romance and a thrilling murder mystery, master storyteller Renée Ahdieh embarks on her most potent fantasy series yet: The Beautiful.
Expected publication: October 8th 2019 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers | Amazon | Goodreads
Cold as Marble (Weeping Willow High #2) by Zoe Aarsen
Look out for the original series—starring Peyton List, Brent Rivera, Liana Liberato, Ajiona Alexus, and Dylan Sprayberry—now streaming on Hulu!
McKenna’s mission to save her friends from their predicted deaths continues in the second installment in the Light as a Feather series that’s perfect for fans of Pretty Little Liars and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina!
The deadly game continues…
Olivia and Candace are dead, both casualties of Violet’s deadly game of Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. McKenna and Mischa are the only ones left, and having failed to locate and destroy the source of Violet’s power, her curse still abounds, eager to claim more lives.
What does Violet want? And how can she be stopped? Armed with a mysterious package containing clues, as well as a little help from the beyond, McKenna hopes to end this once and for all…before it’s too late.
Expected publication: October 8th 2019 by Simon Pulse | Amazon | Goodreads
Sinkhole by April A. Taylor
Could you learn to get along with a complete stranger – or even your worst enemy – to save your life?
A sinkhole swallows a girl in Michigan. Fire shoots into the sky in Pennsylvania. Deer attacks leave people hospitalized in West Virginia. And this is all just the beginning of a catastrophic series of global events that will make you question everything you think you know about the planet, nature, and humanity.
From an award-winning, Amazon #1 best-selling author comes this harrowing tale of a world gone mad. Can anyone survive when Mother Nature unleashes her bad side?
Expected publication: October 8th 2019 by Midnight Grasshopper Books | Amazon | Goodreads
Those Who Came Before by J.H. Moncrieff
People are dying at Strong Lake, and the worst is yet to come.
An idyllic weekend camping trip is cut short when Reese Wallace’s friends are brutally murdered. As the group’s only survivor, Reese is the prime suspect, and his story doesn’t make much sense. A disembodied voice warning him to leave the campground the night before? A strange, blackened tree that gave him an electric shock when he cut it down for firewood?
Detective Greyeyes isn’t having any of it―until she hears the voice herself and finds an arrowhead at the crime scene―an arrowhead she can’t get rid of. Troubling visions of a doomed Native American tribe who once called the campground home, and rumors of cursed land and a mythical beast plague the strangest murder case she’s ever been a part of.
Expected publication: October 10th 2019 by Flame Tree Press | Amazon | Goodreads
In Dreams We Rot by Betty Rocksteady
Fiction like a fever dream…
A voyeur suddenly becomes the one being watched, terrifying beasts are stitched together, strange new insects appear, ancient sex gods rise, and an island on the brink of madness falls apart.
Betty Rocksteady’s debut collection blends surrealism and horror, tearing apart tropes as words bleed and transform down unexpected avenues of nightmare logic. These twenty stories run the gamut from splatterpunk to somber. They’re hot and wet and nasty, guaranteed to leave you with an unspeakable sense of dread.
Expected publication: October 18th 2019 by Trepidatio Publishing | Amazon | Goodreads
Little Paranoias: Stories by Sonora Taylor
Is it a knock on the door, or a gust of wind? A trick of the light, or someone who’ll see what you’ve done?
“Little Paranoias: Stories” features twenty tales of the little things that drive our deepest fears. It tells the stories of terror and sorrow, lust at the end of the world and death as an unwanted second chance. It dives into the darkest corners of the minds of men, women, and children. It wanders into the forest and touches every corner of the capital. Everyone has something to fear — but after all, it’s those little paranoias that drive our day-to-day.
Expected publication: October 22nd 2019 | Goodreads
Have we missed any October 2019 LOHF titles you are excited about? Let us know in the comments!
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