Steel’s blistering and brilliant debut is queer cosmic horror set in a slice of paradise. When hapless, insecure bartender Aoife intercepts a postcard sent to her abusive boss from the pub’s previous bartender, Elise, she feels an inexplicable, irresistible pull to the beautiful sun-drenched island it depicts. Just like that, she walks away from her life, leaving her terrible job and awful boyfriend for the Farmstead, a charming little island compound. The food is spectacular, the surroundings are gorgeous, and the people offer Aoife a place where she can finally belong. But Elise is mysteriously missing, Aoife dreams of rot, and the longer she stays at the Farmstead, the more she learns about its denizens’ strange belief that a long-trapped deity sleeps beneath the island. They claim to be its chosen acolytes, brought there to help it break free, wipe the world clean, and witness what will be born from the ashes. Writing in gory, gorgeous prose, the author makes both the emotional and the eldritch stakes sky-high, and her masterful tension building keeps the pages flying. This goes for the jugular. Agent: Lauren Bajek, Liza Dawson Associates. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/27/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this surprising horror outing, King-Miller (The Z Word) takes on exorcism and possession with a modern perspective and unexpected results. As a child, Brigid witnessed her uncle Angus, a fanatical priest, and her mother, Adelaide, perform a home exorcism on a stranger. Now an adult and a lesbian, she’s cut off her homophobic family entirely. However, memories of that childhood exorcism have followed her up until the present day, when she’s a single mother struggling with her adolescent daughter Dylan’s behavioral issues. Things take a darker turn when it becomes clear that Dylan’s “issues” aren’t simple teenage blues. Out of options, Brigid does the unthinkable and returns to her family home to face her uncle, save her daughter, and finally assert her identity as a queer woman. By turns exhilarating and disgusting, moving and monstrous, the novel posits self-acceptance as the ultimate antidote to darkness. Brigid is a standout among a cast that can fade into the background, and though the flurry of action can be chaotic, King-Miller’s descriptions are cinematic and exciting. Fans of queer horror looking for a fresh take on a familiar trope will be hooked. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/27/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Kuang’s latest foray into dark academia (after 2022’s Babel) takes readers on a clever and deeply cerebral, if sometimes fatiguing, journey through hell. Alice Law is an outstanding graduate student in Cambridge’s Analytical Magick program—a field that combines magic, philosophy, linguistics, and mathematics—with a troubled relationship with her adviser, the brilliant Professor Jacob Grimes. When Professor Grimes dies in a gruesome accident, Alice grudgingly agrees to work with her academic rival, Peter Murdoch, to bring him back. Their transformative journey through the underworld is explicitly based on previous sojourns, directly referencing Dante, Orpheus, and more, but Alice and Peter soon find themselves in over their heads in a terrifyingly unfamiliar world. Vivid side characters—like Elspeth, a former Analytical Magick student who died by suicide a decade before and now leads a lively existence on the river Lethe—invigorate what occasionally becomes a dour, plodding trek and persistent readers will be rewarded with a thrilling third act. It’s not perfect, but Kuang’s devoted fans will find this hits the spot. Agent: Hannah Bowman, Liza Dawson Associates. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/27/2025 | Details & Permalink

Wallace (In the Company of Witches) infuses humor, magic, and surprise into this well-crafted suburban fantasy. Prince Edward Island native Cassie Beckett has her hands full with her 15-year-old daughter and eight year-old twins while her husband is away with Doctors Without Borders. And then there’s her sister, Eliza, who’s eight years her junior and whom she treats like her fourth child. When Eliza and Cassie witness their hair dresser, Joanne, biting Eliza’s boyfriend’s neck, it’s a rude awakening that vampires are real. Confronted by the pair, Joanne gurgles a cryptic threat: “He’s awake.... The Thirteenth witch will die.” Cassie learns from her historian neighbor that centuries ago a powerful sea witch fought a vampire, known as the Deliverer, who was decimating the island. He was put into an enchanted sleep, but every 25 years he awakens to kill a descendant of the witch. If he kills 13 descendants, he’ll be freed. Worse: Cassie herself may be number 13. Ever the über mom, with snacks and juice boxes at the ready, she gathers her family, her magical cat, and a town full of friends to help confront the Deliverer. Wallace’s wonderfully realized characters overcome the exasperation of child-rearing, embrace the bonds of family and friendship, and chuckle through their madcap adventures. Readers are sure to be entertained. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

For this chilling postapocalyptic anthology, 36 authors—including big-name horror writers like Tananarive Due and Chuck Wendig, and those best known for their work in other genres, such as S.A. Cosby—explore and expand the world of Stephen King’s The Stand, in which 99.8% of humanity has been killed by the Captain Trips super flu. The contributors approach this eerie setting with creativity and curiosity, perhaps none more so than Catriona Ward, whose “The African Painted Dog” explores how the pandemic affects animals in a zoo. C. Robert Cargill’s “Wrong Fucking Place, Wrong Fucking Time” follows two horror-film-loving survivors in Roosevelt, Tex., who’d always believed that it “would be a great town if it weren’t for all the people,” and whose taste in videotapes ends up being life-saving. In “Kovach’s Last Case,” Michael Koryta imagines a dedicated homicide cop who’s search for a suspected serial killer in the midst of the apocalypse places him in an ethical dilemma. Even readers unfamiliar with The Stand will find much to enjoy here, while fans will be pleased by the attention to detail. Every entry hits the mark, a tribute both to the editors’ selection process and King’s original worldbuilding. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

