Tag: Feminist Horror

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Obstetrix by Naomi Kritzer is a chilling cult thriller that feels uncomfortably plausible

Mandy Webster

Some dystopian novels rely on elaborate worldbuilding to make their horrors believable. Obstetrix by Naomi Kritzer doesn’t need to. Its premise is terrifying precisely because it feels only a few steps removed from reality, taking current political and religious extremism to their logical, ugly conclusion. The result is a tense, claustrophobic thriller about bodily autonomy, fanaticism, and survival that never overstays its welcome.

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I’m a sucker for a good cult novel, so this one was right up my alley. There’s something endlessly fascinating about the power dynamics inside insular religious communities, especially the relationships among women forced to survive within those systems. Kritzer taps into that fascination immediately. The novel is brief and concise, but it uses every page effectively, building constant tension as Doctor Liz navigates a nightmare situation with no safe options.

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

Mandy Webster

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

Mandy Webster

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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Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir: A chilling Icelandic horror thriller about friendship, violence, and the cost of letting someone in

Mandy Webster

Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir, translated by Mary Robinette Kowal, releases May 26, 2026, and it wastes no time pulling the reader into a Reykjavík night where loneliness, affection, and something far more dangerous blur together. An Icelandic night may hide secrets and affairs—or even bodies—in this gruesomely cathartic horror thriller from the author of The Night Guest, where a black cat’s arrival quietly unspools a chain of choices that can’t be undone.

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Unnur is living a small, contained life until she’s chosen—almost accidentally—by what can only be described as the cat distribution system. When she finally lets the stray into her home, she doesn’t realize she’s also opening the door to Ásta, the cat’s owner, or to everything that follows. Ásta arrives like a cold wind off the harbor: compelling, damaged, and carrying trouble that clings tighter than either woman initially understands.

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Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen is a haunting folk horror novel about faith, fear, and the stories people choose to believe

Mandy Webster

War turns people into monsters long before anything supernatural enters the picture, and Bone of My Bone understands that better than most horror novels. Set during the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War, Johanna van Veen’s latest is brutal, atmospheric, and deeply philosophical, blending folk horror with theological questions about morality, sainthood, and the terrifying power of blind faith.

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The novel follows Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the destruction of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant woman trying to survive a countryside ravaged by soldiers, starvation, and death. After escaping a violent attack, the two women come into possession of a skull believed to belong to a saint. Legend says reuniting the skull with the saint’s body will grant a wish, and the pair set off across the Bavarian wilderness hoping salvation might still exist somewhere in the ruins of the world.

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Salomé by Leslie Baird is a hypnotic literary thriller that turns a dreamy French escape into something far darker

Mandy Webster

There’s a particular kind of danger attached to reinvention, especially when it happens far from home. In Salomé by Leslie Baird, that danger arrives wrapped in heat-soaked French afternoons, magnetic attraction, conspiracy, and the seductive promise that maybe death itself can be outwitted. Releasing May 19, 2026, this gothic-tinged literary thriller moves like a fever dream, gradually tightening from atmospheric travel fantasy into something deeply unsettling.

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One of the novel’s greatest strengths is its setting. Baird captures northwestern France so vividly that even the oppressive heat and lack of air conditioning somehow feel intoxicating. The small-town atmosphere is lush, languid, and quietly claustrophobic, creating the perfect backdrop for Courtney’s growing obsession with Salomé and her family. The relationship between Courtney and Salomé mirrors that setting beautifully at first—warm, inviting, almost innocent in its intensity. Their connection feels youthful and sincere, the kind of intimacy that blooms quickly when you’re untethered from your ordinary life.

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Until Death by Mary Berman is a darkly funny horror novel about how easily love can become a trap

Mandy Webster

There’s a moment in Until Death when it becomes clear that the real horror isn’t just the eerie chapel, the controlling future in-laws, or the increasingly sinister wedding planning. It’s the realization that Ophelia has slowly stopped trusting her own instincts. That loss of self feels far more unsettling than any supernatural element lurking in the background, and it’s what gives Mary Berman’s debut its sharpest edge.

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The novel follows Ophelia Cohen, a woman who never intended to get married after watching her parents’ relationship sour her on the entire institution. But as her mother’s dementia worsens, Ophelia becomes consumed by the fear of ending up alone. When she meets Luke—a man who seems almost custom-built to satisfy both her emotional vulnerabilities and her mother’s wishes—marriage suddenly feels less impossible. From there, the story spirals into a chaotic blend of wedding horror, psychological manipulation, family pressure, and increasingly alarming red flags.

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Not Your Final Girl by Mikayla Randolph review: A slasher that can’t outrun its own past

Mandy Webster

Seven years after a prom night tragedy, a group of former friends reunites at a lakeside cabin—and quickly proves that time hasn’t made them wiser, kinder, or even remotely interested in leaving the past behind.

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In Not Your Final Girl, Mikayla Randolph builds a setup that feels immediately familiar: estranged high school friends, a remote cabin with no cell service, and a long-simmering grudge waiting to boil over. Darcy, weighed down by guilt and depression, and Ashley, whose controlling cruelty defines nearly every interaction, anchor the story’s emotional center—if it can be called that. Around them is a cast of characters who, quite frankly, seem to actively dislike one another. Trust is nonexistent, and affection feels like an afterthought.

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The Body by Bethany C. Morrow: A brutal supernatural horror about marriage, faith, and who really owns your soul

Mandy Webster

Bethany C. Morrow’s The Body is a pulse-pounding supernatural horror novel that turns marriage, faith, and family obligation into a living nightmare—and it doesn’t flinch. Centered on a woman who has spent her entire life being told she will never be good enough, this is a story about what happens when the expectations placed on women become violent, literal, and inescapable.

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Mavis Carson broke away from her family’s church years ago, but the damage is permanent. Her mother, Marie Carson, presides over the congregation with an iron grip, demanding impossible perfection and absolute obedience. Mavis has internalized those rules so completely that even as an adult, she’s riddled with anxiety and convinced she’s one mistake away from losing everything. Her one perceived victory is her marriage to Jerrod, a man everyone—including Mavis herself—believes she doesn’t deserve. When the seven-year itch sets in and a freak car accident kicks off a string of increasingly disturbing incidents, Mavis begins to realize that the congregation she escaped may never have truly let her go.

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Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer: A ferocious horror novel about motherhood, patriarchy, and the cost of being “good”

Mandy Webster

Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer is a horror novel that knows how to tell a gripping story while quietly dismantling the cultural myths propping it up. Scheduled to release on February 10, 2026, it’s the rare book that makes you start mentally planning your year-end “best of” list before you’re even finished reading. Trad Wife is an unsettling, deeply intelligent literary thriller that uses horror not just to disturb, but to say something urgent about womanhood, motherhood, and the performance of femininity in the age of social media.

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Camille Deming presents herself online as the ideal #tradwife: cooking from scratch, tending her homestead, centering her life around her husband and home. The problem is that she’s missing the one thing her followers—and the ideology she’s bought into—demand most: a baby. When Camille discovers a mysterious well behind her farmhouse and makes a wish, her desire is answered in ways that are grotesque, intimate, and impossible to undo. Her pregnancy brings skyrocketing engagement and validation, even as her body begins to change in frightening ways and her marriage quietly continues to rot.

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