Thursday, April 30, 2020

YA/MG Horror Spotlight April 2020

The Ladies of Horror Fiction team is putting a spotlight on Young Adult and Middle Grade horror each month. Below we are featuring the books that were released in April as well as what our team has been reading and reviewing.

New Releases

Ruthless Gods (Something Dark and Holy #2) by Emily A. Duncan

Darkness never works alone…

Nadya doesn’t trust her magic anymore. Serefin is fighting off a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to him. Malachiasz is at war with who–and what–he’s become.

As their group is continually torn apart, the girl, the prince, and the monster find their fates irrevocably intertwined. They’re pieces on a board, being orchestrated by someone… or something. The voices that Serefin hears in the darkness, the ones that Nadya believes are her gods, the ones that Malachiasz is desperate to meet—those voices want a stake in the world, and they refuse to stay quiet any longer.

Published April 7th 2020 by Macmillan | Amazon | Goodreads

Girls Save the World in This One by Ash Parsons

June’s whole life has been leading up to this: ZombieCon, the fan convention celebrating all things zombies. She and her two best friends plan on hitting all the panels, photo ops, and meeting the heartthrob lead of their favorite zombie apocalypse show Human Wasteland.

And when they arrive everything seems perfect, though June has to shrug off some weirdness from other fans—people shambling a little too much, and someone actually biting a cast member. Then all hell breaks loose and June and her friends discover the truth: real zombies are taking over the con. Now June must do whatever it takes to survive a horde of actual brain-eating zombies—and save the world.

Published April 14th 2020 by Philomel Books | Amazon | Goodreads

Young Adult Books Reviewed

Girls Save the World in This One by Ash Parsons

This month Jen read and reviewed Ash Parson’s new release Girls Save the World in This One. Be sure to check out Jen’s full review (“While there are flesh eating zombies, Girls Save the World in This One is still a great book for those who don’t care much for horror. The zombies are an awesome backdrop to a story of friendship and fandom.“)

Currently Reading

Jen is having a blast reading the Lumberjanes comic book series right now. Lumberjanes features a group of girls “spending summer at a scout camp, and the strange creatures and supernatural phenomena they encounter there.”

Upcoming Reviews

Rules for Vanishing

This month Jen also read and absolutely loved Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall. Stay tuned for an upcoming review!!


Have you read any of the books we read or reviewed this month? Let us know what YA or MG books you have read recently!

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

What We're Reading #47

We’re back with more must-read books to brighten up your life!

Thin Places by Kay Chronister

Kay Chronister’s remarkable debut collection of modern horror tales, Thin Places, echoes with the ghosts of Shirley Jackson and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, while forging its own unique gothic sensibility. Here there be monsters! And witches!

These are tales of monstrous mothers and dark desires. Love, grief, death; and the exquisite pain and joy of life. With transcendent prose, Chronister chronicles the lives of powerful women and children; wicked witches and demons. These are the traumatic ghosts we all carry, and Chronister knows what it means to be human and humane. Powerful and hypnotic, these are tales you won’t forget, from a vibrant new voice. 

Goodreads | Amazon

Audra’s Teaser Review

Chronister’s focus throughout these stories is women who struggle to be heard, who strive to gain power and agency, who are haunted by ghosts real and imagined. They swim in legend and the supernatural but feel tangible, which makes them all the more chilling.

Read Audra’s entire review at Goodreads.

Asylum of Shadows by Stephanie Ellis

Amongst the slums of Limehouse stands a new hospital, a monument to Victorian philanthropy. Marian, destitute and about to be orphaned as her father succumbs to the ravages of syphilis, is taken there by Dr. Janssen. This eminent physician offers her work and a roof over her head. Employed as a seamstress, she stitches shrouds for the dead and hoods for the hangman. Marian is taken to the ward of St. Carcifex. This shadowy ward receives the recently deceased, particularly those who have hung from the gallows. Her task in this gloomy place is to watch over them, make sure the dead stay dead. On Marian’s first night, she is charged with the care of two murderers, who, despite their hanging, do not appear to have the expected deathly pallor. On the second night, these guests are joined by innocent, hard-working men, victims of an unfortunate dock accident. Marian is enraged that such should be forced to share the ward. As her own mind falls victim to the ravages of the disease which killed her father, she metes out her own justice, her own vengeance – on dead and alive alike.

