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New Horror Books

Explore a chilling assortment of the latest horror literature, crafted by today’s most talented authors. Immerse yourself in spine-tingling tales of hidden fears and otherworldly horrors. Don’t miss this curated compendium; discover your next gripping read and delve into the depths of terror.

Here are all the new horror books I could find coming out this month. Typical Books often covers new releases from the HWA, and as part of the Typical Books Bookworm Central, here are even more! If you would like to see the videos where I talk about these books I have them all in the New Releases category. Enjoy!

Or, see the full year in horror books.

May 5, 2026
  • I Know A Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy

    May 5, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4dmkUVS 

    There are locations in this world where the light doesn’t seem to reach. Where, no matter how illuminated the place might be, shadows creep in too strongly to fight back.

    A suspiciously empty gas station rest stop in the middle of the night, littered with googley eyes... A doctor’s office, where a bottle of booze and a tear-stained folder wait on the desk... A tech millionaire’s haunted kitchen... A Bible-quoting ventriloquist’s dingy apartment... A yoga retreat in the middle of the desert, silent except for the screaming...

    These locations and more are your destination alongside the Bram Stoker Award-nominated, critically acclaimed novella Rest Stop and other original short stories, some which have never been published before; a travelogue down twisting side streets and through alleyways where the darkness has eyes... and teeth. Let’s hope you make it home in one piece.

     

  • Neon Moon by Grace R. Reynolds

    May 5, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4epPor3 

    Darlene Boone is a survivor. For more than a year, she's been bartending at the famous Teegarden Saloon, a honky tonk in the Texas Hill Country, while attempting to put her life back together in the wake of an abusive past. But when an axe-wielding maniac descends on The Teegarden during one of the bar's busiest nights of the year, Darlene, along with everyone else in the crowded establishment, will have to put down their whiskeys and take up the nearest weapon if they're to survive this unexpected night from hell. No one knows if they'll make it out alive, least of all Darlene, but one thing's for sure no matter what: Texans don't go down without a fight.

     

  • Not Your Final Girl by Mikayla Randolph

    May 5, 2026

    https://amzn.to/42c52Pv 

    Darcy and her high school friends haven’t gathered together in seven years. After a tragic murder on prom night, the group graduated and never looked back. But when the lakeside cabin they spent their summers at is put up for sale, they reunite for one last hurrah.

    Darcy hopes it will be an inspiring weekend that will help them all move on from their shared trauma. But Ashley, her biggest tormentor and the group’s manipulative self-appointed leader, is sure to stir up trouble. After a first day filled with jealousy, heartbreak, and unexpected guests, tensions are bursting, and the feud between Darcy and Ashley resurfaces.

    The reunion takes a sinister turn when a masked killer slaughters one of their own. Cut off from the outside world with the death toll rising fast, the terrified friends turn on each other and uncover long buried secrets. Someone is seeking justice for their past betrayals and with friends like these no one is safe in this dark-femme slasher for fans of Maeve Fly by CJ Leede and The Indian Lake Trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones.

     

  • She Waits Where Shadows Gather: A Novel by Michelle Tang

    May 5, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4uqfrTR 

    Avery and Carlos Tam are hardened skeptics who don’t believe in the paranormal. Carlos, the face of a hit reality show exposing paranormal fraudsters and debunking myths, thinks he’s seen it all—and none of it is real. Their newest adventure takes them to the Philippines and Carlos’s ancestral home. Though the family is loath to admit that anything unusual has ever happened in the house, their neighbors believe in spirits and the supernatural—they whisper about the home’s sinister history, and the housekeeper refuses to stay in the house alone but won’t say why. And while the house is dark and all the mirrors are covered for reasons Avery can’t get anyone to tell her, it seems like a regular creaky old house.

    But when a devastating car crash leaves Carlos bedridden, he’s not only trapped in the house, he’s also held hostage in his own body. Avery, now both caretaker and prisoner, watches helplessly as their once-solid marriage crumbles under the weight of secrets and an unspeakable evil. 

    The house seems to feed on their fear, and as Carlos lies immobile, trapped in a silent scream of rage and terror, something in the house begins to listen. And worse—it answers.

     

May 8, 2026
  • The Blood Year Daughter by G.G. Silverman

    May 8, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4utEPrW 

    In G.G. Silverman’s debut fairytale-horror collection The Blood Year Daughter, a woman builds husbands out of gravel and slaughterhouse feathers, two sisters eat cinnamon-scented pieces of their mother, and a charming doctor’s murdered brides whisper warnings to his newest wife.

    Silverman’s women and girls escape smiling captors, draw blood to curse their loved ones, and wield fear to defend themselves in post-apocalyptic worlds. They ignore the insults of rotting Elderwomen filled with flies, resist marriage proposals, and fill themselves—joyfully—with multitudes of snakes. They are murdered and choose to live again.

     

May 12, 2026
  • Abyss by Nicholas Binge

    May 12, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4npOygF 

    Severance meets Lovecraft in this surreal tale of corporate horror and existential dread.

