Elderfly Press

Introducing Mother Monster, Father Fiend: An Anthology of the Monsters Who Raised Us

Some monsters live under the bed. Others tuck you in at night.

I’m excited to announce the publication of my newest anthology, Mother Monster, Father Fiend: An Anthology of the Monsters Who Raised Us, edited by me and published by Elderfly Press. This collection has been a particularly meaningful project because it explores something that can be difficult to talk about: the ways the people who raise us can also hurt us.

We tend to think of childhood as a time of safety and parents as the people who are supposed to provide that safety. But families are complicated, and not every child grows up in a home where love is unconditional or protection is guaranteed. Sometimes the people who are supposed to nurture us become the source of our deepest wounds. Sometimes those wounds follow us into adulthood. And sometimes breaking the cycle means confronting what happened and refusing to let it define what comes next.

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Rooted by Leopoldo Goût: A horror novel about memory, history, and ancient gods

What if the past isn’t really the past? In Rooted, Leopoldo Goût turns a woman’s return to Mexico City into a terrifying confrontation with buried memories, ancient gods, and a world that refuses to remain neatly separated into the categories modern humanity has created for it. The result is a horror novel that is as much about our relationship to the world around us as it is about supernatural terror.

Rooted, which releases September 15, 2026, follows Aurora, a successful art lawyer who returns to Mexico to celebrate a campaign she helped lead to repatriate stolen artifacts, including a mysterious statue of an Aztec god known as the Flayed One. But her homecoming quickly becomes unsettling. Mexico City is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and Aurora begins to experience impossible memories, disturbing dreams, and increasingly frightening distortions of reality. There is nothing wrong with Aurora—or at least, that is what everyone keeps telling her.

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Something of a Calling by Zoje Stage: Unsettling Horror or Unintentional Comedy?

Some books are unsettling because they burrow under your skin and refuse to leave. Others leave you staring at the final page thinking, “What did I just read?” Zoje Stage’s Something of a Calling falls firmly into the second category.

Releasing September 15, 2026, Something of a Calling follows Detective Andy Cooper, a woman approaching retirement with very little waiting for her on the other side of it. Her daughter was killed by a drunk driver, her marriage ended in divorce, and her career has become the one thing she has left—and now she is about to lose that, too. She imagines an RV she hasn’t bought, a dog she doesn’t own, and a garden she might someday tend once the cable company finishes tearing up the woods behind her house. Then people start turning up dead.

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We Are for the Dark by Gretchen McNeil: An unsettling descent into Newfoundland horror

What if a missing-person investigation led you to an island where nothing is quite what it seems—and something ancient beneath the ground is very, very hungry? Gretchen McNeil’s We Are for the Dark, releasing September 1, 2026, takes that premise and turns it into a fast-paced supernatural horror story filled with isolated communities, religious unease, strange traditions, and a growing sense that the people arriving on the island may have made a terrible mistake.

McNeil’s novel begins with Father Shane Ryan, a recently ordained Catholic priest with an unusual past as an FBI analyst. When a priest disappears from a remote island off the coast of Newfoundland, Cardinal Jacobs calls on Ryan to investigate. At roughly the same time, Royal Newfoundland Constabulary constable Miriam Rideout becomes concerned about a frantic call she received from the missing priest. When her superiors refuse to authorize a wellness check, Miriam takes matters into her own hands and travels to the island herself. Naturally, the two eventually end up together—and neither is particularly thrilled about it.

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Goodnight Monsters by Suzanne Junered is a wild, unsettling ride through pregnancy, motherhood, and murder

Suzanne Junered’s Goodnight Monsters, releasing September 1, 2026, is a psychological horror novel about pregnancy, motherhood, murder, and the terrifying space where fantasy begins to blur with reality—and this book was such a wild ride, I am 100% here for it.

Lia has spent two years as a stay-at-home wife trying to get pregnant, following the same suburban script as the other women in her neighborhood. She and her husband, Evan, have dreamed of becoming parents, and Lia has devoted herself to making that dream happen. But when she finally gets the positive pregnancy test she has been waiting for, instead of feeling uncomplicated joy, she finds herself questioning whether she actually wants to become a mother. And honestly, I was immediately intrigued by that premise.

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The Sleeping Sisters by Jennifer Givhan: A haunting literary horror novel about motherhood, myth, and generational trauma

Some books arrive with impossible expectations, and somehow, they still manage to exceed them. Jennifer Givhan’s The Sleeping Sisters is one of those rare novels that not only lived up to my hopes but cemented her place as one of my favorite voices in literary horror.