Goodreads | Amazon

Emily’s Teaser Review

This is a quick and intriguing story about the main character’s descent into madness, and I got pretty invested in the story. I recommend checking this one out!

Read Emily’s entire review at Goodreads.

Season of Secrets by Kerry E.B. Black

Did Equinox Magic lead to murder?

Casey Adams juggles the responsibilities of a stressful life, but after participating in a secret campus ceremony, these concerns seem minor, compared to a growing dread that somehow she and her friends may have unleashed something sinister. Assailed by bloody visions of death, Casey fears she’s going as insane as her mother.

When a horrible murder comes to peaceful Ol’ Nor’eastern College, Casey and her friends must accept the changes in their lives and stop the bloodshed. Fans of magical realism will enjoy this debut Young Adult contemporary exploration of the paranormal, responsibility to family, friends, and community, and self-acceptance.

Goodreads | Amazon

Alex’s Teaser Review

This is considered along the lines of YA paranormal mystery horror. It was a fun read and I read it in two sittings – I just got so drawn into Casey’s life and had to find out what was going to happen. 

Read Alex’s entire review at Goodreads.

Thank you for joining us today! We hope you found something to add to your tbr list. Please share your recent reads with us in the comments below.

If you are a LOHF writer and have a book you’d like us to consider for a review please visit our review submission page here.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

What We're Reading #46

Hello, everyone! We hope you’re all finding moments to indulge in some great books. Here’s three more for your tbr pile!

Cry Your Way Home by Damien Angelica Walters

“Once upon a time there was a monster. This is how they tell you the story starts. This is a lie.”

Sometimes things are not what they appear to be. DNA doesn’t define us, gravity doesn’t hold us, a home doesn’t mean we belong. From circus tents to space stations, Damien Angelica Walters creates stories that are both achingly familiar and chillingly surreal. Within her second short story collection, she questions who the real monsters are, rips families apart and stiches them back together, and turns a cell phone into the sharpest of weapons.

Cry Your Way Home brings together seventeen stories that delve deep into human sorrow and loss, weaving pain, fear, and ultimately resilience into beautiful tales that are sure to haunt you long after you finish the collection.

“Once upon a time there was a girl…”

Goodreads | Amazon

Audra’s Teaser Review

These stories show all the hallmarks of a major talent. As horror fans, we are lucky that Walters is one of us, bringing her unique voice and perspective to the strange and dark. I will always look forward to reading her work.

Read Audra’s entire review at Goodreads.

The Bone Weaver's Orchard Book Cover

The Bone Weaver’s Orchard by Sarah Read

He’s run away from home. That’s what they say every time one of Charley Winslow’s friends vanishes from The Old Cross School for Boys.

It’s just a tall tale. That’s what they tell Charley when he sees the ragged grey figure stalking the abbey halls at night.

When Charley follows his pet insects to a pool of blood behind a false wall, he could run and let those stones bury their secrets. He could assimilate, focus on his studies, and wait for his father to send for him. Or he could walk the dark tunnels of the school’s heart, scour its abandoned passages, and pick at the scab of a family’s legacy of madness and murder.

With the help of Sam Forster, the school’s gardener, and Matron Grace, the staff nurse, Charley unravels Old Cross’ history and exposes a scandal stretching back to when the school was a home with a noble family and a dark secret—a secret that still haunts its halls with scraping steps, twisting its bones into a new generation of nightmares.

Goodreads | Amazon

Laurie’s Teaser Review

Charley is a fantastic character. He makes you feel for him from the very first time you meet him. I think you will love him, even if you’re not into all of the creepy crawlies. He is a kind, strong soul and an admirable little person. But if you do dig the creepy crawlies this book has them. I was surprised by some of the gruesome turns in the final section, yikes! Prepare thyself.

Read Laurie’s entire review at Bark At The Ghouls.

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Someone, or something, is haunting the Titanic.

This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set sail: mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner’s illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers – including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher – are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.

Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near-fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognizes while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not – could not – have survived the sinking of the Titanic . . . 

