So, I looked around to see what interesting and new scary - creepy - eerie books, magazines and anthologies I could find and here's the result. Have fun reading (and even coloring!) in the dark. Bwaaaaahhhh!
Horror Anthologies
The Monsters We Forgot, Book 1 - A demonic wolf that hunts its quarry to the ends of the earth…An inhuman abomination hidden deep in the Mexican countryside…A bloodthirsty spirit perpetuating the brutal horrors he committed in life…A beautiful god with a single, horrific command… First of a trilogy of original folk tales, chilling myths and more.
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, Editors Jeff VanderMeer, Ann VanderMeer - The collection explores the weird, strange and macabre in stories published from 1907 to 2010 including classics by Lovecraft and Kafka.
Write Like Hell, Horror and Dark Fantasy - Sentinel Creatives. Adapted from the zine released under the same name, "Write Like Hell" features stories from Scott Miller, Justin Probyn, and Mitchell Luthi. (Free)
Ghosts - Haunted Houses
A House of Ghosts, Murder Mystery, W.C. Ryan - Finalist for the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction Book of the Year, a Classic Cozy Big-House Mystery Haunted by the Specters of World War One—For Readers of Agatha Christie and Simone St. James.
Winter 1917. As the First World War enters its most brutal phase, back home in England, everyone is seeking answers to the darkness that has seeped into their lives. At Blackwater Abbey, on an island off the Devon coast, armaments manufacturer Lord Highmount has arranged a spiritualist gathering to contact his two sons, both of whom died at the front. Then, when a storm descends, they find themselves trapped on the island. Soon one of their number will die. For Blackwater Abbey is haunted in more ways than one . . . .Berkley Street Series 1-9: Haunted House and Ghost Stories Collection, Ron Ripley, Scare Street - Shane Ryan returns to his hometown of Nashua, and the childhood memories that have haunted him throughout his life. Something sinister prowls the shadows of his family home. And a darkness threatens to destroy all he holds dear.To confront this malevolent evil, Shane must peel back the secrets of his former home. His investigation will take him on a journey that challenges everything he thought he knew about himself and his past. But can he banish his demons once and for all?
Hidden Connections, The Hallows Book 1, (Pre-order, Releases Oct. 23) Jennifer Felton - Welcome to The Hallows Bed & Breakfast! You may check in, but you might not check out...Charlie sees dead people. Or, rather, she sees her dead twin brother Josh. But ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what her parents, the psychiatrist, and the therapists kept telling her. She knows they're wrong but learns to pretend so she can be released from the psychiatric facility her parents checked her into. Her anger mounts when Brad, a boy who lives down the street, fills her in on the secret her parents kept from her - the bed and breakfast they renovated, used to be an abandoned asylum!
Despite her uneasiness inside The Hallows Bed and Breakfast, she learns to love the place - mostly. Until opening weekend, when one of the guests inadvertently releases the spirits of the people who died the night the asylum closed. Now they've locked everyone inside, and it’s up to Charlie and Brad to find a way to trap the spirits once again.
** Get more Haunted Reads in KU through Halloween **
The Haunting of Dr. Bowen, A Mystery in Lizzie's Borden's Fall River, C. A. Verstraete (On sale, 99 cts.!) - A ghostly mystery/love story companion novella to Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter from the viewpoint of Lizzie's doctor and neighbor, Dr. Seabury Bowen. Bowen was the first official on the horrific axe murder scene in 1892 of Borden's father and stepmother. 143 pgs.
Dr. Seabury Bowen—physician to the infamous Lizzie Borden—swears he’s being stalked by spirits, though his beloved wife thinks it’s merely his imagination. But the retired doctor insists that neither greed nor anger provoked the recent sensational axe murders in Fall River. Rather, he believes the city is poisoned by bad blood and a thirst for revenge dating back to the Indian and Colonial wars. Now, two years after the Borden murders, Dr. Bowen is determined to uncover the mysteries stirring up the city’s ancient, bloodthirsty specters. Can he discover who, or what, is shattering the peace before Fall River runs red? Or will he be the next victim?
Halloween Adult Coloring Book - 100 designs, witches, Halloween, pumpkins, skulls and more. 207 pgs.
