Each month the Ladies of Horror Fiction team posts all the books we are aware of that will be releasing during that month here and on Bookshop.org. You can also check out the releases for the year here. Please let us know if we missed any new releases so we can add them to our lists!
Summoner of Sleep by A.I. Winters
In the isolated mountain town of Marble Woods, the townspeople harbor a dangerous secret. It’s here, away from the civilized world, that they can experiment with human genetics that have the power to alter your mind and body. When Ryder Ashling, a down-on-his-luck longtime sufferer of nightmares, discovers the town, he thinks he’s found a cure, but bears witness to their research and its terrifying, inevitable unraveling.
In exploring the disturbing crossroads of genetic manipulation and lust for youth and control of the physical, Winters’ cautionary tale of the perversion of natural order and desire will entice and rattle readers in this thought-provoking tale of terror.
Publishes July 1, 2021 by Literary Wanderlust Bookshop | Goodreads
Too Near the Dead by Helen Grant
Sometimes it’s terrifying, loving someone this much…
For Fen Munro and her fiancé James, it is a dream come true: an escape from London to a beautiful house in the stunning Perthshire countryside.
Barr Dubh is modern, a building with no past at all. But someone walks the grounds, always dressed in lavender. Under a lichenous stone in an abandoned graveyard, a hideous secret lies buried. And at night, Fen is tormented by horrifying dreams.
Someone wants Fen’s happiness, and nothing is going to stop them – not even death…
Publishes July 1, 2021 by Fledgling Press Amazon | Goodreads
We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen
This psychological sci-fi thriller from a debut author follows one doctor who must discover the source of her crew’s madness… or risk succumbing to it herself.
Misanthropic psychologist Dr. Grace Park is placed on the Deucalion, a survey ship headed to an icy planet in an unexplored galaxy. Her purpose is to observe the thirteen human crew members aboard the ship—all specialists in their own fields—as they assess the colonization potential of the planet, Eos. But frictions develop as Park befriends the androids of the ship, preferring their company over the baffling complexity of humans, while the rest of the crew treats them with suspicion and even outright hostility.
Shortly after landing, the crew finds themselves trapped on the ship by a radiation storm, with no means of communication or escape until it passes—and that’s when things begin to fall apart. Park’s patients are falling prey to waking nightmares of helpless, tongueless insanity. The androids are behaving strangely. There are no windows aboard the ship. Paranoia is closing in, and soon Park is forced to confront the fact that nothing—neither her crew, nor their mission, nor the mysterious Eos itself—is as it seems.
Publishes July 6, 2021 by DAW Books Bookshop | Goodreads
Inheriting Her Ghosts by S.H. Cooper
Inheritance often comes with strings attached, but rarely are they as tangled as those hanging over High Hearth.
When Eudora Fellowes learns she’s the sole heir of her estranged great-aunt’s seaside manor, she believes it will be the peaceful escape she’s longed for. What awaits, however, is a dark legacy shrouded in half a century of secrets, and it doesn’t take long before Eudora realizes she’s not the only one to call High Hearth home.
Publishes July 9, 2021 by Sleepless Sanctuary Publishing Amazon | Goodreads
21 Grams by M. Regan
In the bowels of an unassuming, ever-moving funerary parlor, a mortician known as the Operator hides a fearsome machine called the Godwin, rumored to have the ability to resurrect the dead. It runs, like a soul does, on logos: on words. And in exchange for those words—for a client’s life story—the corpse of their choosing might yet walk again. Careful, though. Words bear weight, so one must choose them wisely. Author M. Regan delivers a harrowing and beautiful glimpse into a world filled with desire, darkness, love, and loss.
Publishes July 13, 2021 by Timber Ghost Press Amazon | Goodreads
A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan
Ottessa Moshfegh meets David Cronenberg in this viciously funny and terrifying debut novel about a love triangle so toxic that it breaks the order of the universe and unleashes a literal monster.
Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure 30-something service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia’s entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart.
Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desires and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beachside paradise, and before long disturbing things start to happen. Prepare for sleepwalking attacks, stalking, murder, text messages from the afterlife, a visitor from another dimension, and more.
Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.
Publishes July 13, 2021 by Little, Brown Bookshop | Goodreads
Immortelle by Catherine McCarthy
When Elinor’s daughter, Rowena, is found poisoned and dead in an animal trough, Elinor is sure the local parish priest is to blame.
A ceramic artist by trade and influenced by her late grandmother’s interest in supernatural magic, Elinor crafts an immortelle for Rowena’s grave and attempts to capture the girl’s spirit in the clay model of a starling. Soon she is inundated with requests for immortelles and the more immersed in the craft she becomes, the greater her powers grow.
As the dead share their secrets with grieving Elinor, she learns the sordid truth of what happened to her beloved daughter and plots a revenge so hideous, it must be kept a secret forever.
Publishes July 15, 2021 by Off Limits Press Bookshop | Goodreads
Transmuted by Eve Harms
Her doctor is giving her the body of his dreams . . . and her nightmares.
Isa is a micro-celebrity who rarely shows her face, and can’t wait to have it expertly ripped off and rearranged to look more feminine. When a successful fundraiser makes her gender affirming surgery possible, she’s overjoyed—until she has to give up all her money to save her dying father.
