Tag: Horror Fiction

Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

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

Mandy Webster

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.

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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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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Home Sick by Rhiannon Grist: An unforgettable haunted house story that loses its nerve

Mandy Webster

Some horror novels know exactly how to get under your skin—until they decide to explain themselves. Unfortunately, Home Sick by Rhiannon Grist is one of them. Releasing July 14, 2026, Home Sick begins as one of the freshest psychological horror novels I’ve read in quite some time. Combining eerie Scottish folklore, an unsettling haunted house, and an unreliable narrator whose own emotional instability makes every strange occurrence suspect, the novel creates an atmosphere thick with dread. For roughly three-quarters of the book, I was completely invested.

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After a violent incident at work, Tamsin escapes to a secluded cottage in the Scottish countryside, hoping distance will allow her to reinvent herself. Instead, she discovers that her isolated retreat shares a wall with a mysterious neighbor whose shifting personality and unnerving smile make her impossible to ignore. As increasingly bizarre disturbances plague the house, local legends begin to blur with Tamsin’s growing paranoia, leaving both her—and the reader—questioning what is real.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

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

Mandy Webster

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.

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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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Author Interview

Interview: Leslie Baird on Salomé, literary suspense, and the allure of charisma

Mandy Webster

Leslie Baird’s debut novel Salomé is a hypnotic blend of literary suspense, psychological intrigue, and gothic atmosphere, following a young American woman who becomes entangled in the orbit of a charismatic French family and the enigmatic woman at its center. When I reviewed the novel, I was struck by its dreamlike sense of place, its exploration of longing and vulnerability, and its willingness to venture into stranger, more unsettling territory than readers might expect. In this interview, Baird discusses the cult-like power of charisma, the French landscapes that inspired the novel, the emotional foundations beneath its mystery, and why she is drawn to stories that take risks and embrace the unexpected.

Author Leslie Baird discusses the inspirations behind her debut novel Salomé, including cult charisma, the allure of France, and her fascination with the ways people become vulnerable to mystery and belonging.

Q: Courtney is drawn into Salomé’s world almost immediately. Were you interested in exploring why intelligent, perceptive people can still be captivated by charisma and mystery?
A: I’m fascinated by cults. Not only organized groups, but how even something as ubiquitous as marketing copy can leak over into cultiness. (Shout out to Cultish: the Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell.) How quick we are to align with something, as humans seeking a safe group. And there are so many levels to this, which is fun to tease out in writing. Courtney may be able to scoff at a person who subscribes to Marco’s vitamin MLM subscription, but wasn’t she just as naive when a pretty French woman paid attention to her?

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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

Mandy Webster

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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Author Interview

Inside the imagination of Laura Holt: Mythology, magic, and writing without limits

Mandy Webster

From gothic horror and tragic romance to epic fantasy and southern folklore, Laura Holt writes with a deep love for stories that blur the line between myth and reality. Holt is also featured in Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny with her short story “After Alice,” a fitting addition to a collection shaped by eerie beauty and unsettling imagination. In this interview, Holt reflects on the authors who shaped her creativity, the unexpected lessons she’s learned about storytelling and publishing, and the themes she returns to again and again in her work. She also discusses writing authentic stories in a trend-driven world, finding inspiration in mythology and folklore, and why coffee, cookies, and carefully curated playlists remain essential parts of her creative process.

Author Laura Holt discusses mythology, horror, storytelling, and her short story “After Alice,” featured in Beautiful and Terrifying.

Q: What/who were your early literary influences, and how do you think their writing has shaped you as a storyteller today?
A: Some of my earliest literary influences were authors like Roald Dahl, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, R. L. Stine, and J.R.R. Tolkien. For me, Dahl’s book The Witches was my gateway read to the fantasy genre, likeable villains, and morally gray characters, so he will always hold a special place in my heart. Poe and Shakespeare introduced me to poetry and short stories, as well as tragic love and darker subject matter, both of which play a big part in my writing today. And there is one author who has cracked the code on how to write the perfect story every time, it is Stine, so along with reading his books for a good scare, I study his writing style a lot.

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Author Interview

Inside The Girl with a Thousand Faces: Sunyi Dean on Gothic horror, Chinese folklore, and morally complex characters

Mandy Webster

From the haunted corridors of Kowloon Walled City to the restless spirits woven through Chinese folklore, Sunyi Dean writes horror that unsettles as much as it mesmerizes. In this interview, Dean discusses the cultural history behind The Girl with a Thousand Faces, the challenges of balancing myth with historical inspiration, and why morally complicated characters fascinate her as a writer. She also reflects on grief, forgiveness, experimental narrative structure, and the Gothic and speculative authors who helped shape her distinct voice in contemporary horror fiction.

Sunyi Dean discusses Chinese folklore, Gothic horror, and the layered themes behind her haunting new novel, The Girl with a Thousand Faces.

Q: The Girl with a Thousand Faces blends Gothic horror with Chinese mythology and the real history of Kowloon Walled City. What drew you to that setting, and how did you approach balancing historical inspiration with the supernatural elements of the story?
A: Hong Kong is the place I grew up and learned Cantonese in (though I’ve since lost that language.) I have a complicated relationship with both the city itself, and my family ties there. It is a place of contrasts and contradictions, of extreme modernity and old traditions. I loved portraying it, and tried to keep the ‘important’ aspects of history as true as possible. A lot of trial and error was involved, and many rounds of edits. Whether the balance is right I will leave to the reader to decide!

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

The Children by Melissa Albert is a haunting story about the danger of becoming someone else’s myth

Mandy Webster

There’s something deeply unsettling about the idea of growing up inside a story that never really belonged to you. In The Children by Melissa Albert, releasing June 2, 2026, childhood becomes both a performance and a prison as two siblings struggle to survive the legacy their mother built from their lives. The result is a darkly hypnotic literary fantasy that feels as though it’s flickering between reality and nightmare the entire time you’re reading it.

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Guinevere and Ennis Sharpe grew up as the unwilling inspirations for their mother Edith’s wildly beloved Ninth City fantasy novels. To the world, they were magical children adventuring through an enchanted realm. In reality, they were neglected kids growing up isolated in rural Vermont, half-feral and largely abandoned while their mother disappeared into the mythology she was creating around them. Albert builds both timelines—the children’s traumatic upbringing and adult Guin’s unraveling in the present day—with a sense of inevitable catastrophe. Every chapter feels like a countdown toward something terrible waiting just beyond the firelight.

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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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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

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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