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 our Bookshop.org page. You can also check out the releases for the whole year here. If you buy books through our Bookshop.org links below or from our page, we get a percentage of the sale, which helps our volunteer team continue our efforts to promote LOHF!
Please let us know if we missed any new releases so we can add them to our lists!
Horror Hotel by Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren
This addictive YA horror about a group of teen ghost hunters who spend the night in a haunted LA hotel is The Blair Witch Project for the TikTok generation.
When the YouTube-famous Ghost Gang—Chrissy, Chase, Emma, and Kiki—visit a haunted LA hotel notorious for tragedy to secretly film after dark, they expect it to be just like their previous paranormal huntings. Spooky enough to attract subscribers—and ultimately harmless.
But when they stumble upon something unexpected in the former room of a gruesome serial killer, they quickly realize that they’re in over their heads.
Sometimes, it’s the dead who need our help—and the living we should fear.
Underlined is a line of totally addictive romance, thriller, and horror paperback original titles coming to you fast and furious each month. Enjoy everything you want to read the way you want to read it.
Expected publication February 1st 2022 by Underlined Goodreads | Bookshop
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
In the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare. Each story builds a new world all its own: a group of children steal a haunted doll; a runaway bride encounters a sea monster; a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time; an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman. These visions of modern life wrestle with themes of death and technological consequence, guilt and sexuality, and unmask the contradictions that exist within all of us.
Mesmerizing, electric, and wholly original, Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century blurs the boundaries of the real and fantastic, offering intricate and surprising insights into human nature.
Expected publication February 1st 2022 by Tin House Books Goodreads | Bookshop
The Reign of Osiris (Ramses the Damned #3) by Anne Rice and Christopher Rice
The gilded adventures of Ramses the Damned, iconic creation of the legendary Anne Rice, continue in this breathtakingly suspenseful tale of a titanic supernatural power unleashed on the eve of war.
A pharaoh made immortal by a mysterious and powerful elixir, Ramses the Great became counselor and lover to some of Egypt’s greatest and most powerful rulers before he was awakened from centuries of slumber to the mystifying and dazzling world of Edwardian England. Having vanquished foes both human and supernatural, he’s found love with the beautiful heiress Julie Stratford, daughter of Lawrence Stratford, the slain archeologist who discovered his tomb. Now, with the outbreak of a world war looming, Ramses and those immortals brought forth from the mists of history by his resurrection will face their greatest test yet.
Russian assassins bearing weapons of immense power have assembled under one command: all those who loved Lawrence Stratford must die. From the glowing jewels at their necks comes an incredible supernatural force: the power to bring statues to life. As Ramses and his allies, including the immortal queens Cleopatra and Bektaten, gather together to battle these threats, Ramses reveals that the great weapon may have roots in an ancient Egyptian ritual designed to render pharaohs humble before Osiris, the god of the underworld. The resulting journey will take them across storm-tossed seas and into the forests of northern Russia, where they will confront a terrifying collision of tortured political ambitions and religious fervor held in thrall to a Godlike power. But the true answers they seek will lie beyond the border between life and death, within realms that defy the imagination of even an immortal such as Ramses the Great.
Expected publication February 1st 2022 by Anchor Goodreads | Bookshop
These Deadly Games by Diana Urban
Let’s play a game.
You have 24 hours to win. If you break my rules, she dies. If you call the police, she dies. If you tell your parents or anyone else, she dies.
Are you ready?When Crystal Donavan gets a message on a mysterious app with a video of her little sister gagged and bound, she agrees to play the kidnapper’s game. At first, they make her complete bizarre tasks: steal a test and stuff it in a locker, bake brownies, make a prank call.
But then Crystal realizes each task is meant to hurt—and kill—her friends, one by one. But if she refuses to play, the kidnapper will kill her sister. Is someone trying to take her team out of the running for a gaming tournament? Or have they uncovered a secret from their past, and wants them to pay for what they did…
As Crystal makes the impossible choices between her friends and her sister, she must uncover the truth and find a way to outplay the kidnapper… before it’s too late.
