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When the Wolf Comes Home
Nat Cassidy
(Tor Nightfire [US], Titan [UK])
With the memorably intense Mary followed by the brilliantly creepy urban horror of Nestlings and then the unique blend of insanity and existentialism that was Rest Stop (I screamed, I gasped, I thought), Nat Cassidy is on a stellar run, and if what I’m hearing is accurate, When the Wolf Comes Home – in which a struggling actress finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment following which they find themselves running from their life from the boy’s father with a series of violent massacres in their wake – could be not just his finest hour but one of the horror hits of the year. Yeah, okay, the expectations game is a minefield on which fools dance but it’s hard not to be excited when my reviewer friends are raving about this one. My grasping blood-soaked hands are currently in possession of a review copy of this, so I will very soon be discovering what exactly happens when the titular wolf arrives at the eponymous home.
Pre-order links here
I Can Fix Her
Rae Wilde
(Clash)
From the thematically connected yet individually striking The Stradivarius to Merciless Waters to Lies That Bind and this year’s I Do Not Apologize for My Position on Men, in the last couple of years Rae Wilde has painted a furious canvas of lyricism, eroticism, lethal wit, catharsis through female rage, vengeance, trope reversal and sapphic love (and goddamn, her dialogue). Frankly I’m never the prime audience for Rae’s books but I love them – credit her writing rather than my smug delusions of empathy – and that’s why I Can Fix Her – a sci-fi-tinged queer horror tale featuring a Groundhog Day cycle of a toxic relationship pitched as How You Lose the Time War meets Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke – has me excited to see how she applies her incisively and poetically brutal take on love or the presumption of it.
Pre-order here
The Needfire
MK Hardy
(Solaris)
The Needfire, the Sapphic Scottish gothic debut by MK Hardy (who are two Scottish authors; don’t ask me how co-authors do this I think it is magic, my only-child selfish brain cannot compute such skills) centres on a woman who flees her mistakes in Glasgow for a marriage of convenience in a new home on an estate far in the north of Scotland. It’s a chance for a fresh start, but as Gothic fans know, whatever secrets found in this house and this marriage are going to put a downer on those hopes, I suspect. With comps as superlative as the respective masterpieces Rebecca and The Hacienda, but with, it seems, a haunting Scottish and sapphic feel all of its own (not to mention that stunning cover), my gothic-stained heart is beating like an over-medicated jackhammer at the thought of this one.
Pre-order links here
The Extra
Annie Neugebauer
(Shortwave)
How do I choose from the list of Shortwave titles already announced for 2025? What torture have I wrought upon myself? The indie press has had an incredible couple of years, its novellas leading the way in quality (not to mention covers), enticing established horror authors over as well as showcasing up and comers. Thing is, if I don’t choose one, I’ll never stop. So let’s shout out Night of the Witch-hunter by Patrick Barb (title says it all), The Sundowner’s Dance by Todd Kiesling (retirement community worships a meteorite), and Our Own Unique Affliction by Scott J Moses (dejected vampire ponders their fate) while focusing here on The Extra by Annie Neugebauer, in which 10 people head out on a backpacking trip, but the first night 11 set up camp. Everyone remembers everyone else. Who’s the extra? This is one of the most exciting high concepts I’ve heard all year, and frankly I need this injected into my body more than an antidote in a zombie pandemic.
Pre-order this and other 2025 Shortwave titles here
Breathe In, Bleed Out
Brian McAuley
(Poisoned Pen Press)
September sees the release of Brian McAuley’s next slasher (cover to be revealed) and I’m more excited about this one than a penniless clown in a red nose factory. With his last three releases, Curse of the Reaper and the Candy Cain Kills duology, Brian has established himself as the slasher author de jour and frankly one of my auto-buy horror scribes. Playing firmly in the modern meta playground but with a great talent for characterization (not to mention memorably grisly kills), Brian is firmly stabbing and slicing away at the vanguard of the new slasher generation. And with this one, he has one of the elevator pitches of the year: Midsommar meets Scream in a a remote tech-free healing retreat. I expect satire, meta, thrills, inventive deaths and a final girl you’ll root for. But it’s the unexpected with McAuley that really gets you.
