From the Haunted Stacks: 2025 Bram Stoker AwardsⓇ Wrap Up

Told through a Lutheran minister’s journal entries dated from 1912, readers meet Good Stab, “the Indian who can't die. […] the worst dream America ever had.” What follows is a riveting story of heartbreak, death, and revenge, a thought-provoking tale filled with existential terror, unease, and a high body count. 

This remarkable work of American fiction transforms, in Jones’ deft hands, from the unapologetic horror novel it most certainly is to a critique of the very idea of America. A critique that, despite the horrors, both real and supernatural, is infused with heart and projects hope.

Desperately trying to escape his past, Travis is left bloodied and weak after an encounter with a pale-skinned girl. No longer able to tolerate the light of day, and tormented by an overpowering hunger, he stumbles to a local motel where the widowed owner, Annabelle, and her son offer him a job in exchange for board.

The three lonely souls strike up an awkward friendship, but monsters, both real and imagined, can’t be hidden forever. The plot and characters play with the mind, and the pacing reflects the story’s harsh landscape—a slow, riveting burn. In the Valley of the Sun was previously nominated for the Bram Stoker AwardⓇ for Superior Achievement in a First Novel.

Father Damien Modeste has served the Ojibwe on their remote reservation for over 50 years, but as he nears the end of his life, he fears that the people he has served will feel betrayed when his secrets and those of the possibly false Saint Leopolda are revealed. 

Should he risk everything to reveal the truth, or manufacture a false history to protect both of their legacies? With authentic character, an intricate yet engrossing plot, and lyrical, moving, and understated prose, this thought-provoking look at deception, impostors, and America’s complicated history with its Native populations will appeal to fans of Jones’ novel even without the vampires.

Ten years ago, Jorie and her two best friends went viral with their content about their favorite horror movies, but when they spent a night in the graveyard from the most chilling cult film ever made, Proof of Demons by the enigmatic Hélène Enriquez, their entire lives were upended forever, and a young girl was left for dead. 

In the time since, Jorie has been hiding from her former life with her son in Vermont, until one day a videotape shows up in the mail, and then costumed devotees of Enriquez appear in the woods near her home, threatening and filming her. 

Could this be the beginning of an entirely new and all too real horror movie? Layered and atmospheric with multiple plot lines merging together, this debut novel is as terrifying as the scariest movie you have ever seen.

“The Think Kid” is the only surviving member of the team that made the 1993 film Horror Movie. Although never released in full, the film has risen to cult status and is being rebooted 30 years later. 

Moving effortlessly between “Then” and “Now,” “The Thin Kid” speaks directly to readers, placing them under his spell, despite repeated warning signs not to trust him, explaining the details of the original film, its current reboot, and including sections of the original screenplay. 

The result is a suspenseful story that is indelibly marked by its relentless unease and disturbing revelations, about the characters, yes, but also the readers themselves.

Also on the ballot with Wehunt this year, Viel’s debut follows Calla, 25, big sister and guardian to brothers Dre, 23, and Jamie, 16, overwhelmed by her parental duties and plagued by a vivid and horrific nightmare, she is barely holding the family together. 

But when the siblings get separated and then trapped in Calla’s nightmare, they fight for their lives to bring the family back together. Told through all three siblings’ points of view in alternating chapters, readers will easily fall into this compelling story of sympathetic yet flawed characters. 

Viel turns real, relatable trauma into a terrifying and immersive supernatural Horror story, one clearly underpinned by love. 

This year, there was a tie in this category. The first winner (alphabetically by author) was Cathedral of the Drowned by Nathan Ballingrud.

Charlie exists in two halves. The first is his brain in a jar, stranded on a moon of Jupiter. The other is filled with murderous rage, hanging on the wall of a home on Earth’s moon, a host for the eggs of the Moon Spider. 

