Horror Novel – Write on the World

Demons of the Night is a horror novel that asks: who gets to decide what is good and what is evil? It follows Docia, a young woman whose parents have gone to great lengths to hide the truth about who she really is. They want her to be a “good Christian woman” and believe secrecy is the only way to protect her. But their plan is about to backfire.

The cover of Demons of the Night was designed by my friend, author and artist Lance Savage, who created a fictionalized version of Holy Hill to reflect the novel’s dark atmosphere. Visit Lance’s website to see more of his work.

Docia longs for independence, for a life beyond her family’s overprotection. She wants normal experiences—friendships, romance, freedom. When Blane appears at a church lecture on demons, Docia is intrigued. But he’s there for the wrong reasons, and she quickly realizes that the life she desires may require confronting truths her parents have worked so hard to conceal. As the story unfolds, Docia must grapple with her identity, her morality, and the question of whether she can define herself outside the rigid framework her family imposes.

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Accumulation by Aimee Pokwatka: A haunted house story that refuses to play by the rules

April 29, 2026April 17, 2026 Mandy Webster

The first time something feels off in Accumulation by Aimee Pokwatka, it’s easy to dismiss—just like Tennessee Cherish does. A faucet left running. A misplaced object. A strange sense that something isn’t quite lining up. But as the novel unfolds, that quiet unease starts to loop in on itself, building into something far more deliberate—and far more unsettling—than it first appears.

Get your copy of Accumulation from my independent online bookstore today!

Set to release on May 5, 2026, Accumulation follows Tenn, a former documentary filmmaker turned stay-at-home mom, who relocates with her family to the kind of dream house that’s supposed to signal a fresh start. Instead, it becomes the backdrop for a slow, creeping unraveling. Her husband is largely absent, her children begin behaving in increasingly disturbing ways, and the house itself seems to resist settling into anything resembling normalcy.

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Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill: A strange, fungal dystopia about what marriage takes

April 8, 2026March 28, 2026 Mandy Webster

If you’re expecting a straightforward horror novel, Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill will catch you off guard—and that disorientation feels entirely intentional. Set in a near-future enclave cut off from a ruined outside world, the novel follows Nicole, a young woman raised in isolation and taught to fear both the world beyond her window and the fungal growths that cover her own body. When she’s married off to a man she barely knows and relocated to his decaying mansion on the edge of town, her life doesn’t expand—it contracts. What unfolds from there is less a traditional plot and more a slow, unsettling unspooling of identity, control, and buried desire.

Get your copy of Wife Shaped Bodies from my independent online bookstore today!

Let’s get this out of the way: this book is weird. Not in a gimmicky, shock-value way, but in a deeply immersive, almost disorienting sense. Cranehill builds a world shaped by plague and patriarchal control, where fungi have merged with human bodies to the point that many women are more mushroom than flesh. The men, somehow spared the worst of the infection, have constructed an insular society that positions them as protectors—though what they’re really protecting is their own authority.

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These Familiar Walls by C.J. Dotson: A haunted house story where the real danger isn’t the ghost

April 6, 2026March 20, 2026 Mandy Webster

The scariest part of These Familiar Walls by C.J. Dotson isn’t what lurks in the shadows—it’s the uneasy realization that the person at the center of the story might be just as unsettling. Set across two timelines, the novel begins in 1998, when a lonely preteen named Amber forms a troubling bond with a new boy in town—one whose fascination with fire and lack of remorse immediately set him apart. That relationship is brief but deeply consequential. More than two decades later, in 2020, the past comes crashing back when that same boy—now a man—returns, leaving Amber’s parents dead before meeting his own violent end inside her childhood home.

Get your copy of These Familiar Walls from my independent online bookstore today!

What follows is a familiar but effective setup: Amber inherits the house and moves in with her husband and children, hoping to rebuild some sense of normalcy. Instead, she finds herself unraveling. Strange occurrences blur the line between psychological stress and something more sinister—whispers in the dark, reflections that won’t cooperate, and trancelike episodes that suggest the house is holding onto far more than memories.

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