Halloween Season, Lucy A. Snyder - A collection of short stories to celebrate the season of the dead or to summon those heady autumn vibes whenever you like. You may even find a couple of tales that evoke a certain winter holiday that keeps trying to crowd in on the fun. In the worlds within this book, every day is Halloween! (Cute cover, it reminds me of a dollhouse scene!)
I Spy Halloween, Paulo Press - Picture book with interactive guessing games from A-Z for ages 2-5.
Mystery Weekly Magazine, Oct. 2020 - Double Sherlock Holmes issue, includes a few Halloween themed stories, even an attack by a... mummy?! 241 pages.
** Check out some cool Paranormal Tales to Oct. 30.
Horror
Horror Magazines
Cosmic Horror Monthly #4 - Stories on something sinister in the corn to a girl seeking the help of a warlock,and more. 92 pgs.
Ghostlight, The Magazine of Terror #6 - Fall issue of creepy, scary stories from the Great Lakes Horror Writers Assn. 133 pgs.
Night Frights Magazine Issue 1 - New young adult horror stories from Dark Moon Digest. Monsters take revenge on a school board who cancels Halloween; a kid and some teens try to get a balloon out of a tree; witches recruit a little girl; a father will get a babysitter by any means necessary; a teenager is harassed by a strange creature only she can see; a housesitter gets an unexpected guest; a boy claims to have met a mummy, and more. 110 pgs.
Nightmare Magazine, Issue 91 - Sept. issue features assorted horror fiction. Ben Peek's take on vampires in his new short "See You on a Dark Night." Millie Ho's new story, "A Moonlit Savagery," uses two different kinds of monster to span the gap between Bangkok and the Toronto suburbs. Reprints by Dan Stintzi ("Surrogate") and A.C. Wise ("And the Carnival Leaves Town"). In the "The H Word," Evan Peterson talks about some of the stigmas against mental illness that exist within the horror genre. Plus author spotlights and a media review from Adam-Troy Castro. 112 pgs
Space and Time Magazine, Issue 137, June - Oldest, continuously published spec fiction mag. a dozen authors, 17 poets and numerous artists present stories and art that speak of other realities, Sci Fi, Horror, Fantasy. 94 pgs. See website for news on upcoming issues. #138 will be coming out soon.
Speculative North Magazine Issue 2 - Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror - Issue #2 includes: “Bathwater Mermaid”, by Avra Margariti; “Not a Vampire”, by Jeremiah Kleckner; “Vat Life”, by Franco Amati; “Turtle Hatchlings”, by Victoria Feistner; “Nominative Determination”, by Maureen Bowden; “Restraint”, by John Mavin; “To Sift the Sacred”, by Brian Rappatta; “Witching”, by Erin Kirsh; “Star Trip(tych)”, by M.X. Kelly. Non-fiction content includes an interview with fantasy author Scott Thrower. 134 pgs.
Monsters
Creature Feature, A Horrid Comedy, Steven Paul Leiva - It is 1962. Kathy Anderson, a serious actress who took her training at the Actors Studio in New York, is stuck playing Vivacia, the Vampire Woman on Vivacia’s House of Horrors for a local Chicago TV station. On her way to Broadway, she stops off to visit her parents and old friends in Placidville, the all-American, middle-class, blissfully normal Midwest small town she grew up in. But she finds things are strange in Placidville.Kathy’s parents, her best friend from high school, the local druggist, even the Oberhausen twins are all acting curiously creepy, odiously odd, and wholly weird. Especially the town’s super geeky nerd, Gerald, who warns of dark days ahead.
Dr. Cushing's Chamber of Horrors, Stephen D. Sullivan; Cover: Mark Maddox - The monsters aren’t only in the museum! Despite a lifetime of traveling with their father to collect strange artifacts, twins Topaz and Opal Cushing have never fully believed in monsters or the supernatural. Oh, sure, they share an eerie psychic connection, and their tarot card readings often come true, but… Werewolves? Vampires? Living mummies? Since the girls’ father has been away, though, strange things have been happening in the family’s little exhibit—and in the waxworks studio that shares their dilapidated Victorian mansion on the outskirts of London. Now, the twins’ dreams of a fun, romantic summer season are turning into a nightmare, and the monsters are running...
