Horror has seen a resurgence this year, and 2026 promises to continue that trend. As a horror author, these are 26 spooky books I’m looking forward to reading in 2026:
This House Will Feed by Maria Tureaud (Jan 27)
Historical horror has been one of my favorite subgenera lately (think The Reformatory by Tananarive Due or Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito) so I am thrilled to see a book set during Ireland’s Great Famine. Amidst the devastation of Ireland’s Great Famine, a young woman is salvaged from certain death when offered a mysterious position at a remote manor house haunted by a strange power and the horror of her own memories.
We Who Have No Gods by Liza Anderson (Jan 27)
I am loving all the witchy books as of late (The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia and Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix were standouts for me this year) so I am thrilled to see that trend continue. Throw in some dark academia and I am sold. In a world of witches, a human woman must hunt or be hunted in this explosive gothic dark academia fantasy filled with war-bent rivals, guarded secrets, and simmering chemistry.
Cruelty Free by Caroline Glenn (Feb 3)
I’ve been obsessed with books that blend horror and the beauty industry for some time now. (Rouge by Mona Awad and Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang remain some of my top favorite books of all time.) I fully expect to be obsessed with this book and I will not apologize. A twisted debut horror novel in which a disgraced movie star returns to Hollywood ten years after the kidnapping of her young daughter, intent on seeking revenge.
Dollface by Lindy Ryan (Feb 24)
I was sold on this one as soon as I read Barbie meets Scream–two of my favorite movies combined? Can’t wait. Horror author Jill has just moved to suburban New Jersey, hoping to fit in with the new PTA moms and maybe not weird everyone out with her Final Girl coffee mug. But then a plastic face-masked serial killer begins slashing their way through town, one overly made-up mom at a time.
Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward (Feb 24)
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward wrecked me; it was absolutely masterful at subverting one of my least favorite horror tropes and making it fresh. I’m equally excited for this new novel by Ward set in the Rocky Mountains. A refuge for lost children may also be their prison. In the middle of the night, Riley pulls her younger brother Oliver out of bed, and the two run away from home. Riley is intent on joining a group of teenagers squatting in the abandoned ruins of an infamous movie star’s ranch, Nowhere. But the Nowhere Kids are fierce in defending their turf and their clan, and Riley quickly realizes that while she and Oliver may have left the devil they knew, this group is a new type of diabolical. For something dark lives in the burned shell of Nowhere, something which asks a terrible price for sanctuary…
Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran (Mar 10)
There are a ton of strong debuts in this lineup! I love a boarding school novel and I love it even more when it’s laced with supernatural specters and queer coming-of-age. In 1928, Emily Locke’s final year at the isolated Briarley School for Girls is derailed when Violet, the school’s brightest star (and a cunning beauty for whom Emily would do anything), falls to her death on her eighteenth birthday. As the body count rises and the students race to save themselves, Emily must confront the fatal forces poisoning the school.
Crawlspace by Adam Christopher (Mar 17)
Sci-fi horror is such a fun crossover, because when I think about it, few things terrify me like space does. Mission Lead Olivia O’Connor and her team from the Artemis Corporation, along with their military liaison, are in the final preparations for an undertaking that will alter the course of humanity. But this journey between dimensions is one they never trained for.
Bodies of Work by Clay McLeod Chapman (Apr 7)
I’ve been a Chapman fan since I read Ghost Eater a few years back, so I am extra excited for this novella! With similar vibes to Delilah Dawson’s Bloom, I think this will easily be a fan favorite this year. At sixty-six years old, Winston Kemper has always been a nonentity. No one notices him. No friends, no family. When he’s done with work, he returns home–a remote, single room apartment located above a garage–and that is where his true work begins. A supernatural revenge novella about a murderous artist haunted by the spirits of those he has killed.
Shy Girl by Mia Ballard (Apr 7)
I have seen soooo many people raving about this one and after moving publishers, I am thrilled we don’t have much longer to wait to read it. Lonely broke and depressed, Gia is desperate for a lifeline. When a wealthy stranger on a sugar dating site approaches her with a very specific offer, she can’t refuse.
Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill (Apr 14)
Another feminist literary debut that I am eager to read. The premise reminds me of one of my favorite short stories (if you haven’t read Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan, what are you waiting for?) and I’m always a sucker for a good mushroom horror. An isolated newlywed–covered in mushroom growths like all the other wives in her community–strikes a precarious balance between following her husband’s strict rules and pursuing an intense connection with a woman who makes her question everything.
The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer (Apr 21)
I think it’s unlikely you haven’t heard about We Used to Live Here if you’re a horror fan. Now, Kliewer is coming out with a new supernatural horror and I can’t wait to see what eerie twists he’s cooked up. A young woman accepts a caretaking job from Craiglist only to discover the position has consequences far greater–and more dangerous–than she ever could have imagined.
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker (Apr 21)
Ok, so as a self-proclaimed hater of books about the 2020 pandemic, I was skeptical of Baker’s debut, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng. Instead, it ended up being one of my very favorite books of 2025. You better believe this one is top of my list in 2026. In this lyrical, wildly inventive horror novel interwoven with Japanese mythology, two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds. One of these people is a ghost, and one of these stories is a lie. Something is hiding beneath the house of sword ferns, and Lee and Sen will soon wish they never unburied it.