Author of All Your Twisted Secrets, Diana Urban’s explosive sophomore novel, These Deadly Games, will keep you riveted until the final twist is revealed.
Expected publication February 1st 2022 by Wednesday Books Goodreads | Bookshop
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson
A mysterious plague that causes random bouts of violence is sweeping the nation. Now three generations of women must navigate their chilling new reality in this moving exploration of identity, cycles of abuse, and hope.
Chelsea Martin appears to be the perfect housewife: married to her high school sweetheart, the mother of two daughters, keeper of an immaculate home.
But Chelsea’s husband has turned their house into a prison; he has been abusing her for years, cutting off her independence, autonomy, and support. She has nowhere to turn, not even to her narcissistic mother, Patricia, who is more concerned with maintaining the appearance of an ideal family than she is with her daughter’s actual well-being. And Chelsea is worried that her daughters will be trapped just as she is–then a mysterious illness sweeps the nation.
Known as The Violence, this illness causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bouts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. But for Chelsea, the chaos and confusion the virus causes is an opportunity–and inspires a plan to liberate herself from her abuser.
Expected publication February 1st 2022 by Del Rey Books Goodreads | Bookshop
We All Fall Down by Jennifer Bernardini
Hg34, a super virus, has scorched the earth of many of its inhabitants. Those unlucky enough to still be wandering the streets must fight for their survival.
Choice becomes an illusion and the fate of millions rests uneasily in the palm of President Virginia Hill’s hands when she runs for, and wins, the presidential election. Civilization is crushed into dust when the President does the unthinkable and poisons her people.
Libby and her six-year-old son team up with brothers Lincoln and Gideon, one a drug dealer with conspiracy theories on the brain and the other an ex-con. They struggle to survive as they search for answers: answers as to what happened and what to do next.
Expected publication: February 1st 2022 by published independently Goodreads | Amazon
She Who Destroys by Jennifer Soucy
Nearly a year after the night she fell for a monster’s son, Coralena is emerging from a profound depression. She and her mother have fled Greenwich, abandoning everything they cherished most—friends, family, and their beloved restaurant, Cornucopia. As their lives finally settle into a new normal, the man she left behind sends a disturbing message.
Hayden begs for Cori’s help, warning that Lupus Filios has a new High Priestess—his sister, Bronte—and they’re eager to resume their dark plans. He also claims Bronte’s grown as demented as their father, Alastor—a man who’d sold his soul in exchange for earthly power.
When the cult makes their move, Cori and her mama are forced to retaliate. Cori joins Hayden to battle their mutual enemies, but she must also guard her battered heart against his many charms or risk being broken again.
As another Halloween ritual approaches, can Cori and her allies finally defeat the twisted cult, or will they be strapped to the sacrificial altar once more? Only Hekate knows for sure…
Expected publication: February 2nd 2022 Goodreads | Amazon
Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Pan Morigan, and Troy L. Wiggins
Trouble the Waters gathers the tidal force of bestselling, renowned writers from Lagos to New Orleans, Memphis to Copenhagen, Northern Ireland and London, offering extraordinary speculative fiction tales of ancient waters in all its myriad forms. Meet techno savvy water spirits, bayou saints and sirens, robots and river rootwomen, a pod of joyful space whales, and a castle of water-born terrors and mysteries. Including work by Nalo Hopkinson, Jaquira Diaz, Andrea Hairston, Linda D. Addison, Rion Amilcar Scott, Marie Vibbert, Maurice Broaddus, and other breakout beautiful voices, these stories and poems celebrate the most vital of elemental forces, water.
Expected publication: February 3rd 2022 by Third Man Books Goodreads | Bookshop
The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
The highly anticipated new thriller from internationally renowned author Sara Gran, author of Come Closer and the Claire DeWitt series.
A mysterious book that promises unlimited power and unrivaled sexual pleasure. A down-on-her-luck book dealer hoping for the sale of a lifetime. And a twist so shocking, no one will come out unscathed.
