Today we are celebrating April horror book releases!
Kill Radio by Lauren Bolger
When Rachelle unearths her ex’s handmade crystal radio, violence and terror reign in the form of hellhounds, shadow figures, and finally, possessions.
Enter smooth, dark-eyed James Carroway. He offers her protection she’s quick to accept despite her apprehensions. When James reveals he’s a warlock in search of the crystal radio that caused these supernatural events, Rachelle explains it belonged to her son’s estranged father, Chad. They realize it played a part in Chad’s possession.
Their only option is to find Chad and learn about the origins of the radio before more of her family are killed. Or worse, taken. Rachelle has to risk losing the people she loves yet again to make it stop.
Published April 1, 2023 by Malarkey Books | Goodreads | Amazon
The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton
From the author of Tinfoil Butterfly, a blazingly original novel about sisters who return to the remote island they grew up on to face the monsters lurking in their family history.
It's the summer of 1989 and Beatrice and Henrietta Volt are coming of age on remote Fowler Island in Lake Erie, their ancestral home and wild playground. Thicker than thieves, they plot their futures while their parents pick their marriage apart piece by piece. The girls have no idea that their parents are separating. Or that the plan is to separate them.
Ten years pass and Henrie gets a desperate call from her sister--their father has died suddenly and B.B. needs Henrie to come back to the island for the funeral. When Henrie arrives, the island seems even stranger than she remembers. But the truth is, she doesn't remember much about the island, and nothing at all about the night she left. She just feels a vague and perplexing sense of dread and a sharp fear of the quarry pond behind the house.
Told from the perspectives of four flawed, fascinating women, The Insatiable Volt Sisters is a lush, enthralling fable about monsters real and imagined and the sometimes painful bonds of sisterhood. From the unbounded imagination of Rachel Eve Moulton, the critically acclaimed author of Tinfoil Butterfly, comes another eerie, terrifying exploration of family and legacy: Will the Volt sisters inherit the horrors of their past or surpass them?
Published April 4, 2023 by MCD x FSG Originals | Goodreads | Amazon
The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown
Ness Brown's The Scourge Between Stars is a tense, claustrophobic sci-fi/horror blend set aboard a doomed generation ship harboring something terrible within its walls.
As acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jacklyn Albright is responsible for keeping the last of humanity alive as they limp back to Earth from their forebears’ failed colony on a distant planet.
Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn's crew has reached their breaking point. As unrest begins to spread throughout the ship’s Wards, a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion.
Jacklyn and her team must hunt down the ship’s unknown intruder if they have any hope of making it back to their solar system alive.
Published April 4, 2023 by Tor Trade | Goodreads | Amazon
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost.
Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City.
Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistik’s charismatic owner, and the two strike up a friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, our narrator is plied with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, and lighten her hair. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister.
A piercing, darkly funny debut, Natural Beauty explores questions of consumerism, self-worth, race, and identity—and leaves readers with a shocking and unsettling truth.
Published April 4, 2023 by Dutton | Goodreads | Amazon
House of Cotton by Monica Brashears
Nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan, Magnolia doesn’t have much to look forward to. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, by her predatory landlord, by the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown.
One night while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around. He offers her a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home. Magnolia accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.
Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone, revealing the aftermath of the American plantation and what it means to be poor, Black, and a woman in the God fearing south.
Published April 4, 2023 by Flatiron Books | Goodreads | Amazon
The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro
A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona as she unravels the dark secrets of her family history in this ravishing and provocative horror novel.
Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her.
Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.
When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she never knew. As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors.
Because the crying woman was with them, too. She is La Llorona, the vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. And she will not leave until Alejandra follows her mother, her grandmother, and all the women who came before her into the darkness.
But Alejandra has inherited more than just pain. She has inherited the strength and the courage of her foremothers—and she will have to summon everything they have given her to banish La Llorona forever.
Expected publication April 18, 2023 by Del Rey | Goodreads | Amazon
Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti
There are stories about the woods around Salvation Creek, about the people who have gone missing. Now their friend is one of them. A riveting, fast-paced YA mystery told entirely through first person police interviews of four teens over the course of a few hours.
It was all her idea. They would get away from their parents and spend the weekend camping. Down by Salvation Creek, the five of them would make smores, steal kisses, share secrets.
But sometime around midnight, she vanished.
Now the four friends who came back are under suspicion―and they each have a very different story to tell about what happened in the woods.
The clock is ticking. What are they hiding? Who is lying? Dark truths must come to light if their friend is to be found...
Told entirely through first-person police interviews, this riveting mystery asks: what really happened that night?