    Joe always had potential, but he doesn't expect much, and he hopes that his new job as an admin assistant won't expect much of him. But when he enters the offices of Ponos—a company he's never heard of and knows nothing about—he discovers that potential is exactly what they want from him.

     

  • Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun by Mónica Ojeda

    May 12, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4cP0xkc 

    In the near future, best friends Noa and Nicole flee their home in Guayaquil, Ecuador to attend the Solar Noise Festival, a week-long, retro-futuristic gathering at the foot of an active volcano. While Noa fully embraces the haze of narcotics and hedonism in an effort to obscure her true reason for attending, Nicole senses something darker at play behind the festival’s so-called “celebration of life.” Amid technoshamanic poetry, collective hallucinations, and ritualistic dances, each girl navigates her own path in an effort to escape her past and reclaim her right to a future.

    Vivid, terrifying, and celebratory, Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun blends the primal with the supernatural, solidifying Mónica Ojeda as one of the most singular and exciting voices in Latin American and world literature today.

    Translated by Sarah Booker, an educator and literary translator working from Spanish to English. Her translations include Mónica Ojeda’s Nefando and Jawbone. 

     

  • Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl by Lauren Osborn

    May 12, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4ekPSic  

    A dissatisfied wife wraps herself in a silk cocoon. Teenage girls declare decay as the newest fashion trend. A new religion emerges from blood-sucking moths. And Grete Samsa wakes to find herself transformed—not into a cockroach, but a monstrous camel spider, famished and salivating for the man at the door.

    A surreal exploration of nature, sexuality, disaster and desire, Lauren Osborn’s stunning debut isa must-read for fans of Lidia Yuknavitch, Aimee Bender, and K-Ming Chang. The final edition will include six full-page, black-and-white illustrations by brilliant artist Jenny Eickbush.

     

  • Femme Feral: A Novel by Sam Beckbessinger

    May 12, 2026

    https://amzn.to/42fiX7t 

    The head of a company she started from the ground-up, the worried mother of a troublingly secretive daughter, and the wife of an easy-going man who always has her picking up the slack—Ellie is already juggling too much. So, it's an inconvenient time to find herself beset by strange physical changes: hair sprouting in new places, running hot, trouble sleeping, losing time, finding bloodstains in all her clothing. And underneath it all, a boiling rage that threatens to disrupt the life she's worked so hard to build.

    Her doctor diagnoses perimenopause. But it's another twenty-eight-day cycle that's taking hold, one that involves fur, teeth, and a not-insignificant amount of howling at the moon—and that gifts Ellie incredible strength and speed. Her new power's thrilling, as is releasing the anger she’s suppressed for years—especially as it turns out that there are some problems that can be solved with violence: The terrible new hire who is sabotaging her careful plans. The creep who's stalking her daughter. Only, the beast within isn't easy to control, and its bloody trail is getting harder to hide. With an obsessive hunter on her trail and a growing fear of what she's becoming, Ellie must find a way to yoke her fury before she tears through the people she loves.

     

  • Make Me Better: A Novel by Sarah Gailey

    May 12, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4n1TSGw 

    You were pure once. You can be made pure again.

    Celia is so tired of being alone. All she wants is to have a family—to belong to someone. That's why she's going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. There is no grief at Kindred Cove, because there is no suffering. Nothing is ever lost.

    Celia knows that, at that mysterious island surrounded by that impossible, ever-growing reef -- she will find herself.

    She’s ready to be healed. She’s ready to be transformed.

    She's ready to believe.

     

May 19, 2026
  • Decomposition Book: A Novel by Sara van Os

    May 19, 2026

    https://amzn.to/3P1GHZM 

    Ava thought the great tragedy of her life would be getting stuck in a dead-end office job, especially after she dropped $250K she didn’t have on a master’s degree in Classical Vocal Performance a decade ago. But reality looks even grimmer than student loan repayments and watery office coffee when she gets lost on an ill-fated hike with two of her coworkers.

    Meanwhile, Savannah has been cowering in her parents’ lake house in upstate New York for weeks, barely coping after a traumatic falling out with her mercurial best friend. Her days blend together in a hazy swirl of clinically concerning overthinking and alcohol—until she chases her nightly bottle of wine with an Ambien and wakes up in the woods behind her house...next to a dead body.

    Unfortunately, Savannah is so down bad that this well-preserved corpse offers some compelling friend potential: after all, a dead person can’t judge you; they’re amazing listeners; and they’re not going to leave. This particular dead person also comes with a handy journal detailing her last six months lost in the woods!

    Without much else going on, Savannah decides to cozy up to this mysterious new friend prospect (she can always call the police later…). As Savannah spends more time with both the Ava in front of her and the Ava of the journal, she realizes she feels closer to Ava than anyone else—and may not be able to let her go.

     

  • Shy Girl: A Novel by Mia Ballard (unavailable)

    May 19, 2026

    SIT. SPEAK. STAY.