After a tragedy too painful to bear, former novelist Lily Albrecht has resigned herself to a dull, sexless life as a rare book dealer. Until she gets a lead on a book that just might turn everything around. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a 17th century manual on sex magic, rumored to be the most powerful occult book ever written—if it really exists at all. And some of the wealthiest people in the world are willing to pay Lily a fortune to find it—if she can. Her search for the book takes her from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris, searching the dark corners of power where the world’s wealthiest people use black magic to fulfill their desires. Will Lily fulfill her own desires, and join them? Or will she lose it all searching for a ghost? The Book of the Most Precious Substance is an addictive erotic thriller about the lengths we’ll go to get what we need—and what we want.
Expected publication: February 8th 2022 by Dreamland Books Goodreads | Bookshop
Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow
Named A Most Aniticipated Book of 2022 by *Medium* *BookRiot* *BookPage* CrimeReads* Tor Nightfire* Bookshop* *Book Talk* BiblioLifestyle* and more!
From bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow comes a new adult social horror novel in the vein of Get Out meets My Sister, the Serial Killer, about Farrah, a young, calculating Black girl who manipulates her way into the lives of her Black best friend’s white, wealthy, adoptive family but soon suspects she may not be the only one with ulterior motives. . . .
Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a white, wealthy family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS–White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can’t seem to afford–and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she’s convinced she’s always had over her life by staying with Cherish, the only person she loves–even when she hates her.
As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house. She might trust them–if they didn’t think something was wrong with Farrah, too. When strange things start happening at the Whitman household–debilitating illnesses, upsetting fever dreams, an inexplicable tension with Cherish’s hotheaded boyfriend, and a mysterious journal that seems to keep track of what is happening to Farrah–it’s nothing she can’t handle. But soon everything begins to unravel when the Whitmans invite Farrah closer, and it’s anyone’s guess who is really in control.
Told in Farrah’s chilling, unforgettable voice and weaving in searing commentary on race and class, this slow-burn social horror will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page.
Expected publication: February 8th 2022 by Dutton Books Goodreads | Bookshop
Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes
Titanic meets The Shining in S.A. Barnes’ Dead Silence, a SF horror novel in which a woman and her crew board a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn’t yet ended.
A GHOST SHIP.
A SALVAGE CREW.
UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS.Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.
What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.
Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.
Expected publication: February 8th 2022 by Tor Nightfire Goodreads | Bookshop
Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda
Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters: a double image, inseparable. So how does Fernanda end up bound on the floor of a deserted cabin, held hostage by one of her teachers and estranged from Annelise?
When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.
Interweaving pop culture references and horror concepts drawn from from Herman Melville, H. P. Lovecraft, and anonymous “creepypastas,” Jawbone is an ominous, multivocal novel that explores the terror inherent in the pure potentiality of adolescence and the fine line between desire and fear.
Expected publication: February 8th 2022 by Coffee House Press Goodreads | Bookshop
The Keeper by Guadalupe García McCall
Inspired by the true story of the “Westfield Watcher.”
The first letter turns up on his desk. The second is stuck between the spokes of his bike. The third flies through the kitchen window.
And they are all addressed to James from someone called the Keeper.
Moving from Texas to Oregon was a bad idea. No sooner have James and his family arrived in their “perfect” new town than he starts getting mysterious and sinister letters from someone called the Keeper. Someone who claims to be watching him. Someone who is looking for “young blood.” James and his sister, Ava, are obviously in danger. But the problem with making a fuss about moving and having a history of playing practical jokes is that no one believes James—not even his parents.
Now James and Ava need to figure out who is sending the letters before they become the next victims in their neighborhood’s long history of missing children. Because one thing is clear: uncovering the truth about the Keeper is the only thing that will keep them alive.
Expected publication: February 8th 2022 by HarperCollins Goodreads | Bookshop
The Queen of the High Fields (Luna Novella #12) by Rhiannon A. Grist
Expected publication: February 8th 2022 by Luna Press Publishing Goodreads | Bookshop
Rejects by Alyanna Poe
All artists have been through rejection, and with so many avenues, one can finally take their fate into their own hands.