Both Charlies come together in the flooded wreck of a crashed cathedral ship, home to a giant centipede. They stalk each other in the haunted ruins, all while a new Moon Spider is preparing to hatch. This novella is a sequel to Ballingrud’s Crypt of the Moon Spider.

Another nominee in this category, Ha’s novella is also science-fiction-tinged horror. Still, it is earth-based science fiction set in a cosmic wasteland, told through direct and unsettling narration that begs the reader to participate in the story. 

Overall, readers can expect Ha’s writing to be very of this moment; he captures the world we live in now while adding original storylines with weird, cosmic touches. “Uncertain Sons,” is the titular story in a larger collection, meaning readers who enjoy this piece can immediately find more.

And the second winner was Wolf Moon, Antler Moon by A.C. Wise.

Merrow is a witness to the murder of five girls on Prom Night. She knows who killed them—men from her high school, so she runs into the woods to hide. Her grandmother had taught her that in the world, there are wolves and there are deer. 

One is the predator and the other, the prey. Merrow knows she does not want to be the prey, so she becomes the monster who hunts the wolves. Written like a dark fairy tale, with characters that can slip in and out of animal forms, this dark town will captivate the readers who pay it a visit.

Langan had two novellas nominated in this category in 2025, but this one pairs very nicely with Wise’s tale, as it also blends a fairy tale with a speculative horror story that follows a female potter who can grow and then use filmaments from her mouth. 

She then uses them, through much practice and pain, to create breathtaking designs on her pottery. Bizarre yet relatable and full of anger, Langan’s story serves as a biting critique of artistic institutions.

Soil, Estuary, Bedrock, Roots, and Air are the five named sections that ground this ambitious anthology of stories, poems, and drawings that dig into the anger, complications of assimilation, and racist stereotypes from which their Asian American Folk Horror is unearthed. 

As readers make their way through tales of ghosts, shape-shifters, and family dynamics, they morph into sinister nightmares of violence, body horror, cannibalism, and more. Hammering its consistent message home, this resolute volume delivers a reading experience that will terrify readers of all identities to their core.

Before Silk and Sinew, Murray and Flynn won in this category for their stereotype-busting anthology of 14 stories as varied in tone and type as the women writing them. Tales of dangerous science fiction, bleak near-future dystopias, reimagined folk tales, battle-ready princesses, and just straight-up furious horror. 

While the stories are individually entertaining, it is in the breadth of cultural experiences, storytelling styles, and originality of ideas as they pile on top of one another, that the preconceived notions of both the authors' identities and of the limitations of the horror genre itself will be smashed to the delight of readers. 

Too often throughout history, werewolf stories have featured men, but women are well versed in monthly cycles of blood, and it is past time for them to be allowed to show their rage without fear or shame.

Featuring stories by Delilah S. Dawson, Christina Henry, Gwendolyn Kiste, Ai Jiang, and an introduction by Rachel Harrison, this is an anthology that will have readers braying at the moon for more stories by these shapeshifting women.

Langan is considered a modern master of the horror short story, and this collection of 13 new tales of cosmic horror cements that legacy. Some stories are straightforward, and others are told entirely through endnotes. 

More than a few are set on or near the water. And my favorite, a horror story hidden within an essay about why he loves horror. Widely different, yes, but all are united by his unique, lush prose and ability to make the mundane strange and unsettling. 

With this collection of 25 stories, Chapman gives readers a glimpse into his crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed style of crafting visceral narratives, each of which will leave them psychologically unmoored. 

The stories are of varying lengths and levels of scare, hitting a range of tropes, all anchored by intense narrators burrowing through the pages and into readers’ bodies. Wreaking havoc on their nervous systems. And readers love every minute of it.

Piper presents 13 stories exploring the rage, terror, and horrors of the most difficult and transformative years of a young woman’s life. These stories use monsters, magic, and utterly original plots to draw readers in and bite their heads off. 

But these coming-of-age tales are not fueled by rage alone, as the characters (and readers) will leave this collection fully empowered.