Bob’s Most Anticipated Horror Books
Created by Bob Helmbrecht, collection development librarian
Mysterious secrets, demonic families, haunted houses, terrifying dreams, serial killers, and monsters. Check out some of my most anticipated horror books for the first half of 2023.
- “Bad Cree” by Jessica Johns
In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman’s dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.
- “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Stephen Graham Jones
December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to “My Heart Is a Chainsaw.”
- “The Haunting of Alejandra” by V. Castro
A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona in this ravishing and provocative literary horror novel about motherhood, family legacy, and self-discovery.
- “A House With Good Bones” by T. Kingfisher
A haunting Southern Gothic from an award-winning master of suspense, “A House With Good Bones” explores the dark, twisted roots lurking just beneath the veneer of a perfect home and family.
- “A Hunter Called Night” by Tim Waggoner
A sinister being called Night and her panther-like Harriers stalk their quarry, a man known only as Arron. Arron seeks refuge within an office building, a place Night cannot go, for it’s part of the civilized world, and she’s a creature of the Wild.
- “Lone Women” by Victor Lavalle
Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and a bracing new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of “The Changeling.”
- “Our Share of Night” by Mariana Enriquez
A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family in the first novel to be translated into English by the International Booker Prize–shortlisted author of “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.”
- “The Salt Grows Heavy” by Cassandra Khaw
After murdering her husband and burning his kingdom to cinders, a mermaid joins a strange doctor on a journey through the eerie taiga. Deep in the woods, the pair stumble upon a village, full of seemingly ageless children and the three surgeons who oversee them—called only “the saints.”
- “Sister, Maiden, Monster” by Lucy A. Snyder
“Sister, Maiden, Monster” is a visceral story set in the aftermath of our planet’s disastrous transformation and told through the eyes of three women trying to survive the nightmare, from Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lucy A. Snyder.
- “The Spite House” by Johnny Compton
A terrifying Gothic thriller about grief and death and the depths of a father’s love, Johnny Compton’s “The Spite House“ is a stunning debut by a horror master in the making. Eric Ross, on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow, takes a job as the caretaker of a house that is reputed to be haunted.