In the thrilling 13th Penric and Desdemona adventure (after Demon Daughter), Bujold sends temple sorcerer Pen and Des, the demon who shares his body, on a quest to track down some valuable and long-lost magical writings. Along the way, they meet Roz, a thief on the run from his former crew. Bujold takes what for her is the unusual step of splitting the narration between Roz, who thinks Pen might prove an easy mark, especially when he alludes to hunting down a “treasure,” and Pen, whose magic allows him to easily discern Roz’s motives. Pen could use the help of Roz and his (stolen) mule, so agrees to hire them both, thus entangling Pen and Des in Roz’s troubles, which are quick to manifest. A handful of the bandit gang find Roz that night and he reveals the existence of a potential treasure trove in exchange for his life, putting Pen and Des on a collision course with the criminals. It’s exciting to watch as the fast-moving plot comes together, especially when the usually nerdy, restrained Pen, under threat, demonstrates his and Des’s true badassery. The combination of mystery, action, and ethical conundrums proves as enjoyable as ever. Bujold shows no signs of slowing down. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

With this lively debut, Brooks contrasts the utter banality of corporate finance with the capricious allure of fairyland, weaving a laugh-out-loud narrative punctuated by glimmers of budding romance. Investment banker Miriam “Miri” Geld knows better than to make promises, commit to deadlines, or agree to anything up front when negotiating with the Fae, but when she’s tricked into consuming Faerie food, she winds up trapped in their realm. Now she has to work remotely while dealing with her jerk of a boss on one end and the mercurial, demanding Faerie Princeling on the other, all in the name of cross-world commerce. With only her cat and a gaggle of eccentric Fae, including her sexy new coworker Sahir, for company, Miri’s unsure who to trust as she navigates the treacherous beauty and deadly politics of the Court and searches for a way home. While the resolution comes a bit too easily, Brooks delivers plenty of entertainment along the way, with a colorful cast and lots of humor. This is good fun. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Vandelly (Theme Music) crafts a sinuous thriller whose protagonist is bedeviled—literally—by the horror novel she’s trying to write. For years, self-published author Jewel Maxwell has labored in the shadow of her more successful sister, Deidre Baldwin, a bestselling fantasy writer. When Jewel rushes to her comatose sister’s side in Virginia following a near-fatal hit-and-run, she stumbles on the opportunity of a lifetime: Deidre’s latest manuscript is up against her publisher’s deadline, and her agent is desperate to have someone finish it. Jewel takes on the job, but soon has reservations: Deidre’s novel, a horror potboiler with the working title Unspeakable Demons, appears to have a life of its own, self-generating paragraphs of text when Jewel isn’t looking and infecting her with the impulse to commit the bloody atrocities that fill its pages. Jewel’s conclusion—that the muse driving the novel’s creation is a demon determined to infect not only its author but anyone who reads it—traps her in a moral dilemma. Though Jewel’s travails become repetitive as the story progresses, they set the stage for a twist ending that will leave readers who’ve locked into her narrative pleasantly surprised. The result is sure to entertain anyone who has pondered the imaginative impact of reading horror fiction. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Fueled by malevolent aliens and sinister changelings, this middling sci-fi horror novel from Ahlborn (Brother) follows grieving mother Isla Hansen as she reckons with both the death of her infant son, Adam, and the ongoing spate of children’s disappearances that have gone unsolved in her small town. When a strange boy of five or six years old turns up in her garden in bad shape, Isla believes his appearance to be a miracle and is determined to provide “Rowan,” as she dubs him, with a family and home, despite the warnings of the social worker assigned to his case and the misgivings of her husband, Luke. Things take an eerie turn in their house as Isla’s five other children, August, Eden, Olive, Sophie, and Willow, witness their mother behaving increasingly strangely as her obsession with both Rowan and a mysterious disappearance from her own childhood consume her. Though the plot moves along at a good clip with suitably creepy descriptions and body horror that is gory without being gratuitous, much of the imagery will feel familiar, if not a little derivative, especially for fans of Stranger Things. Meanwhile, the characters blend together in a jostled narrative that switches viewpoints far too rapidly. It’s a brisk diversion, but not a memorable one. Agent: David Hale Smith, InkWell Management. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

Nebula Award winner Novik (the Scholomance series) continues her skillful exploration of different fantasy subgenres in this mesmerizing, border ballad–esque novella. The war between the kingdom of Prosper and the bordering Summer Lands, home of the immortal summerlings, began 100 years ago when summerling Princess Eislaing threw herself to her death on the day of her marriage to King Sherdan of Prosper. After the cunning Grand Duke Veris finally puts an end to the fighting, he schemes to become the power behind Prosper’s throne through political marriages for at least two of his three children, but his eldest son, Argent, forsakes his family name to seek love in the Summer Lands. Twelve-year-old Celia, furious at what she considers her brother’s abandonment, accidentally curses him when she comes into her powers as a witch. Then, at 16, her magic leads the new King of Prosper to marry her off to the King of the Summerlands, and Celia must rely on the brother she cursed as well as their middle brother, Roric, whom she and Argent both ignored, for any hope of escape. Novik’s fans will be pleased by the canny twists and turns of the plot, as well as the sweet queer romance between Argent and the Summer Prince at its center. This surprisingly tender paean to love of all kinds is a treat. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink