Category Archives: Horror

The Wonderland Murders by Lanie Olson

Things are different when you’re a burden. I was dumped at Carroll’s Home for Troubled Youth by parents I can’t quite remember—or maybe I came here on my own. No … I was found guilty of a crime and that’s why I’m here. It all depends on who you ask or choose to believe, I guess. I spend my days with my best friend who’s done way more heinous things than I have. He wants me to remember—to tell him stories about being a stranger in a strange land, but I don’t want to talk about it because when you talk about things, that’s how they become real again. Because it… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Beastiality
  • Hallucinations
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Blood & gore depiction

Wonderland by Zoje Stage

The Bennett family – artist parents and two precocious children – are leaving their familiar urban surroundings for a new home in far upstate New York. They’re an hour from the nearest city, a mile from the nearest house, and everyone has their own room for the very first time. Shaw, the father, even gets his own painting studio, now that he and his wife Orla, a retired dancer, have agreed that it’s his turn to pursue his passion. But none of the Bennetts expect what lies waiting in the lovely woods, where secrets run dark and deep. Orla must finally find a way to communicate with – not just… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Starvation
  • Gun violence

The Good House by Tananarive Due

Angela hoped her grandmother’s famous “healing magic” could save her failing marriage while she and her family lived in the old house the summer of 2001. Instead, an unexpected tragedy ripped Angela’s family apart. Two years later, Angela is moving past her grief and is finally ready to revisit the rural house she loved so much as a child. But back in Sacajawea, she discovers she hasn’t been the only one to suffer a shocking loss. Since she left, there have been more senseless tragedies, and Angela wonders whether they are related somehow. Could the events be… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide
  • Emesis

My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due

When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal brethren have decided David must return and leave his family in Miami. Instead, David vows to invoke a forbidden ritual to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Slavery & racial slurs
  • Infidelity
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Elder abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Self-mutilation
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic murder, including filicide by drugging & asphixiation
  • Stalking
  • Animal death (dog)

The Wishing Pool and Other Stories by Tananarive Due

Due’s second collection of stories includes offerings of horror, science fiction, and suspense—all genres she wields masterfully. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pandemic to the reaches of the far future, Due’s stories all share a sense of dread and fear balanced with heart and hope. In some of these stories, the monster is racism itself; others address the monster within, each set against the supernatural or surreal. All are written with Due’s trademark attention to detail and deeply drawn characters.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Police brutality
  • Pandemic
  • Animal death

Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond

In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation. Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire trive render… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic slavery & racism (on-page)
  • Rape & sexual assault (on-page)

A Righteous Man by Tochi Onyebuchi

Nathaniel is a well-intentioned, if naive, British cleric feeling blessed to educate a West African village about the benevolent power of God. But as slavers encroach, Nathaniel’s endeavor is daunted by the realities unfolding on the beautiful homeland of his congregation. It seems the Devil has power too. What follows for Nathaniel is a profound spiritual upheaval as he questions his purpose and even his humanity.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Racism & classism
  • Hate crime
  • Rape
  • Miscarriage
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Mass shooting
  • Kidnapping
  • Colonisation
  • Animal death & cruelty

We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado

Sol Reyes has had a rough year. After a series of workplace incidents at her university lab culminates in a plagiarism accusation, Sol is put on probation. Dutiful visits to her homophobic father aren’t helping her mental health, and she finds her nightly glass of wine becoming more of an all-day—and all-bottle—event. Her wife, Alice Song, is far more optimistic. After all, the two finally managed to buy a house in the beautiful, gated community of Maneless Grove. However, the neighbors are a little too friendly in Sol’s opinion. She has no interest in the pushy Homeowners Associ… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & homophobia
  • Child abuse & neglect, including mentions of a parent slashing her child with a knife after they came out
  • Anxiety & alcoholism
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Blood & gore depiction, including minor body horror & depiction of dead bodies
  • Car accident
  • Fire

We Don’t Swim Here by Vincent Tirado

Bronwyn is only supposed to be in rural Hillwoods for a year. Her grandmother is in hospice, and her father needs to get her affairs in order. And they’re all meant to make some final memories together. Except Bronwyn is miserable. Her grandmother is dying, everyone is standoffish, and she can’t even go swimming. All she hears are warnings about going in the water, despite a gorgeous lake. And a pool at the abandoned rec center. And another in the high school basement. Anais ties her hardest to protect Bronwyn from the shad… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Hate crime
  • Suicide discussed
  • Hospitalisation
  • Emesis
  • Murder
  • Drowning

All I Want For Christmas is the Girl Next Door by Chelsea Bobulski

Graham Wallace has been in love with the girl next door for a decade. Unfortunately, she’s been dating his best friend for the past two years. Out of sheer desperation, Graham makes a wish on a shooting star—all he wants for Christmas is Sarah Clarke. When Graham wakes up the next morning, everything has changed, and he’s the one who’s been dating Sarah for the past two years, not his best friend. Graham assumes the wish would have only come true if he and Sarah were meant to be together, but as it becomes clear that he… Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Dieting & self-starvation discussed
  • Drowning