Discover the horrors Alyanna Poe has created, which otherwise would not have come to light. REJECTS is a collection of twenty-one horror stories, spanning from slasher to cosmic to paranormal, that have all been rejected by publishers.
Alyanna thoroughly edited and perfected each story, sending them out for beta readers’ approval before publication to ensure readers’ satisfaction.
Take A Peek Inside:
The Legend of Kyle: An older man takes his young, female coworker into the woods, revealing his biggest secret.
Succor of the Ophidian: A strange invisible extraterrestrial interrupts a couple on their tropical retreat.
Helena: A hateful husband exacts his darkest fantasies against his wife.
In Reflective Depth: After an argument with her husband, a woman escapes into the ocean on a small boat, only to be met with a fight she may not be able to win.
Twenty-one bite sized tales of terror all wrapped into one package.
Expected publication: February 8th 2022 by self-published Goodreads | Amazon
Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams
As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia.
Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from mirrors—the sign of a terrible curse. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Charlie’s beloved grandmother falls ill. Her final wish is to be buried back home in Georgia—and, unbeknownst to Charlie, to see her long-lost granddaughter, Magnolia Heathwood, one last time. So Charlie travels into the Deep South, confronting the land of her worst nightmares—and Jim Crow segregation.
The sisters reunite as teenagers in the deeply haunted town of Eureka, Georgia, where ghosts linger centuries after their time and dangers lurk behind every mirror. They couldn’t be more different, but they will need each other to put the hauntings of the past to rest, to break the mirrors’ deadly curse—and to discover the meaning of sisterhood in a racially divided land.
Expected publication: February 8th 2022 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Goodreads | Bookshop
Beyond the Creek by Nico Bell
When Alex Foster accepted the caregiver position with the eccentric Nox family, she was issued a single rule. Don’t wander past the creek. Alex isn’t interested in exploring the Nox’s vast wooded property. After escaping an abusive past, her sole focus is building a safe future for herself and her unborn baby. Except, a series of chilling events threatens her happily-ever-after. Now, she must fight to survive an ancient evil before all hope is lost. There’s something beyond the creek, and it’s hungry.
Expected publication: February 11th 2022 by D&T Publishing Goodreads
![Eros & Thanatos: An Anthology of Death & Desire by [Jeremy Megargee, Cassandra L. Thompson, A.L. Garcia, Damon Barret Roe]](https://i2.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51iY6xuH4CL._SY346_.jpg?resize=272%2C434&ssl=1)
Eros & Thanatos: An Anthology of Death & Desire edited by Cassandra L. Thompson and Damon Barret Roe
Freud once theorized that human beings are subject to two drives: love (Eros) and death (Thanatos). While his psychoanalytic theory has long been expanded upon, no one can argue how fundamental love and death is to our existence. Within this collection are twelve stories that explore the fine line between these concepts. It also features a diverse group of authors whose often unheard voices tell stories of resilience, strength, and triumph through tragedy. Haunting as any Quill & Crow anthology, these stories seek to intrigue, inspire, and give a whole new meaning to “until death do us part.”
Expected publication: February 11th 2022 by Quill & Crow Publishing House Goodreads | Amazon
Beneath the Stairs by Jennifer Fawcett
A woman returns to her hometown after her childhood friend attempts suicide at a local haunted house—the same place where a traumatic incident shattered their lives twenty years ago.
Few in sleepy Sumner’s Mills have stumbled across the Octagon House hidden deep in the woods. Even fewer are brave enough to trespass. A man had killed his wife and two young daughters there, a shocking, gruesome crime that the sleepy upstate New York town tried to bury. One summer night, an emboldened fourteen-year-old Clare and her best friend, Abby, ventured into the Octagon House. Clare came out, but a piece of Abby never did.
Twenty years later, an adult Clare receives word that Abby has attempted suicide at the Octagon House and now lies in a coma. With little to lose and still grieving after a personal tragedy, Clare returns to her roots to uncover the darkness responsible for Abby’s accident.
