The Ladies of Horror Fiction team is pleased to present the 2020 Ladies of Horror Fiction Award Nominees for Best Novel.
The nominees are:
Betty, Tiffany McDaniel
The Hollow Places, T. Kingfisher
Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Saltblood, T.C. Parker
The Sun Down Motel, Simone St. James
Tender is the Flesh, Agustina Bazterrica
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
A stunning, lyrical novel set in the rolling foothills of the Appalachians in which a young girl discovers stark truths that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
“A girl comes of age against the knife.”
So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence–both from outside the family, and also, devastatingly, from within. The lush landscape, rich with birdsong, wild fruit, and blazing stars, becomes a kind of refuge for Betty, but when her family’s darkest secrets are brought to light, she has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.
But despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father’s brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write. She recounts the horrors of her family’s past and present with pen and paper and buries them deep in the dirt–moments that has stung her so deeply, she could not tell them, until now.
Inspired by the life of her own mother, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by telling this heartbreaking yet magical story–a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the freshest and most important voices in American fiction.
Published August 18th 2020 by Knopf | Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
To learn more about Tiffany McDaniel, visit Tiffany McDaniel’s profile in the LOHF Directory.
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel.
Pray they are hungry.
Kara finds these words in the mysterious bunker that she’s discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle’s house. Freshly divorced and living back at home, Kara now becomes obsessed with these cryptic words and starts exploring the peculiar bunker—only to discover that it holds portals to countless alternate realities. But these places are haunted by creatures that seem to hear thoughts…and the more you fear them, the stronger they become.
Published October 6th 2020 by Gallery/Saga Press | Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
To learn more about T. Kingfisher, visit T. Kingfisher’s profile in the LOHF Directory.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.
Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.
Published June 30th 2020 by Del Rey | Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
To learn more about Silvia Moreno-Garcia, visit Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s profile in the LOHF Directory.
Saltblood by T.C. Parker
A remote island. A group of prisoners. And an evil as old as time.
Robin didn’t mean to break the law. Didn’t know at first what law she’d broken. And now she’s on her way to Salt Rock — a new-model prison for a new kind of criminal, way out in the remote Northern Isles of Scotland.
On Salt Rock, she’ll meet other prisoners like her — men and women from all over the world, spirited away from the lives they knew for crimes they didn’t know they were committing.
She’ll uncover the complex web of conspiracy that connects them all, confronting some of the darkness of her own past in the process.
And she’ll come face to face, finally, with an evil as old as the land itself.
It’s hell in those waters.
Published August 2020 by Amazon Digital Services | Goodreads | Amazon
To learn more about T.C. Parker, visit T.C. Parker’s profile in the LOHF Directory.
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.
Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn’t right at the Sun Down, and before long she’s determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden…
Published February 18th 2020 by Berkley | Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
To learn more about Simone St. James, visit Simone St. James’s profile in the LOHF Directory.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans —though no one calls them that anymore.
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.
Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
English translation published August 4th 2020 by Scribner | Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
To learn more about Agustina Bazterrica, visit Agustina Bazterrica’s profile in the LOHF Directory.
The Ladies of Horror Fiction Award winners will be announced later this month!
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