Crushed by gender dysphoria and the pressure of disappointing her fans who paid for a new face, she answers a sketchy ad seeking transgender women for a free, experimental feminization treatment. The grotesquely flawless Dr. Skurm has gruesome methods, but he gets unbelievable results, and Isa is finally feeling comfortable in her skin. She even gains the courage to ask out her crush: an alluring and disfigured alchemy-obsessed artist named Rayna.
But Isa’s body won’t stop changing, and she’s going from super model to super mutant. She has to discover the secret behind her metamorphosis—before the changes are irreversible, and she’s an unwanted freak forever.
Transmuted is an outrageous and unapologetically queer body horror tale that will leave you gasping, giggling, and gagging for more.
Publishes July 15, 2021 by Unnerving Amazon | Goodreads
Where the Briars Sleep by Emma Beaven
In this early nineteenth-century gothic ghost story, Rose Shedd discovers something is stalking her, something unseen and filled with rage, something that demands recompense, and Rose’s life, the life of her sister, and the remnants of her family depend on memories she has forced herself to forget.
She couldn’t imagine being alone in the dark, the wardrobe looming over her, its door creaking, hangers rattling. Anything could sneak up on you in the dark when you closed your eyes. Anything.
Arriving back at her home estate, the first thing Rose does is visit her stepsister Sarah’s grave, taking her younger sister, Maggie, along. After a forced retreat at the cousins’, Rose looks forward to some normalcy and a return to routine. Not to mention the unexpected upcoming ball hosted by their elusive neighbors to introduce their son Henry, who has been away. Perhaps this mysterious Henry may become interested in Rose. Or most likely he would become her younger sister’s fourth suitor and Rose would endure more “old maid” banter.
With the oppressive heat and unpredictable weather, Rose and Maggie are caught in a sudden severe thunderstorm. Maggie makes it back before the sky unleashes its fury, but Rose is caught behind. She really doesn’t mind, however, because she loves the rain and the wind and the gardens and could stay outside their stuffy mansion forever. Away from the wardrobe.
In the midst of the storm, Rose is cut by a briar and becomes caught in the mud. She sees a woman on their front porch. Maggie?
“Help me, Maggie!” But the woman is gone.
From then on, nothing and no one are as they seem in this twisted gothic Victorian ghost story. A tale of three sisters, family secrets of the darkest nature, and how our decisions have ripple effects, with themes of nature, romance, family, faith, forgiveness, consequences, and a creepy wardrobe with a door that never quite shuts that will have you sleeping with the lights on.
Publishes July 17, 2021 by Tangled Tree Publishing Bookshop | Goodreads
Hardly Haunted by Jessie Sima
From the bestselling creator of Not Quite Narwhal comes a delightfully spooky story about an old house who wants to be a home…even if her new family isn’t what she expected.
House has a problem.
She’s a little spooky. She’s a little cobwebby. Oh, no! What if she’s haunted?
She’s not sure, but . . . her hinges creak. Her pipes bang. And on windy days, the branches scritch-scratch at her windows. She tries to hold her breath and be as still as possible. If she’s on her best behavior, maybe a family will move in.
How will House ever find a family that doesn’t mind being haunted?
Publishes July 20, 2021 by Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers Bookshop | Goodreads
The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters
Lush and chilling, with razor-sharp edges and an iron core of hope, this bewitching, powerhouse novel of two girls fighting back against the violence the world visits on them will stun and enchant readers.
Girls have been going missing in the woods…
When Natasha’s sister disappears, Natasha desperately turns to Della, a local girl rumored to be a witch, in the hopes that magic will bring her sister home.
But Della has her own secrets to hide. She thinks the beast who’s responsible for the disappearances is her own mother—who was turned into a terrible monster by magic gone wrong.
Natasha is angry. Della has little to lose. Both are each other’s only hope.
From the author of Ghost Wood Song, this eerie contemporary fantasy is perfect for fans of Wilder Girls and Bone Gap.
Publishes July 27, 2021 by HarperTeen Bookshop | Goodreads
Small Favors by Erin A. Craig
Ellerie Downing lives in the quiet town of Amity Falls in the Blackspire Mountain range–five narrow peaks stretching into the sky like a grasping hand, bordered by a nearly impenetrable forest from which the early townsfolk fought off the devils in the woods. To this day, visitors are few and rare. But when a supply party goes missing, some worry that the monsters that once stalked the region have returned.
As fall turns to winter, more strange activities plague the town. They point to a tribe of devilish and mystical creatures who promise to fulfill the residents’ deepest desires, however grand and impossible, for just a small favor. But their true intentions are much more sinister, and Ellerie finds herself in a race against time before all of Amity Falls, her family, and the boy she loves go up in flames.
Publishes July 27, 2021 by Delacorte Press Bookshop | Goodreads
They Come in the Night by Lynn-Cee Faulk
Princess Aela is set to inherit a troubled kingdom and a family curse. It was decreed a long time ago that one twin should marry the other sibling and Aela is no exception. However, Aela’s preordained life is suddenly interrupted by tragic and mysterious deaths. Her once-peaceful kingdom is now set upon by lizard men. They’re everywhere. In fact, the kingdom seems to be crawling with them. As they close in, she must keep her world from unravelling as she faces betrayal, death, and enemies both without and within.
Publishes July 30, 2021 by independently published Amazon | Goodreads
Audra and her horror hound, Ouija, help manage the Ladies of Horror Fiction Instagram page. When not ghost hunting or rollerskating, she also contributes articles and helps maintain the website.
You can find Audra on Instagram as @ouija.reads, Twitter as @audraudraudra, and Goodreads.
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