    Lonely, broke, and depressed, Gia is desperate for a lifeline. When Nathan, a wealthy stranger on a sugar dating site approaches her with a very specific offer, she can't refuse.

    The instructions are simple, he says. For eight hours a day, she must wear the collar. Drink from the bowl. Sleep in the cage. Be a dog. Be his dog. Then, she can go home and be Gia again, and if she ever feels uncomfortable or unsafe, she can always leave.

    Those were the terms of the agreement. But Gia soon finds out Nathan isn't a man who keeps his promises.

    In this harrowing tale of survival and revenge, Mia Ballard crafts a visceral, unflinching descent into the dark heart of lost autonomy and the feral rage it awakens. Shy Girl is a scream against the cage of expectation, where justice isn't quiet-it's bloody and unapologetic.

     

  • The Dorians by Nick Cutter

    May 19, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4utx995 

    On a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring their lost youth. The chance to put death on pause—forever, perhaps. The remarkable secret lies in the high-tech harnessing of an ancient and extraordinary biological agent…one with no conscience, yet possessed with a single-minded purpose that has helped it persist for eons: the will to survive. The dark heart of unbridled human ambition finds its apex in an unholy experiment that now tests the limits of both creator and subject, eclipsing all bounds of morality and sanity….

     

  • The Temptation of Charlotte North by Camilla Bruce

    May 19, 2026

    https://amzn.to/48Dt8X6 

    A rebellious young woman desperate to escape her predetermined life.

    The handsome but married priest who has caught her eye. 

    And the resolute schoolteacher who values science above all.

    In 1910, on a small, remote island that boasts more sheep than people, the fates of Charlotte North, Jasper Hill, and Ruth Russel are perched on the edge of a cliff, and a strange wind is blowing…

    When an ancient tower – rumored to have imprisoned a witch – crumbles, it releases something powerful: A restless spirit that knocks inside the walls and sends household objects flying. A spirit that seems to be drawn to Charlotte, who sees in it a potential for power and change.

    But first she must overcome Jasper’s piety, and Ruth’s fierce determination to banish the terrifying entity. Only then will the power be hers to claim the life that she desires.

     

May 26, 2026
  • Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir

    May 26, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4uqkKTe 

    An Icelandic night may hide secrets and affairs – or even bodies – in this gruesomely cathartic horror thriller from the author of The Night Guest
    Unnur was living a normal, if lonely, life until a black cat showed up at her door.

    When she tracks down the cat’s wayward owner, she finds a young woman just as lost and in need of help. Like a gust of cold air in a Reykjavík night, Ásta and her pet slip into Unnur’s life.

    It’s unexpected, but welcome. Unnur likes the company, and she begins to rely on Ásta in turn. But like a black cat, trouble has been tailing her new friend, and Unnur is the only one there for Ásta when things take a violent turn.

    The two women quickly learn: nothing tests a friendship like blood on your hands.

    Mary Robinette Kowal, translator of Dead Weight, is also the author of The Spare ManGhost TalkersThe Glamourist Histories series, and the Lady Astronaut Universe. She is part of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses.

     

  • House of Margins by Tlotlo Tsamaase

    May 26, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4w7eWzE 

    Anaya Sebeya is missing.

    Before her disappearance, Anaya was a brilliant writer: a rising star. Invited to a prestigious writing residency at Günter Huis, an eerie colonial mansion on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, Anaya was supposed to craft the next great African literary masterpiece—and so were four other young, emerging writers, all competing for the grand prize. But Anaya never made it home.

    When a sensationalized true crime podcast about Anaya emerges, claiming to reveal everything that happened at Günter Huis, her sister Ranewa is both skeptical and furious. But with each surreal episode, Ranewa begins to piece together a truth worse than she ever could have imagined…

    At Günter Huis, Anaya’s nightmares consume her. Time slips away from her. Günter Huis inflicts distorted visions and terrible supernatural visitations, pushing Anaya to tell a story no one dares. But exorcising the house’s endless cycle of evil requires a sacrifice that neither Anaya nor her fellows are ready to make.

     

June 6, 2026
  • The Black Crow Book of Best New Horror Volume 1

    June 6, 2026

    https://amzn.to/4uaG2Fd 

    Featuring horror legends and worldwide bestsellers Olivie Blake, Ramsey Campbell, Lisa Tuttle, Tim Lebbon, V Castro, Ally Wilkes, Rian Hughes, Lindy Ryan, Susi Holliday, Lily Kade, TL Huchu, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Clay McLeod Chapman

    Be careful what you wish for.

    Whether searching for love, fame, money or revenge, remember that everything comes with a price. From stepping into an unknown in nature to ignoring the warnings of locals, to finding your perfect match or facing the hidden horrors of your past, beware.

    The thirteen stories in this brand-new anthology explore the dark side of human nature and take us into the hidden, terrifying recesses of a world we never see. Until it’s too late . . .

     

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