When I saw that this ARC had finally reached the top of my NetGalley reading queue, I couldn’t have been more excited. Because I read mostly advance reader copies, my reading schedule is dictated almost entirely by publication dates. Givhan’s Salt Bones was my favorite book of 2025, and I absolutely loved River Woman, River Demon, so this latest novel was an automatic must-read. I was thrilled when my request for an advance copy was approved, and it quickly reminded me why I keep recommending her work every chance I get.

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Death Do Us by Ruthy Mason: A haunting body horror novel about marriage, identity, and the slow death of a dream

What if the most terrifying thing lurking beneath your skin isn’t a curse at all, but the possibility that you’re becoming the person society always expected you to be? Ruthy Mason’s Death Do Us is one of those horror novels that works on multiple levels at once. On the surface, it’s a deeply unsettling story about a woman who begins physically deteriorating after accepting a marriage proposal. Underneath the body horror, however, lies a sharp examination of marriage, patriarchy, identity, and the ways women can slowly lose themselves while trying to fit into roles that were chosen for them long before they ever had a say.

Bea is a promising archaeologist whose future seems bright. She has a loving boyfriend, Jake, and a clear vision for her academic career. She’s preparing to pursue a PhD and dreams of participating in archaeological digs around the world. Marriage has never been her primary goal. In fact, she has spent much of her life resisting expectations that she should settle down, define herself through a relationship, and prioritize a man’s ambitions over her own.

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It Came from Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo is a haunting reimagining of Peter Pan that turns childhood fantasy into nightmare fuel

There’s something deeply unsettling about taking a story associated with innocence and wonder and revealing the horror that may have been lurking beneath it all along. It Came from Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo does exactly that, transforming the mythology of Peter Pan into a dark, grief-soaked horror novel that feels equally inspired by It and gothic fairy tales whispered to children who are already old enough to know monsters are real. Releasing June 9, 2026, the novel delivers both supernatural terror and an unexpectedly emotional exploration of trauma, manipulation, and survival.

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Set during World War I, the story follows Wendy Darling, now an adult working at a children’s home while also assisting wounded soldiers returned from the Western Front. One of the soldiers lies trapped in an unshakable sleep until he murmurs the words “Peter Pan,” forcing Wendy to confront memories she has spent years trying to bury. When a young girl under Wendy’s care disappears, the past comes roaring back. Wendy knows the truth no one else believes: Peter Pan is real, and he is not the whimsical boy immortalized in storybooks. He is a predator.

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Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes is a haunting Southern Gothic that demands to be felt

Some horror novels rely on monsters lurking in the shadows. Others understand that the most terrifying things are the systems people willingly protect. Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes, releasing June 9, 2026, is a Southern Gothic horror novel that understands this completely. Beneath its ghostly atmosphere and supernatural elements lies a brutal examination of generational trauma, misogyny, power, and the impossible expectations placed upon women to absorb suffering quietly so that everyone else can remain comfortable.

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Recently, I’ve seen discussions online asking readers to name books they’ve loved that were written by authors of color. Inevitably, there are always people who respond with things like, “I don’t pay attention to the race of the authors I read,” as though being “colorblind” is somehow the ideal approach to literature. But stories like Our Sister’s Keeper are exactly why intentionally seeking out voices different from our own matters. This is a novel that forces readers to confront lived experiences they may never have otherwise considered. It explores generational trauma, gendered expectations, institutional abuse, and the long shadow of racism in ways that feel both deeply personal and horrifyingly systemic. It’s impossible to walk away from this novel unchanged if you are willing to truly engage with what it is saying.

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A Dark and Wild Wood by Sarah Nicole Lemon is a haunting gothic fantasy about the illusion of male power

In A Dark and Wild Wood, women survive by making themselves smaller for men who were never as powerful as they seemed in the first place. Inspired by the Bluebeard fairy tale, A Dark and Wild Wood is a lush, gothic historical fantasy drenched in ghostly visions, dark magic, and decaying beauty. The novel follows Salomé, a young woman cursed—or perhaps gifted—with the ability to see spirits. After witnessing her foster mother burned as a witch, she and her beloved sister Rochelle are sent to live in a convent, where silence, obedience, and repression become the conditions of survival. But the convent is only the first prison Salomé inhabits.

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When Rochelle vanishes, Salomé eventually escapes and spends five years working in a brothel, surviving at the whims of the men around her while continuing to hide her supernatural abilities for fear of suffering the same fate as her foster mother. The novel smartly presents the convent and the brothel as two versions of the same confinement. One is built around religious authority, the other around male desire, but both demand submission and self-erasure from women in exchange for survival.

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