Goodreads | Amazon

Tracy’s Teaser Review

While this book is definitely historical fiction, this horror lover was pleased to find that the supernatural elements were delivered as well. Creepy, foreboding, and at times just WEIRD, I love how the author was able to seamlessly integrate these happenings within the dual timelines. And if horror isn’t your favorite thing, there are enough suspense/thriller elements and more to meet the needs of a wide variety of readers.

Read Tracy’s entire review at High Fever Books.

Thank you for joining us today! We hope you found something to add to your tbr list. Please share your recent reads with us in the comments below.

If you are a LOHF writer and have a book you’d like us to consider for a review please visit our review submission page here.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Congratulations Bram Stoker Award Winners!

The Ladies of Horror Fiction team would like to congratulate all of the amazing women who took home Bram Stoker Awards over the weekend! We are so happy to celebrate your achievements! Below are the women in the horror genre who were selected for their outstanding works of horror.

Sarah Read

Sarah won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel for The Bone Weaver’s Orchard (Trepidatio Publishing).

The Bone Weaver's Orchard Book Cover

Colleen Doran

Colleen Doran won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel for her work in Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples (Dark Horse Books). She is credited as co-writer, artist, colorist, and cover artist!

Snow, Glass, Apples

Gwendolyn Kiste

Gwendolyn Kiste took home two awards! She won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction for “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)” (Nightmare Magazine Nov. 2019, Issue 86) and the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction for “Magic, Madness, and Women Who Creep: The Power of Individuality in the Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman” (Vastarien: A Literary Journal Vol. 2, Issue 1).

Ellen Datlow

Ellen Datlow won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology for Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories (Gallery/Saga Press).

Echoes edited by Ellen Datlow

Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson

Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction for Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction (Quirk Books).

Monster She Wrote

Linda D. Addison

Linda D. Addison won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection for The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing).

The Place of Broken Things

Congratulations again to all of the nominees and winners! The awards ceremony is available to view on the Horror Writers Association YouTube channel, and the full list of nominees and winners is available at the Horror Writers Association website.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

What We're Reading #45

We have three new reading recommendations curated by our team. We hope you find your next five star read!

Loteria by Cynthia Pelayo

The Mexican board game of Lotería is a game of chance. It is similar to our American bingo. However, in Lotería instead of matching up numbers on a game board, players match up images. There are 54 cards in the Lotería game, and for this short story collection you will find one unique story per card based on a Latin American myth, folklore, superstition, or belief – with a slant towards the paranormal and horrific. In this deck of cards you will find murderers, ghosts, goblins and ghouls. This collection features creatures and monsters, vampires and werewolves and many of these legends existed in the Americas long before their European counterparts. Many of these stories have been passed over time throughout the Americas, and many have been passed via word of mouth, just like the tales the Brothers Grimm collected. These are indeed fairy tales, but with a much more terrible little slant.

Goodreads | Amazon

Audra’s Teaser Review

Overall, this is an excellent dark short story collection that gave me a firsthand glimpse into a culture that I don’t know very much about. That’s one of the reasons I so love reading—it is able to show me perspectives that aren’t my own and broaden my view of the world.

Read Audra’s entire review at Goodreads.

The Apocalyptic Mannequin

The Apocalyptic Mannequin by Stephanie M. Wytovich

Doomsday is here and the earth is suffering with each breath she takes. Whether it’s from the nuclear meltdown, the wrath of the Four Horsemen, a war with technology, or a consequence of our relationship with the planet, humanity is left buried and hiding, our bones exposed, our hearts beating somewhere in our freshly slit throats.

The Apocalyptic Mannequin by Stephanie M. Wytovich is a collection that strips away civilization and throws readers into the lives of its survivors. The poems inside are undelivered letters, tear-soaked whispers, and unanswered prayers. They are every worry you’ve had when your electricity went out, and every pit that grew in your stomach watching the news at night. They are tragedy and trauma, but they are also grief and fear, fear of who–or what–lives inside us once everything is taken away.

These pages hold the teeth of monsters against the faded photographs of family and friends, and here, Wytovich is both plague doctor and midwife, both judge and jury, forever searching through severed limbs and exposed wires as she straddles the line evaluating what’s moral versus what’s necessary to survive.

What’s clear though, is that the world is burning and we don’t remember who we are.

So tell me: who will you become when it’s over? 

