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Emily has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi, MS, and she has an MFA in Creative Writing from GCSU in Milledgeville, GA, home of Flannery O’Connor. She spends her free time reading, watching horror movies and musicals, cuddling cats, Instagramming pictures of cats, and blogging/podcasting about books with the ladies over at #BookSquadGoals (www.booksquadgoals.com). She can be reached at [email protected].
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Good news! It looks like spooky season is starting early this year, horror fans! July might be the hottest month of the year, but August horror releases are really going to bring the heat this month. As we draw ever closer to the end of summer and the beginning of fall, we’re getting a wealth of scary titles to get us super hyped about every horror lover’s favorite time of the year. Don’t wait for September and October to start reading scary books. You’ll want to pick up all ten of these novels right now.
What can you expect to feel when you’re reading this month’s horror offerings? Fear and dread, of course. That’s what you come for when you pick up a horror book. But these books will make you feel so much more: joy, grief, anger, remorse, and a whole myriad of human emotions. Good horror takes you on a journey of emotions to dig at the root of what makes you tick and what you fear. And all of these books will do that for you. Read at your own risk, horror fans. You have been warned. These books are not for the faint of heart.
House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland, August 6)
House of Bone and Ruin is a stunning mix of supernatural horror and revenge thriller from Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker Award-winning author Gabino Iglesias, author of The Devil Takes You Home. Set in Puerto Rico, this novel is about teenage friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo who seek vengeance after Bimbo’s mother is shot and killed. On their mission for revenge, the boys encounter gang violence and supernatural forces.
Hum by Helen Phillips (Marysue Rucci, August 6)
Hum is a sci-fi/dystopian horror novel set in a city completely transformed by AI, climate change, and intelligent robots called “hums.” May has just lost her job to AI. Desperate for money and hoping to help resolve her family’s debt, she agrees to undergo an experiment that would change her appearance, making her unrecognizable to surveillance. May then decides to take her family on what should be a relaxing trip to a beautiful Botanical Garden. But her family doesn’t share her desire to unplug from the outside world, and the Botanical Garden doesn’t end up being the calming place May anticipated.
A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons (Tor Nightfire, August 6)
I heard this book is like if It Follows and The Outsider had a baby while also hanging out with The Evil Dead. So you know, I mashed that “Want to Read” button. Hard. This crime horror novel follows career criminal Anne Heller who retreats to her family’s cabin — the site of her mother’s untimely death — after a bank heist goes terribly wrong. In tow are her partner Jessup and a police officer they’ve taken hostage. Stakes are high, but at the cabin, Anne begins to realize that the cops aren’t the only ones who are looking for her. And when someone comes knocking on her cabin door, it’s not at all who she would have expected.
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The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson (Quirk, August 6)
The Unmothers is a new folk horror novel that is atmospheric, chilling, and will live in your brain for the rest of time (probably). After the tragic death of her husband, journalist Marshall is sent to the small town of Raeford to cover what everyone assumes will be a fairly easy assignment: a horse has reportedly given birth to a human baby. Everyone thinks it’s a hoax, but as soon as Marshall arrives in Raeford, she senses something strange is going on.
Read at Your Own Risk by Remy Lai (Henry Holt & Company, August 13)
If the creepy illustrations are what really sticks with you when you read middle grade horror, then you’re going to love Remy Lai’s Read at Your Own Risk. When Hannah and her friends attempted to communicate with the dead, she thought it was just a game. Little did she know whatever entities she summoned would crawl their way into her sketchbook. Hannah soon learns that when you’re messing with spirits, it’s never a game. And now something evil is coming for her.
The Dark We Know by Wen-Yi Lee (Gillian Flynn Books, August 13)
Gillian Flynn’s imprint has been nothing but winners for me so far, and Wen-Yi Lee’s YA horror novel The Dark We Know can be added to that list of winners. After Isadora Chang’s abusive father dies, Isa returns to the mining town where she grew up, despite how oppressive the place had always felt to her. She tells herself she’ll only stay long enough to collect her father’s inheritance, but then she’s confronted by her former friend Mason. Mason says their friends were killed by a supernatural force, and now he needs her help to destroy it before it comes for them all.
Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen (St. Martin’s Press, August 20)
This debut novel from Kailee Pedersen draws heavily from the author’s own experiences of being adopted from Nanning, China, and growing up in Nebraska on a farm. Pederson’s novel also pulls from Chinese mythology. All of this adds up to one chilling tale of supernatural horror mixed with family drama. Nick Morrow left his home in Nebraska in the hopes of putting all of his family trauma in the past. But when his abusive father, Carlyle, asks for Nick and his brother Joshua to return to the farm before he dies, neither son can say no. Nick has certain expectations for what returning to Nebraska will mean. But nothing could prepare him for what actually happens there.
We Love the Nightlife by Rachel Koller Croft (Berkley, August 20)
We love the nightlife…and we love a book about female friendships and vampires. In London in the late ’70s, vampire Nicola meets American Amber on the dance floor. Taken in by Amber’s vibrant personality, Nicola offers the woman the gift of eternal life. But fifty years later, Nicola and Amber’s friendship is strained. Amber wants out, but leaving a vampire behind is no easy task. Especially when others who have tried have all ended up dead.
Demons in My Bloodstream by Candace Nola (Death’s Head Press, August 27)
Demons in My Bloodstream is the debut short story collection from award-winning author Candace Nola. These seven intensely spooky stories tell tales of gardening competitions gone terribly wrong, a mobster’s bucket list, a serial killer hunting for his final kill, and more. Candace Nola is a new voice in horror that you’ll want to follow down this dark, chilling path. I’m expecting that this will only be the beginning of what we see from this author!
The Queen by Nick Cutter (Gallery, August 27)
When Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a brand new iPhone on her doorstep, she is surprised. But she’s even more surprised when she turns the phone on and sees a text from her friend Charity Atwater. After all, Charity has been dead for over a month. At least, that’s what most people assume. There have been so many assumptions about Charity, and now she’s finally ready to tell her story and set the record straight. Here’s the thing. Charity’s secrets run deep. Unbeknownst to even her, Charity is secretly Subject Six, an integral part of the Project Athena gene manipulation experiment. But when Charity’s gene sequencing actualizes at a high school party, everything goes terribly, terribly wrong.
As we get closer and closer to Halloween, you know 2024’s selection of horror books is just going to get more and more exciting. Be sure to come back next month to check out September’s new horror releases! And check out our horror newsletter, The Fright Stuff.
As always, you can find a full list of new releases in the magical New Release Index, carefully curated by your favorite Book Riot editors, organized by genre and release date.
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