Published April 4, 2023 by Sourcebooks Fire | Goodreads | Amazon
The Cherished by Patricia Ward
For fans of Claire Legrand, Rory Power, and Danielle Vega comes a visceral horror thriller in the vein of Midsommar, as one girl inherits a mysterious house from her estranged grandmother—and a letter with sinister instructions.
Jo never expected to be placed in her absent grandmother’s will—let alone be left her house, her land, and a letter with mysterious demands.
Upon arriving at the inherited property, things are even more strange.
The tenants mentioned in the letter are odd, just slightly…off. Jo feels something dark and decrepit in the old shack behind the house. And the things that her father used to talk about, his delusions… Why is Jo starting to believe they might be real?
But what Jo fears most is the letter from her grandmother. Because if it’s true, then Jo belongs here, in this strange place. And she has no choice but to stay.
With a deadly enemy that cannot be seen, a world that may only be unlocked by a chosen few, and a chilling past that must be unearthed at any cost, The Cherished is an original, hypnotizing contemporary horror—one that will thrill readers of White Smoke, Wilder Girls, and The Hazel Wood.
Expected publication April 18, 2023 by Harperteen | Goodreads | Amazon
Peachy by Camri Kohler
When twenty-three-year-old surly, and slightly tipsy, Frankie finds her hag of a grandmother dead on the sofa, her best friend, playful Ben Bowen, introduces her to the magical underbelly of Aspen Ridge, Utah.
Ben is a witch, a seer to be exact, and he guides Frankie into her new identity as a healer, a restoration witch. With the help of Ben and his coven-mate Cleo, Frankie navigates the treacherous classes of witches: dragons, shifters, and the abhorred vampire—life-drinking witches. It was a vampire that killed Frankie’s grandmother, and she’s after Frankie. But, much to the chagrin of best friend Ben, it isn’t Frankie’s vitality that the vampire wants.
Frankie must work her newfound magic—despite her fear, her self-doubt, and her desire to have one more drink—with her friends to eliminate a common enemy. She’ll have to endure nightmares and commit horrors unspeakable, or risk losing them all.
It will take guts … whosever they may be.
Expected publication April 18, 2023 by Lake Country Press | Goodreads | Amazon
Neverest by T.L. Bodine
One year ago, Sean Miller—journalist and mountain climbing enthusiast—reached the summit of Mount Everest and was never seen again. Unable to move on without knowing the truth of what happened, his widow Carrie insists on an expedition to search for Sean’s body so it can be properly laid to rest. Tom, Sean's best friend and former climbing partner, agrees to serve as expedition guide and promises to keep Carrie safe on the mountain, despite their complicated relationship history.
Guided by a travel journal left behind by her husband, Carrie ventures into the frozen, open-air graveyard of the world's tallest peak. But as Sean’s diary and Carrie’s experiences reveal, climbing the mountain is more than a test of endurance; it’s a battle of wills with an ancient and hostile force protecting the mountain—and the dead do not rest easy at the summit.
NEVEREST is a survival thriller with a hint of the supernatural that will appeal to fans of Ally Wilkes’ All the White Spaces and Amy McCulloch’s Breathless.
Expected publication April 25, 2023 by Ghost Orchid Press | Goodreads | Amazon
This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham
Four best friends, one music festival, and a cooler filled with human organs: this summer is about to get gory.
Jennifer’s Body fans will clamor for this new sapphic horror standalone from New York Times bestselling author Kayla Cottingham.
Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal, albeit with lasting fear and distrust for the people they'd pejoratively dubbed ghouls.
Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before their graduation they decided to attend a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and SynFlesh and are ready to party.
But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral. And if they can't figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is safe.
Expected publication April 25, 2023 by Sourcebooks Fire | Goodreads | Amazon
You Shouldn't Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose
Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker looking for a total escape from her busy life, books an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming. When she arrives, she's pleasantly surprised to find that the owner is a handsome man by the name of Calvin Wells. But there are things Grace discovers that she's not too pleased about: A lack of cell phone service. A missing woman. And a feeling that something isn't right with the town.
Despite her uneasiness and misgivings from Calvin's friends and family, the two grow close and start to fall for one another. However, as her departure date nears, things between them start to change for the worse. Grace grows wary of Calvin as his infatuation for her seems to turn into obsession. Calvin fears that Grace is hiding something from him.
Told from dual points of view, You Shouldn't Have Come Here is a thrill ride and a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when you open up your house and your heart to a total stranger.
Expected publication April 25, 2023 by Blackstone Publishing | Goodreads | Amazon
Jen is one of our Horror Spotlight admins. Jen manages the technical side of the Horror Spotlight website and keeps a spotlight on new horror releases each month.
You can also find Jen on her blog Book Den, Twitter as @bookden, Instagram as @bookdenjen, on Goodreads, and Letterboxd.
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