Goodreads | Amazon

Laurie’s Teaser Review

Wytovich creates a bleak world devastated by plague, chemicals, ruination and all of the painful truths about humanity that are likely to occur when life as we know it is over forever. It contains beautifully written and frightening visions of an apocalyptic future. Each poem is a little glimpse into a bleak nightmare world.

Read Laurie’s entire review at Bark at the Ghouls.

Emily’s Teaser Review

My top 5 poems in this collection were Nearsighted in the Mushroom Cloud, Saints Don’t Spread Their Legs, The Survival of Fishes, Inside the House of Labor, and Madam, Never Mistress.

Read Emily’s entire review at Goodreads.

The Doll-Master by Joyce Carol Oates

From one of our most important contemporary writers, The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror is a bold, haunting collection of six stories.

In the title story, a young boy becomes obsessed with his cousin’s doll after she tragically passes away from leukemia. As he grows older, he begins to collect “found dolls” from the surrounding neighborhoods and stores his treasures in the abandoned carriage house on his family’s estate. But just what kind of dolls are they? In “Gun Accident,” a teenage girl is thrilled when her favorite teacher asks her to house-sit, even on short notice. But when an intruder forces his way into the house while the girl is there, the fate of more than one life is changed forever. In “Equatorial,” set in the exotic Galapagos, an affluent American wife experiences disorienting assaults upon her sense of who her charismatic husband really is, and what his plans may be for her.

In The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, Joyce Carol Oates evokes the “fascination of the abomination” that is at the core of the most profound, the most unsettling, and the most memorable of dark mystery fiction.

Goodreads | Amazon

Tracy’s Teaser Review

I loved three of the stories. Doll Master is creepy as hell; it first appeared in Ellen Datlow’s Doll Collection anthology and now I need to read those stories. Creepy dolls are just 😱. The other two stories, Big Momma and Gun Accident are the other faves and they all get 5 stars from me. 

Thank you for joining us today! We hope you found something to add to your tbr list. Please share your recent reads with us in the comments below.

If you are a LOHF writer and have a book you’d like us to consider for a review please visit our review submission page here.

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

April 2020 LOHF New Releases

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 Ancestor by Danielle Trussone

The Ancestor by Danielle Trussoni

A bewitching gothic novel of suspense that plunges readers into a world of dark family secrets, the mysteries of human genetics, and the burden of family inheritance.

It feels like a fairy tale when Alberta ”Bert” Monte receives a letter addressed to “Countess Alberta Montebianco” at her Hudson Valley, New York, home that claims she’s inherited a noble title, money, and a castle in Italy. While Bert is more than a little skeptical, the mystery of her aristocratic family’s past, and the chance to escape her stressful life for a luxury holiday in Italy, is too good to pass up.

At first, her inheritance seems like a dream come true: a champagne-drenched trip on a private jet to Turin, Italy; lawyers with lists of artwork and jewels bequeathed to Bert; a helicopter ride to an ancestral castle nestled in the Italian Alps below Mont Blanc; a portrait gallery of ancestors Bert never knew existed; and a cellar of expensive vintage wine for Bert to drink.

But her ancestry has a dark side, and Bert soon learns that her family history is particularly complicated. As Bert begins to unravel the Montebianco secrets, she begins to realize her true inheritance lies not in a legacy of ancestral treasures, but in her very genes.

Expected publication: April 7th 2020 by William Morrow | Amazon | Goodreads


The Ruin of Delicate Things by Beverley Lee

The Ruin of Delicate Things by Beverley Lee

Barrington Hall is a place of secrets—something Dan Morgan has worked hard to forget. But when a heart-breaking loss brings him back to the place where he spent his childhood summers, Barrington Hall will do what it must to make him remember.

Faye Morgan blames her husband for the death of their teenage son. She doesn’t want to leave the place Toby called home. But after she catches a glimpse of a strange boy in the midnight woods and learns of his connection with Barrington Hall, her need to learn more pulls her further and further into a nightmare world filled with past atrocities and the burning flame of revenge.

A tale of grief and horror, The Ruin of Delicate Things explores how loss can leave a hole inside of us. A hole large enough for anything to crawl into.

