My favorite horror reads of 2024 - femine rage, body horror, folklore.

Brom

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Wisconsin

A Tale of Bewitchery

Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it. Connecticut, 1666: An ancient spirit awakens in a dark wood. The wildfolk call him Father, slayer, protector. The colonists call him Slewfoot, demon, devil. To Abitha, a recently widowed outcast, alone and vulnerable in her pious village, he is the only one she can turn to for help. Together, they ignite a battle between pagan and Puritan – one that threatens to destroy the entire village, leaving nothing but ashes and bloodshed in their wake. This terrifying tale of bewitchery features more than two dozen of Brom’s haunting full-color paintings and brilliant endpapers, fully immersing readers in this wild and unforgiving world.

Slewfoot

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Best Reads of 2024 (Horror)

Robert McCammon

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

1934. Businesses went under by the hundreds, debt and foreclosures boomed, and breadlines grew in many American cities. In the midst of this misery, some folks explored unscrupulous ways to make money. Angel-faced John Partlow and carnival huckster Ginger LaFrance are among the worst of this lot. Joining together they leave their small time confidence scams behind to attempt an elaborate kidnapping-for-ransom scheme in New Orleans. In a different part of town, Curtis Mayhew, a young black man who works as a redcap for the Union Railroad Station, has a reputation for mending quarrels and misunderstandings among his friends. What those friends don't know is that Curtis has a special talent for listening... and he can sometimes hear things that aren't spoken aloud. One day, Curtis Mayhew's special talent allows him to overhear a child's cry for help (THIS MAN IN THE CAR HE'S GOT A GUN), which draws him into the dangerous world of Partlow and LaFrance. This gritty depression-era crime

The Listener

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Patricia Briggs

New York

Mercy Thompson, car mechanic and shapeshifter, faces a threat unlike any other in this thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. I am Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman. My only "superpowers" are that I turn into a thirty-five pound coyote and fix Volkswagens. But I have friends in odd places and a pack of werewolves at my back. It looks like I'm going to need them. Centuries ago, the fae dwelt in Underhill--until she locked her doors against them. They left behind their great castles and troves of magical artifacts. They abandoned their prisoners and their pets. Without the fae to mind them, those creatures who remained behind roamed freely through Underhill wreaking havoc. Only the deadliest survived. Now one of those prisoners has escaped. It can look like anyone, any creature it chooses. But if it bites you, it controls you. It lives for chaos and destruction. It can make you do anything--even kill the person you love the most. Now it is here, in the Tri-Cities. In my territory. It won't, can't, remain. Not if I have anything to say about it.

Smoke Bitten

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Completionist Corner

Andrzej Sapkowski

David French

Rated 4.3 out of 5 on Goodreads 
New York Times bestselling series

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Maryland

Tales of the Witcher

Soon to be a major Netflix original series! Geralt the Witcher -- revered and hated -- holds the line against the monsters plaguing humanity in this second collection of adventures in the NYT bestselling series that inspired the blockbuster video games. Geralt is a witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent. This is a collection of short stories, following the adventures of the New York Times bestseller, The Last Wish. Join Geralt as he battles monsters, demons and prejudices alike... Witcher collectionsThe Last WishSword of Destiny Witcher novelsBlood of Elves The Time of Contempt Baptism of Fire The Tower of SwallowsLady of the LakeSeason of Storms The Malady and Other Stories: An Andrzej Sapkowski Sampler (e-only) Translated from original Polish by David French

Sword of Destiny

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Holly Black

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

#1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black makes her stunning adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies in the vein of Ninth House and The Night Circus. One of Publishers Weekly's top ten most anticipated books of 2022! Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn't pick, a book she couldn't steal, or a bad decision she wouldn't make. She's spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie. Now, she's trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but going straight isn't easy. Bartending at a dive, she's still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister Posey is desperate for magic, and that her shadowless and possibly soulless boyfriend has been keeping secrets from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends back into a maelstrom of murder and lies. Determined to survive, she's up against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world -- all trying to steal a secret that will allow them control of the shadow world and more. Dark, strange, thick with mystery and twists--Book of Night is everything delicious and frightening I've come to expect from Holly Black. It's a story so believable in its magic, you'll be keeping one eye on your shadow as you turn the pages. --Leigh Bardugo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House "Black is a master at world-building."--The New York Times Book Review "No one writes like Holly Black."--John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Book of Night

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Hafsah Faizal

Ohio

From New York Times–bestselling author Hafsah Faizal comes a heart-pounding fantasy about a collector of secrets who gets embroiled in a high-stakes heist, a dark underworld of vampires, an unexpected romance, and a conspiracy that threatens to expose her own greatest secret.

A Tempest of Tea

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Fantasy Frolics

Ryoko Kui

Taylor Engel

Abigail Blackman

Marcille, now the lord of the dungeon, makes a wish...and it ends up being a curse that threatens to envelop the entire world! Can Laios and his party trick Marcille and stop the winged lion before it's too late!?

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 12

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Manga

Monika Kim

Alabama

Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective. Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying… yet enticing. In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that. For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated. A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.

The Eyes Are the Best Part

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Jess Lourey

Inspired by a terrifying true story, a heart-pounding novel of suspense about a small Minnesota town where nothing is as quiet--or as safe--as it seems. Cassie McDowell's life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents' strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she's grown accustomed to them. All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale. One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed--violent, moody, and withdrawn. What happened to them becomes the stuff of shocking rumors. The accusations of who's responsible grow just as wild, and dangerous town secrets start to surface. Then Cassie's own sister undergoes the dark change. If she is to survive, Cassie must find her way in an adult world where every sin is justified, and only the truth is unforgivable.