Pre-order here
Hold my Heart
Koji A. Dae
(Ghost Orchid Press)
UK horror/dark fantasy indie press Ghost Orchid has a sensational year ahead. March sees Every Dark Cloud, the haunting dark sci-fi/cli-fi tale by Marisca Pichette I included in my SFF anticipated reads round up you can find here. In July the stunning occult gaslamp horror novella Dumort by Michelle Tang is loosed onto the world followed by surrealist fantasy The Castaway And The Witch by Ioanna Papadopoulou in September. But my focus here is Hold my Heart by Koji A Dae, out in May.
Following Dae’s release of the excellent folk horror Mazi last year, also from Ghost Orchid, she has a near future sci-fi horror tale Casual from Tenebrous Press releasing in February, a tale of women’s bodily autonomy or the lack of it in a near future which I have read and is frankly stunning. In Hold my Heart, though, she presents us with an intriguingly dark conceit: suffering from severe depression, a woman seeks out a serial killer who will kill her in the most gruesome way she can describe. It’s worth reading the full blurb in the link below, because this one is not playing around.
I should at this point confess a mild bias (you may wish to recall my use of the word “sensational” earlier) in that I am a small part of the editorial team at Ghost Orchid so I get the pleasure to work with aforesaid authors and titles, but bias doesn’t mean you’re wrong as someone once said (possibly me just now?) and trust me when I say that this is an uncompromisingly dark tale which sees Dae examine some of her favourite themes of eroticism, mental health and autonomy in wickedly memorable fashion.
Pre-order this and other Ghost Orchid titles here
Nowhere Burning
Catriona Ward
(Tor Nightfire [US], Viper [UK])
I have no desire to enter the hell of trying to name my favorite horror author (don’t make me choose things, ever) but if someone invaded my apartment block like a cut-price Hans Gruber from Die Hard and shoved a weapon of some kind against my temple, strong chance I might blurt out in a decisive panic the name “Catriona Ward”. Every book of hers dares to be better than the previous masterpiece, and Ward has fashioned another fascinating conceit with Nowhere Burning, out October, which concerns a refuge for lost children in the mountain valley of Nowhere and the dark force behind it.
Given it’s a Ward book we can expect nothing to be as it seems, structurally and conceptually, and the act of reading it to be like entering a kaleidoscope after ten vodka martinis. It’s being pitched as perfect for fans of Riley Sager and TV show Yellowjackets, but there are two certainties with one of her books: one, it will not resemble at the end anything you dreamed of at the start and two, you’ll be texting your reading friends after the last page to demand they inhale it immediately.
Pre-order links here
The End of the World As We Know It: Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand
Edited by Brain Keene and Christopher Golden
(Gallery Books [US], Hodder and Stoughton [UK])
One of King’s best books The Stand (requires no introduction).
Stories from the world of said book.
Authors including Nat Cassidy, V. Castro, Richard Chizmar, S. A. Cosby, Tananarive Due, Gabino Iglesias, Jonathan Janz, Tim Lebbon, Josh Malerman, Ronald Malfi, Premee Mohamed, Cynthia Pelayo, Hailey Piper, Paul Tremblay, Catherynne M. Valente, Catriona Ward, Chuck Wendig, and like twenty others too.
Frankly my work is done. August you frustratingly distant rogue, you cannot come soon enough.
Pre-order here
We Like It Cherry
Jacy Morris
(Tenebrous Press)
Tenebrous is the home of the Weird – the transgressive, the surreal, the innovative, the satirical in horror fiction. But it’s also the home of the Good – as in good books. The two aren’t mutually exclusive he adds quickly, but it’s just as often the quality of the books that excite me as it is the thrillingly genre/boundary-pushing nature of the titles.
My pick from this year’s clutch is We Like it Cherry, which is “An Indigenous Eco-Horror tale in which a reality series host and his crew receive an invitation to document the rites and rituals of an unknown tribe in the inhospitable Arctic, only to find themselves in a bloody battle for survival against a mythical horror with a serious grudge against modern man”. Arctic survival horror with eco creds, an ancient force and grindhouse vibes? Sounds Weird – and I bet it’s Good, too.
Pre-order this and other 2025 titles as part of the Tenebrous book club here
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