Expected publication: April 7th 2020 | Amazon | Goodreads


Girls Save the World in This One by Ash Parsons

Girls Save the World in This One by Ash Parsons

June’s whole life has been leading up to this: ZombieCon, the fan convention celebrating all things zombies. She and her two best friends plan on hitting all the panels, photo ops, and meeting the heartthrob lead of their favorite zombie apocalypse show Human Wasteland.

And when they arrive everything seems perfect, though June has to shrug off some weirdness from other fans—people shambling a little too much, and someone actually biting a cast member. Then all hell breaks loose and June and her friends discover the truth: real zombies are taking over the con. Now June must do whatever it takes to survive a horde of actual brain-eating zombies—and save the world.

Expected publication: April 14th 2020 by Philomel Books | Amazon | Goodreads


The Unsuitable by Molly Pohlig

A fierce blend of Gothic ghost story and Victorian novel of manners that’s also pitch perfect for our current cultural moment

Iseult Wince is a Victorian woman perilously close to spinsterhood whose distinctly unpleasant father is trying to marry her off. She is awkward, plain, and most pertinently, believes that her mother, who died in childbirth, lives in the scar on her neck. Iseult’s father parades a host of unsuitable candidates before her, the majority of whom Iseult wastes no time frightening away. When at last her father finds a suitor desperate enough to take Iseult off his hands—a man whose medical treatments have turned his skin silver—a true comedy of errors ensues. As history’s least conventional courtship progresses into talk of marriage, Iseult’s mother becomes increasingly volatile and uncontrollable, and Iseult is forced to resort to extreme, often violent, measures to keep her in check.

As the day of the wedding nears, Iseult must decide whether (and how) to set the course of her life, with increasing interference from both her mother and father, tipping her ever closer to madness, and to an inevitable, devastating final act.

Expected publication: April 14th 2020 by Henry Holt & Company | Amazon | Goodreads


Looking Glass by Christina Henry

Looking Glass by Christina Henry

In four new novellas, Christina Henry returns to the universe she created for Alice and Red Queen, where magic runs more freely than anyone suspects, but so do secrets and blood.

Lovely Creature
In the New City lives a girl called Elizabeth, a girl who has a secret: she can do magic. But someone knows Elizabeth’s secret–someone who has a secret of his own. That secret is a butterfly that lives in a jar, a butterfly made by a girl called Alice.

Girl in Amber
Alice and Hatcher are just looking for a place to rest. Alice has been dreaming of a cottage by a lake and a field of wildflowers, but while walking blind in a snowstorm they stumble into a castle that seems empty and abandoned…at least until nightfall.

When I First Came to Town
Hatcher wasn’t always Hatcher. Once, he was a boy called Nicholas, and Nicholas fancied himself the best fighter in the Old City. No matter who fought him he always won. Then his boss tells him he’s going to battle the fearsome Grinder, a man who never leaves his opponents alive.

The Mercy Seat
Alice has a secret–a secret that not even Hatcher knows yet, but pretty soon she won’t be able to keep it from him.

Expected publication: April 21st 2020 by Ace | Amazon | Goodreads


Velocities by Kathe Koja

Velocities: Stories by Kathe Koja

From the award-winning author of The Cipher and Buddha Boy, comes Velocities, Kathe Koja’s second electrifying collection of short fiction. Thirteen stories, two never before published, all flying at the speed of strange.

Expected publication: April 21st 2020 by Meerkat Press, LLC | Amazon | Goodreads


You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

You Let Me In delivers a stunning tale from debut author Camilla Bruce, combining the sinister domestic atmosphere of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects with the otherwordly thrills of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Cassandra Tipp is dead…or is she?

After all, the notorious recluse and eccentric bestselling novelist has always been prone to flights of fancy–everyone in town remembers the shocking events leading up to Cassie’s infamous trial (she may have been acquitted, but the insanity defense only stretches so far).

Cassandra Tipp has left behind no body–just her massive fortune, and one final manuscript.

Then again, there are enough bodies in her past–her husband Tommy Tipp, whose mysterious disembowelment has never been solved, and a few years later, the shocking murder-suicide of her father and brother.

Cassandra Tipp will tell you a story–but it will come with a terrible price. What really happened, out there in the woods–and who has Cassie been protecting all along? Read on, if you dare…

Expected publication: April 21st 2020 by Tor Books | Amazon | Goodreads


Have we missed any April 2020 LOHF titles you are excited about? Let us know in the comments!

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