Unspeakable Things

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Dot Hutchison

Oregon

This FBI agent has come to expect almost anything--just not this... When Agent Mercedes Ramirez finds an abused young boy on her porch, covered in blood and clutching a teddy bear, she has no idea that this is just the beginning. He tells her a chilling tale: an angel killed his parents and then brought him here so Mercedes could keep him safe. His parents weren't just murdered. It was a slaughter--a rage kill like no one on the Crimes Against Children team had seen before. But they're going to see it again. An avenging angel is meting out savage justice, and she's far from through. One by one, more children arrive at Mercedes's door with the same horror story. Each one a traumatized survivor of an abusive home. Each one chafing at Mercedes's own scars from the past. And each one taking its toll on her life and career. Now, as the investigation draws her deeper into the dark, Mercedes is beginning to fear that if this case doesn't destroy her, her memories might.

The Summer Children

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My Heart is Full of Horror

Judith Flanders

Never read! Just making room on my bookshelf! 

West Virginia

How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Wonderful... [Flanders] shines in her readings of literary novels containing criminal and detective elements, such as Oliver Twist, Mary Barton and Tess of the D'Urbervilles, but can be sharp and very funny about the vagaries of melodramatic and sensational plotting." –Wall Street Journal In this fascinating exploration of murder in the nineteenth century, Judith Flanders examines some of the most gripping cases that captivated the Victorians and gave rise to the first detective fiction Murder in Britain in the nineteenth century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama and opera—even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts. Detective fiction and England's new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other—the pioneers of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P.D. James and Patricia Cornwell. In this fascinating book, Judith Flanders retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder—both famous and obscure—from the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper to the tragedies of the murdered Marr family in London's East End; Burke and Hare and their bodysnatching business in Edinburgh; and Greenacre, who transported his dismembered fiancée around town by omnibus. With an irresistible cast of swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the dangerous to know, The Invention of Murder is both a gripping tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.

The Invention of Murder

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Huw Lemmey

Ben Miller

Colorado

A Homosexual History

An unconventional history of homosexuality

We all remember Oscar Wilde, but who speaks for Bosie? What about those 'bad gays' whose unexemplary lives reveal more than we might expect? Many popular histories seek to establish homosexual heroes, pioneers, and martyrs but, as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and dastardly deeds have been overlooked despite their being informative and instructive.

Based on the hugely popular podcast series of the same name, Bad Gays asks what we can learn about LGBTQ+ history, sexuality and identity through its villains, failures, and baddies. With characters such as the Emperor Hadrian, anthropologist Margaret Mead and notorious gangster Ronnie Kray, the authors tell the story of how the figure of the white gay man was born, and how he failed. They examine a cast of kings, fascist thugs, artists and debauched bon viveurs. Imperial-era figures Lawrence of Arabia and Roger Casement get a look-in, as do FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover, lawyer Roy Cohn, and architect Philip Johnson.

Together these amazing life stories expand and challenge mainstream assumptions about sexual identity: showing that homosexuality itself was an idea that emerged in the nineteenth century, one central to major historical events.

Bad Gays is a passionate argument for rethinking gay politics beyond questions of identity, compelling readers to search for solidarity across boundaries.

Bad Gays

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Patrik Svensson

Massachusetts

Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World

A Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

National Bestseller

Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

A New York Times Notable Book

One of TIME's 100 Must Read Books of the Year

One of The Washington Post's 50 Notable Nonfiction Books of the Year

One of Smithsonian Magazine's 10 Best Science Books of the Year 



One of Publishers Weekly's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year

A New York Times Editor's Choice

Part H Is for Hawk, part The Soul of an Octopus, The Book of Eels is both a meditation on the world's most elusive fish--the eel--and a reflection on the human condition



Remarkably little is known about the European eel, Anguilla anguilla. So little, in fact, that scientists and philosophers have, for centuries, been obsessed with what has become known as the "eel question": Where do eels come from? What are they? Are they fish or some other kind of creature altogether? Even today, in an age of advanced science, no one has ever seen eels mating or giving birth, and we still don't understand what drives them, after living for decades in freshwater, to swim great distances back to the ocean at the end of their lives. They remain a mystery.

Drawing on a breadth of research about eels in literature, history, and modern marine biology, as well as his own experience fishing for eels with his father, Patrik Svensson crafts a mesmerizing portrait of an unusual, utterly misunderstood, and completely captivating animal. In The Book of Eels, we meet renowned historical thinkers, from Aristotle to Sigmund Freud to Rachel Carson, for whom the eel was a singular obsession. And we meet the scientists who spearheaded the search for the eel's point of origin, including Danish marine biologist Johannes Schmidt, who led research efforts in the early twentieth century, catching thousands upon thousands of eels, in the hopes of proving their birthing grounds in the Sargasso Sea.

Blending memoir and nature writing at its best, Svensson's journey to understand the eel becomes an exploration of the human condition that delves into overarching issues about our roots and destiny, both as humans and as animals, and, ultimately, how to handle the biggest question of all: death. The result is a gripping and slippery narrative that will surprise and enchant.

The Book of Eels

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Rando

Vanessa Giedosh

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