Tag: Horror

Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Vervain Hollow by Catriona Silvey: A haunting cult novel about addiction, belonging, and the price of escape

Mandy Webster

Sometimes the most unsettling horror novels aren’t about monsters lurking in the dark—they’re about the things we desperately want, even when we know they’ll destroy us. In Vervain Hollow by Catriona Silvey, a burned-out cult, a charismatic leader who may never have been human, and a young woman unable to let go of the power she once possessed combine to create one of the most compelling and emotionally complex horror novels I’ve read this year.

Get your copy of Vervain Hollow today!

Two years ago, Laura escaped Vervain Hollow after the sprawling house burned to the ground with its enigmatic leader trapped inside. Since then, she’s returned to a normal life, but “normal” isn’t the same thing as healing. She still longs for Vervain and the extraordinary power he shared with his followers. When her former friend Aliyah contacts her with shocking news—that another former acolyte has returned to the hollow after receiving a message from Vervain himself—Laura sees only one possibility. Somehow, he’s still alive.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

The Jellyfish Problem by Tessa Yang is a haunting debut about grief, isolation, and the strange pull of belonging

Mandy Webster

Some novels hook readers with plot. Others cast a quieter spell, slowly wrapping themselves around your imagination until you realize you’ve been completely pulled under. The Jellyfish Problem blends magical realism, sea monster folklore, grief narrative, and literary mystery into an ambitious debut that will strongly appeal to readers who enjoy atmospheric, character-driven speculative fiction.

Get your copy of The Jellyfish Problem today!

Dr. Jo Ness is a marine biologist who has spent the last seven months barely existing after the death of her closest friend and collaborator, Aldo. Hidden away at a struggling aquarium, she immerses herself in jellyfish research and the unfinished field guide the two of them had been writing together. Aldo still exists in the margins of those pages through handwritten notes and observations, and Jo clings to them because she doesn’t know how to move forward without him. When Nadia—a woman Jo once loved during college—contacts her with stories about a giant glowing jellyfish off the coast of Maine, Jo seizes on the opportunity. Officially, she goes because of the creature. Emotionally, she goes because Nadia gives her a reason to leave her grief-stricken isolation behind, even if only temporarily.

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Writers on Writing

Demons of the Night: A horror novel about good, evil, and finding your own path

Mandy Webster

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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Elderfly Press

Beautiful and Terrifying releases today: Step into the uncanny!

Mandy Webster

It’s here—and it’s been a long time coming. Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny officially releases today, and I couldn’t be more excited (or a little unsettled) to finally share it with you.

Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny is available for purchase today!

This anthology brings together a collection of short fiction, poetry, and black-and-white art that all live in that uneasy space where beauty and horror overlap. These are stories that don’t just aim to scare—they linger. They follow you. They ask you to look a little closer than you’re comfortable with.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker: A haunting premise that never quite sinks its teeth in

Mandy Webster

The promise of Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker is immediate and irresistible: a blood-soaked, myth-laced horror novel where two lives—separated by centuries—intersect through a house that shouldn’t exist.

Set across two timelines, the novel follows Lee Turner in 2026, fleeing to his father’s secluded home in Japan after a brutal, inexplicable act of violence, and Sen, a young samurai in 1877 living in fear of both imperial soldiers and something far worse within her own home. The house behind the sword ferns becomes the connective thread between them—a place where reality bends, ghosts linger, and something buried refuses to stay that way.

Get your copy of Japanese Gothic from my independent online bookstore today!

Despite the title, though, this isn’t quite the gothic experience I expected. Going in, I anticipated the kind of creeping dread that lingers long after you’ve put the book down—the kind that makes you think twice about turning off the lights. Instead, the horror here leans heavily into blood and gore, but never quite lands with emotional or psychological weight. There’s a noticeable fairy tale quality to the storytelling that creates distance rather than immersion. It’s vivid, yes—but it rarely feels real enough to truly unsettle.

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Call for Submissions

Beautiful and Terrifying releases April 23, 2026: A new anthology from the edge of the uncanny

Mandy Webster

Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny, the newest anthology from Elderfly Press, will be released on April 23, 2026, bringing together haunting fiction, poetry, and black-and-white artwork that explore the strange space where beauty and fear collide.

The cover of Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny, Elderfly Press’s upcoming anthology of eerie fiction, dark poetry, and black-and-white art, releasing April 23, 2026.

I’m thrilled to finally share the release date for this collection, which has been such a meaningful project to bring into the world. From eerie woods and submerged cities to folklore retellings, grief-soaked landscapes, and intimate encounters with the supernatural, this anthology embraces the unsettling and the sublime in equal measure.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher: A gothic horror that burrows under your skin

Mandy Webster

In Wolf Worm, T. Kingfisher delivers a slow-burning gothic nightmare set in the woods of North Carolina, where scientific curiosity collides with something far older and far more feral. Releasing March 24, 2026, the novel follows Sonia Wilson, a scientific illustrator in 1899 who has been surviving on the borrowed credibility of her late father’s reputation. When she accepts a position with the reclusive Dr. Halder to illustrate his insect collection, she believes she’s securing stability. Instead, she steps into a story that opens with a chilling admission: “I saw the devil in these woods.”

Get your copy of Wolf Worm from my independent online bookstore today!

Kingfisher’s prose reflects Sonia’s artistic eye. Descriptions feel layered, as if applied with a brush—yellow ochre laid in for a dog’s fur and then lifted back out again along the face. The natural world is rendered with precision and technique, which makes the corruption creeping through it feel even more invasive. As animals begin behaving strangely and local whispers about “blood thieves” grow louder, the beauty of the environment becomes inseparable from the horror beneath it. This is a novel saturated with insects—some of them of the burrowing-into-flesh variety—and Kingfisher does not shy away from the visceral implications.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Dollface by Lindy Ryan: PTA politics, plastic masks, and a suburban slasher that’s wickedly fun

Mandy Webster

If you’ve ever suspected the PTA might be hiding a few skeletons in its meticulously organized closets, Dollface by Lindy Ryan leans all the way into that suspicion—and then hands the skeleton a knife. Releasing February 24, 2026, Ryan’s latest horror novel drops readers into a glossy, gossip-filled suburban nightmare where fitting in might be deadlier than standing out.

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

Jill is a horror author who has just relocated to suburban New Jersey, hoping to settle into a quieter life and, ideally, make a few mom friends without alienating them by waving around her Final Girl coffee mug. That goal becomes increasingly complicated when a serial killer wearing a plastic face mask begins targeting the town’s overly polished PTA moms. As the body count rises and the social hierarchy begins to crack, Jill finds herself pulled deeper into the chaos, inching closer to becoming the last woman standing.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

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.

Get your copy of The Body from my independent online bookstore today!

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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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

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.

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

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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