From the Haunted Stacks: 2022 Horror Book Highlights

LaRocca put out two of the best novellas of the year. We Can Never Leave This Place is a macabre, visceral, lyrical, and beguiling dark fantasy fever dream while They Were Here Before Us is a tale of thought-provoking depravity, told in six smaller pieces, all united by how they portray the brutality that lies at the foundation of love.

Both may appear to be unrelated on the surface, but all of LaRocca’s stories exquisitely articulate the disgust and unease of horror, the dark emotions readers crave, without ever losing sight of the pure wonder, buried at the center of it all.

Louise, a nurse in 1900 New York City is caring for her husband, Edward, a doctor, suffering intensely as his body is literally dissolving, piece by piece. However, his suffering comes from something much bigger than bacteria. Readers will get immersed in Louise and Edward's story, their emotions will be held hostage, as they watch everything transform into an uncanny tale of otherworldly beauty, with just the right touch of darkness hiding in the wings.

With their first collection, Khaw presents 23 stories that span the speculative fiction landscape. Invoking fairy tales and mythologies from all over the world, many prominently featuring water.

These are lyrical, brutal, and intensely unsettling tales featuring disquieting imagery and situations with language so beguiling that readers will go back to reread lines. While none of the stories here are long, each hooks the reader quickly and steadily builds to a perfect ending, one that makes them pause to think about what they just experienced, shiver at the fear of it, and then eagerly dive back in to experience it all over again.

1967, Hollywood California, a beautiful young woman, Lucy, is fighting to bury an urn containing Dracula’s ashes, her roommate, Bee by her side. These women live in the shadows and yet, are known to all, cursed victims of the evil men (Dracula and Rochester) whom history has rehabilitated into romantic heroes. What follows is a fast-paced, road trip adventure, during the Summer of Love, that both honors the source material and adds something new. This unapologetically feminist tale, is an ode to forgotten women everywhere.

Kingfisher updates the Poe classic, The Fall of the House of Usher, filling in much of what was left unsaid in the original with intensely unsettling, claustrophobic, fungi details. Also different this time, the narrator is named.

Alex Easton is a soldier from a fictional, European country, one in which pronouns are not tied to gender, adding a thoughtful and intriguing facet to this briskly paced, claustrophobic, and unsettling tale. As the tension increases, readers will experience the book’s title as it becomes apparent in all of its skin-crawling glory.

The queen of historical horror is already well known for taking real-life events from the past and adding a terrifying supernatural twist.

This time Katsu turns her gaze toward Japanese internment, following Meiko and her daughter Aiko in an Idaho camp, Archie, a pastor from Oregon, and Fran, a freelance reporter from Nebraska, as they get entangled in the destruction caused by Japanese fire balloons in the American West. The unease is constant, as past mistakes, anti-Asian racism, a mysterious illness, government cover-ups, and Japanese demons permeate the pages.

In this brilliant take on the coming-of-age horror trope, Tremblay’s novel—or is it a memoir by Art Barbara, a man strikingly similar to Tremblay himself?—is presented as a found document. It is found by Art’s childhood friend, Mercy, who may or may not be a vampire. What follows is a strikingly realistic tale of a troubled man.

As readers follow his downfall in the memoir, Mercy adds in her perspective with notes in the margins and at the end of each chapter. The intimate and playful nature of their conversation on the page draws readers in immediately, but as the novel continues, darkness envelopes the narrative and everyone’s reliability is questioned.

Mario is facing the horrific reality of being poor and brown in America. Desperate to repay his medical debts and reunite with his wife, he takes a violent job to steal from the Mexican drug lords who have stolen so much already. Scenes of magic, love, family, and faith are contradicted by brutality, violence, racism, and terror, but all is anchored by staggeringly beautiful language and a commitment to incorporate the ghosts, language, and traditions of the people it honors. A revenge thriller with a deadly twist that will leave readers wondering if reality is actually more terrifying than fiction.

Using the frame of the very real horror of addiction, not only what it does to those plagued by it, but also those who love them, Chapman introduces readers to Erin who is struggling after her best friend Silas dies of an overdose, but not before he discovered a drug that allowed him to see the dead. Wanting nothing more than to see Silas one last time, Eric takes the pill and begins a descent into a nightmare. Does Erin become an addict or is she actually surrounded by ghosts who want a taste of the drug that is taking over her body? An intense reading experience that will make readers feel as if something is lurking over their shoulders.

On June 1, 2017, six people were killed at Burger City #8 just off the ramp to Exit 269 on I-80 in Iowa. A cottage industry of books, movies, and TV shows have been made about the event. Was Kit Bryant a murderer, or were they all the victims of an evil poltergeist?

Bestselling novelist Daniel Kraus sets out to solve the case with this definitive and exhaustively researched true crime account, except…none of it happened. The verisimilitude is disorienting, forcing the reader to question everything on the page, their own memories, and at times, their sanity. A great true crime/horror mashup, already well on its way to becoming a classic.

Leah went on a routine submarine research trip where something went very wrong and now she has returned to her wife, Miri, completely changed. Told in stunning language and organized into sections named for the layers of the ocean, this is a disquieting, heartbreakingly beautiful, body horror tale about what happens when the person you married transforms into someone you barely recognize.  

Living in a world where a virus turns any human with enough testosterone into a zombie-esque creature, Beth and Fran are in extreme danger because as trans women, they need estrogen in order to survive. Part of a band of survivors who have figured out how to distill E from the testicles of now feral men, Beth and Fran are getting by; however, they are also up against an organized group of TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) who want them dead.

Featuring all of the action, character building, tension, and hope found in the very best zombie tales, Manhunt also poignantly centers those who have been perpetually ignored by this popular genre.

Beatriz, a recently disgraced young woman living during the tumultuous years around the Mexican War of Independence, is given a chance at a better life by marrying the recently widowed Don Solórzano and moving to his beautiful estate. Almost immediately, Beatriz is under constant attack by the malicious ghost of the first Doña Solórzano. With the help of a local priest, Andres, the two fight to save the Hacienda—and the lives of everyone who calls it home.

This is a confident debut,  with a strong sense of place, a claustrophobic, ghost story that exudes pure terror.

Kari’s life as an urban Indian in Denver revolves around her love of heavy metal, Stephen King, and nights at the White Horse bar. 35 but still dealing with childhood trauma, Kari is struggling. When her cousin finds a bracelet that once belonged to her dead mother, she is not only forced to confront her past, but she must also battle a literal monster if she hopes to survive.

Combining mystery, thriller and horror, White Horse is a scary, compelling, and thought-provoking page-turner, announcing the appearance of a strong new voice in the genre.