Expected publication: February 22nd 2022 by Atria Books Goodreads | Bookshop
Extasia by Claire Legrand
**One of BuzzFeed’s Great LGBTQ+ YA novels to Warm up Your Winter**
From New York Times bestselling author Claire Legrand comes a new, bone-chilling YA horror novel about a girl who joins a coven to root out a vicious evil that’s stalking her village. Perfect for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Grace Year.
Her name is unimportant.
All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain–an evil which has already killed nine of her village’s men.
She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.
Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother’s shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?
This searing and lyrically written novel by the critically acclaimed author of Sawkill Girls beckons readers to follow its fierce heroine into a world filled with secrets and blood–where the truth is buried in lies and a devastating power waits, seething, for someone brave enough to use it.
Expected publication: February 22nd 2022 by Katherine Tegen Books Goodreads | Bookshop
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Y: The Last Man meets The Girl With All the Gifts in Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt, an explosive post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and men on a grotesque journey of survival.
Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they’ll never face the same fate.
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren’t safe.
After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.
Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.
Expected publication: February 22nd 2022 by Nightfire Goodreads | Bookshop
Only a Monster by Vanessa Len
With the sweeping romance of Passenger and the dark fantasy edge of This Savage Song, this standout YA contemporary fantasy debut from Vanessa Len, is the first in a planned trilogy.
It should have been the perfect summer. Sent to stay with her late mother’s eccentric family in London, sixteen-year-old Joan is determined to enjoy herself. She loves her nerdy job at the historic Holland House, and when her super cute co-worker Nick asks her on a date, it feels like everything is falling into place.
But she soon learns the truth. Her family aren’t just eccentric: they’re monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers. And Nick isn’t just a cute boy: he’s a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to bring them down.
As she battles Nick, Joan is forced to work with the beautiful and ruthless Aaron Oliver, heir to a monster family that hates her own. She’ll have to embrace her own monstrousness if she is to save herself, and her family. Because in this story . . .
. . . she is not the hero.
Expected publication: February 22nd 2022 by HarperTeen Goodreads | Bookshop
The Tryst (Affinity Saga #1) by L. Marie Wood
A moment in time… insignificant and fleeting for most, but for Nicole, Mark, and Eric, it is life-altering. Three strangers meet in a town they don’t know in a place they hadn’t expected to end up only to find that they are exactly where they were supposed to be… again. Love always finds a way. Through space and time, past and future, through lifetimes and storylines, they were destined to find each other, love each other, lose each other—coordinates and weapons, scenarios and demographics be damned. A malfunction, to be sure. But when Ryan tries to tinker with his project, a weapon the likes of which has never been seen in all of the Galactic Collaborative, he finds out just how inexorable their link is… and how insidious. The beginning of an experimental series that will challenge the way you think about love, life, connection, and purpose, The Tryst will catch you in its whirlwind and never let you go. Each book in the Affinity series will combine of mixture of mystery, thriller, psychological horror, action, suspense, science fiction elements in differing measures, always with romance as an undercurrent. Love always finds a way. But sometimes that way is paved with bones.
Expected publication: February 22nd 2022 by Cedar Grove Books Goodreads | Bookshop
The Wolfden by Lillah Lawson
If Stormy Spooner thought she’d hit rock bottom before, she was wrong. Before she had fully healed from her bitter divorce, a chaotic turn of events left several people dead. Now, her reanimated boyfriend Phillip refuses to take her calls. Heartbroken and confused by her newfound powers, Stormy returns to work in an attempt to find her new normal.
When Roberta—the woman who broke up her marriage—turns up at her job, Stormy wants nothing more than to make her disappear. But Roberta comes seeking help only Stormy can provide: People are going missing, and Stormy’s unique abilities mean she’s the only one who might be able to bring them home.
Following a trail of mystery and danger, Stormy lands among a motley crew of rough-housers. Will they help her solve the mystery of the missing people? Will Stormy realize her true power or succumb to her fractured heart? If all that weren’t enough, now she’s got to dig up painful, buried memories. The more she remembers, the stronger a new villain’s power grows.
To defeat him, a price must be paid…one that may cost Stormy everything.
Expected publication: February 22nd 2022 by Parliament House Press Goodreads | Amazon
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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