Molka by Monika Kim (Apr 28)
Another debut that had me absolutely glued to the pages was The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim. So I’m thrilled to see this novel coming out about the “perilous world of voyeurism, scandal, female rage, and vengeance”. Dahye can’t believe her luck when she finds herself in a whirlwind romance with handsome, charismatic Hyukjoon, the heir to a multi-million dollar fortune. But then a shocking revelation threatens: the couple has been caught on a spy cam amid Korea’s growing molka epidemic, and the video is all over the internet. Her desire for vengeance is insatiable, and she will not rest until the men who have wronged her have paid in blood.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean (May 5)
Sunyi Dean was first introduced to me through her and Scott Drakeford’s incredible podcast, Publishing Rodeo (if you’re an author and haven’t listened to it, I highly suggest you check it out after reading this post). After the rave reviews The Book Eaters has gathered, I’m so excited for this one. The Girl with a Thousand Faces is a stunning Gothic tale set in historical Hong Kong that meshes ancient myths and local legends into a haunting story of ghosts, grief, and women who will not forgive.
Not Your Final Girl by Mikayla Randolph (May 5)
I love any and all plays on the “final girl” horror trope (Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, anyone?) so this one definitely piqued my interest. A feminist slasher novel fueled by female rage and haunted by gruesome murders, in this contemporary reimagining of Tess of the D’Urbervilles there can only be one Final Girl. Darcy and her high school friends haven’t gathered together in seven years. After a tragic murder on prom night, the group graduated and never looked back. But when the lakeside cabin they spent their summers at is put up for sale, they reunite for one last hurrah.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey (May 12)
I loved Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home, so I am very keen to get my hands on this one. It’s giving Nine Perfect Strangers and White Lotus in all the best ways. You were pure once. You can be made pure again. That’s why Celia is going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. An eerily seductive look at the desire for community connection and self-improvement–and the darkest places inside us all.
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo (May 19)
Inspired by the Aztec goddess Tlazolteotl, the goddess of purification, confession, and regeneration, this debut novel traces the thousand-year lineage of a new kind of vampire–the mestizo Filth Eater. Hopping back and forth in time from the Indus River Delta in 1099 to the Muslim Spanish empire of the 1400s to a flooded cyberpunk New York City of the future, Filth Eaters pulls at the threads of empire, greed, and climate collapse, but the beating, bloody heart of the story is our very human desire for the love that gives life meaning. Ancient Aztecs and vampires was the crossover I never knew I needed.
Bone of My Bone by Johanna Van Veen (May 26)
Speaking of vampires, I had a great time reading Johanna Van Veen’s Blood on Her Tongue. Bone of My Bone promises to be an equally compelling sapphic folk-horror. The year is 1635. Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to a relic’s power. As the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing choice–one that could tear apart everything they know…or bind them to each other forever.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo (Jun 9)
Peter Pan but make it horror. Need I say more? I’m a sucker for a classic retelling with an eerie spin. 1914. Wendy Darling works by day as a school teacher, and by night, she assists soldiers who have returned home from the Western Front. There is one mysterious patient who, despite all the care they’ve given him, is in a deep sleep, unable to wake up. One night, when he murmurs the word “Peter Pan”, Wendy is thrown back to a darker time, one that she wishes she could forget.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay (Jun 30)
Paul Tremblay utterly destroyed my heart after reading The Cabin at the End of the World. We are talking equal parts terrified and tormented, ugly sobbing while I turned the pages. Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep promises to be a lighter, but no less horrific, ride in a near-future tech nightmare as bitingly funny as it is horrifically believable. Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former semi-professional gamer, offered to chaperone a man in a vegetative state–one with proprietary AI implanted in his head–from California to the East Coast. Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. As their two lives intertwine, they become unlikely allies and fugitives on a collision course with reality.
The Brides by Charlotte Cross (Jul 7)
Before Dracula, there were The Brides… I am sat. Obsessed. No notes. Take my money and give it to me now.
Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle (Jul 7)
I love a campy, pop horror and this one is giving me similar vibes to Lisa Frankenstein and Beetlejuice. Very eager to get my hands on this one. Fashion influencer by day and grave-robber by night, Poppy Stringer is on call when Eddie Michaels–a flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar and queer icon–unexpectedly dies. All Poppy has to do is retrieve Eddie’s body from the medical examiner’s office, but what starts as a routine delivery quickly goes off course when Eddie wakes up.
I Do Not Apologize for My Position on Men by Rae Wilde (Jul 21)
Short stories got me out of so many reading slumps this year (some of my favorites were Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez, Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap, and Get In Trouble by Kelly Link) so I am stoked for this sapphic horror collection. People seduce monsters, monsters seduce people, and the line between person and monster loses meaning.
The Unknown by Riley Sager (Aug 4)
If you haven’t read anything by Sager, you need to rectify that. With all the usual thrills and twists you expect from the genre and then some, Sager’s propulsive novels draw you in with their eerie mysteries. In 1926, five women disappeared from a remote island in Vermont. Now, one hundred years later, it’s happening again.
Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison (Sept 1)
I read two of Rachel Harrison’s novels in 2025 (Black Sheep and Play Nice, both of which I highly recommend) so I am equally as excited for her newest book. With her signature wit, protagonists that feel like friends, and haunts that will have you terrified to ever venture out in the dark again, Harrison is quickly becoming one of my favorite horror authors. A recently divorced young woman attends the wedding of close friends only to find herself trapped as a perpetual wedding guest in a time loop of carnage and horror that only she can break.
Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm (Sept 22)
Last but certainly not least, this book is promised to appeal to fans of The Haunting of Hill House but from a bold new Palestinian voice. There is something haunting Nuhad’s childhood home in Haifa. Cats avoid its perimeter, strange noises come from within, and residents have been known to disappear entirely in its walls without a trace. A fresh and moving take on the haunted house trope.
Thanks for reading! Make sure to add these books to your TBR and let me know if I missed any highly anticipated titles. One thing’s for certain: horror isn’t going anywhere in 2026 and I, personally, could not be more excited.
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