Category Archives: Horror

Big Machine by Victor LaValle

Ricky Rice is a middling hustler with a lingering junk habit, a bum knee, and a haunted mind. A survivor of a suicide cult, he scrapes by as a porter at a bus depot in Utica, New York, until one day a mysterious letter arrives, summoning him to enlist in a band of paranormal investigators comprised of former addicts and petty criminals, all of whom had at some point in their wasted lives heard what may have been the voice of God.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & misogyny
  • Child abuse
  • Substance addiction
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn’t there. Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic and earns the attention of things best left sleeping… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Police brutality

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear. The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, classism & homophobia
  • Transphobia, misgendering & gender dysphoria
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death

The Changeling by Victor LaValle

When Apollo Kagwa’s father disappeared, all he left his son were strange recurring dreams and a box of books stamped with the word IMPROBABILIA. Now Apollo is a father himself–and as he and his wife, Emma, are settling into their new lives as parents, exhaustion and anxiety start to take their toll. Apollo’s old dreams return and Emma begins acting odd. Irritable and disconnected from their new baby boy, at first Emma seems to be exhibiting signs of postpartum depression, but it quickly becomes clear that her troubles go even deeper. Before Apollo can do anything to help, Emma commits a horrific act–beyond any… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Suicide
  • Post-partum depression discussed (on-page)
  • Graphic pregnancy & childbirth scenes
  • Death of a child
  • Murder

Earl Crush by Alexandra Vasti

For three years, wallflower heiress Lydia Hope-Wallace has anonymously penned seditious pamphlets. And for almost as long, she’s corresponded with the Earl of Strathrannoch, whose political ambition is matched only by his charm. When Arthur’s latest letter reveals his dire financial straits, Lydia sets out for Scotland to offer him the only salvation she can think of—a marriage of convenience. To, um, herself. Unfortunately, the Earl of Strathrannoch has no idea who she is. .When a bewitching redheaded stranger offers him her hand in marriage, Arthur Baird is stunned—but… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abuse recounted
  • Social Anxiety (protagonist)
  • Gun violence

Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove

To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself. At rock bottom following her daughter’s murder, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr’s father never talked much about the reservation that raised him, but they need a new tribal marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home. In the last decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some dead, others just… gone. Now, local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter—the girl she failed to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Rape mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & alcoholism mentioned
  • Death of a child mentioned
  • Murder mentioned
  • Animal death

We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin

Meg Russo was behind the wheel when it happened. She and her husband Justin were driving their daughter Lily to Ithaca College, the family celebrating the eighteen-year-old music prodigy’s future. Then a car sidled up beside them, the young men inside it behaving erratically. The Russos’ car went off the road, and Justin didn’t survive the accident. Four months later, Meg works to distract herself from her grief, reopening her small local bookstore. But soon after returning to work, bizarre messages and visitors begin to arrive, with strangers threatening Meg and vandalizing the store. They are obsessed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Death of a father
  • Knife violence
  • Fatal car accident
  • Kidnapping

Our Last Echoes by Kate Alice Marshall

Sophia’s first memory is of drowning. She remembers the darkness of the water and the briny taste as it fills her throat. She remembers the cold shock of going under. She remembers her mother pulling her to safety before disappearing forever. But Sophia has never been in the ocean. And her mother died years ago in a hospital. Or so she has been told her whole life. A series of clues have led Sophia to the island of Bitter Rock, Alaska, where she talked her way into a summer internship at the Landon Avian Research Center, the same center her mother worked at right before she died. There, she meets the disarmingly… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Memory loss
  • Panic attack
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Body horror
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Drowning
  • Animal death

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes. For decades afterward, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault of a child
  • Infidelity
  • Hoarding
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation recounted (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Attempted murder of a child recounted
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Blackmail

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall

When Theodora Scott met Connor—wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family—she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he’s brought her to Idlewood, his family’s isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives. Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can’t ignore the footprints in the snow outside the cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has about this place. Then, in a disused cabin, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood. Theo has almost… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging
  • Teen pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Gun violence