Goatbusters, Chicaghosts, Old Fart Squad #3, Robert W. Walker (Free to 10/14) - Humor, Horror & Chicago History! After the infamous Gone Gorilla and the Monster Pit cases, the Old Fart Squad suspects their special skills to tackle those cases no self-respecting Chicago Police detective would touch with a ten-foot pole. They tackle the reality of Urban Legends that happen to be more than legend but fact! A stuffed gorilla comes to life, Lovecraftian creatures crawl out of a monster hole, and now everything is calm in the city, so who needs the Senior Squad of retired detectives? That is until trail bikers and kayakers are suddenly disappearing along a stretch of the Chicago River, disappearing into the river with a bizarr0 creature ripping them apart and feeding them to its babies. Where'd the monster come from? What was its origin story, and how could it be conquered?
Monster She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, Lisa Kroger, Melanie R. Anderson - You know Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, but have you heard of Marget "Mad Madge" Cavendish, who wrote a sci fi classic 150 years earlier? Details on icons to forgotten authors, reader's guides and a curated reading list.
VAMPIRES
SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire — (New! Releases today.) SLAY is a unique anthology celebrating vampires of the African Diaspora. Few creatures in contemporary horror are as
compelling as the vampire, who manages to
captivate us in a simultaneous state of fear
and desire. Drawing from a variety of cultural
and mythological backgrounds, SLAY imagines a world of horror and wonder where
Black protagonists take center stage — as
vampires, as hunters, as heroes.
From immortal African deities to resistance fighters; matriarchal vampire broods to monster hunting fathers; coming of age stories to end of life stories, SLAY features anchor stories by award winning authors Sheree Renée Thomas, Craig L. Gidney, Milton Davis, Jessica Cage, Michele Tracy Berger, Alicia McCalla, Jeff Carroll, and Steven Van Patten. Additional Contributing Authors: Penelope Flynn, Lynette Hoag, Steve Van Samson, Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, Balogun Ojetade, Valjeanne Jeffers, Samantha Bryant, Vonnie Winslow Crist, Miranda J. Riley, K.R.S. McEntire, Alledria Hurt, Kai Leakes, John Linwood Grant, Sumiko Saulson, Dicey Grenor, L. Marie Wood, LH Moore, Delizhia D. Jenkins, Colin Cloud Dance, and V.G. Harrison.
Zombies
Dead City Chicago, Michael Kuciak - In this first of a noir horror-thriller story series, the zombie apocalypse has come and gone, leaving civilization in ashes, and humanity on the brink of extinction. But there is an unexpected twist... A tiny percentage of the undead, calling themselves "the reborn," have been able to maintain their intelligence. The reborn have gathered as many of the last, few living they can find in Chicago and, working together, have erected a barricade around the city to keep the millions of feral zombies at bay. Into this dark and harrowing near-future come Kray (living) and his partner, Zelda (reborn), two members of the police force that has been cobbled together in a desperate hope to create a degree of peace. 124 pgs.
Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter, C.A. Verstraete - Think you know the Lizzie Borden story? You know... Lizzie Borden took an axe.... She was acquitted but... what if she did kill her father and stepmother for a good reason? They'd turned into.... zombies! Follows the real-life events of the trial with some twists!
Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter 2: The Axe Will Fall, C.A. Verstraete - The story continues past the trial. Now Lizzie and the citizens of Fall River must battle a new surge of flesh-eaters, this time with a heartbreaking twist: the infected creatures are friends and family, hidden away by their grief-stricken caregivers. When her sister Emma becomes a pawn in the growing war against the undead, Lizzie has no choice but to pick up her axe again. With the help of her charming self-defense instructor, Pierre, she vows to end the horrific zombie menace, once and for all. But can she overcome her personal demons and the rampaging monsters, no matter the cost? NOTE: There are spoilers if you haven't read book 1.
Planet Dead, Sylvester Barzey - It’s 2019, the wall is built. The president is missing and an unknown virus has quickly taken over the world. People are dying but like an 80s b-rated horror movie, they won’t stay dead for long. Planet Dead has every bit of nightmare fuel to keep you up for days. Can a modern day wonder woman survive long enough to be reunited with her family or is hope the only thing that stays dead in the Apocalypse?
Red Runs the River, A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller, Life of the Dead Book 5, Tony Urban - Survivors face the future while Wim grapples with the cruel truth of a vaccine that probably won't work... his wife will likely become a zombie. See how it starts in book 1, Hell on Earth.
Zombie Coloring Book, Ava Browne - Why not? Thirty-one drawings to color. 63 pgs.
