Eek, it's Friday the 13th! If you want to lean in and embrace the spooky date, here are 13 recent adult horror novels you might want to check out.
Dead silence
by S. A. Barnes Investigating a strange distress signal, Claire Kovalik and her crew discover a luxury space-liner that vanished 20 years prior and board the vessel to find words scrawled in blood, strange movements and whispers in the dark. |
The Hacienda
by Isabel Canas Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, dark secrets, and the woman pulled into their clutches. |
The temps
by Andrew DeYoung Jacob Elliot doesn't want a temporary job in the mailroom at Delphi Enterprises, but after two post-college years of unpaid internships and living in his parents' basement, he needs the work. Then, on his first day, the unthinkable happens: toxic gas descends on a meeting in Delphi's outdoor amphitheater, killing all the regular employees and leaving Jacob stranded inside the vast office complex. The temps band together to create a miniature world that's part spring break, part office culture-until a shocking discovery disrupts the survivors' self-made paradise and drives them to find the truth about the apocalypse that brought their world to an end. |
Manhunt
by Gretchen Felker-martin Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate. Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe. After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons. |
Road of bones
by Christopher Golden While preparing to film a story about the Kolyma Highway, a Siberian road built on top of the bones of prisoners of Stalin’s gulag, a documentary producer and his crew must fight for their survival when they are pursued down this road paved with angry ghosts. |
Just like mother
by Anne Heltzel The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult they were raised in. For the past two decades, Maeve has worked hard to build a normal life in New York City, where she keeps everything-and everyone-at a safe distance. When Andrea suddenly reappears, Maeve regains the only true friend she's ever had. Soon she's spending more time at Andrea's remote Catskills estate than in her own cramped apartment. Maeve doesn't even mind that her cousin's wealthy work friends clearly disapprove of her single lifestyle. After all, Andrea has made her fortune in the fertility industry-baby fever comes with the territory. The more Maeve immerses herself in Andrea's world, the more disconnected she feels from her life back in the city; and the cousins' increasing attachment triggers memories Maeve has fought hard to bury. But confronting the terrors of her childhood may be the only way for Maeve to transcend the nightmare still to come... |
String follow
by Simon Jacobs In this razor-sharp suburban Gothic, a mysterious force targets five teens, feeding off of their anger, shame, naivete and madness to unleash its sinister plan. |
The fervor : a novel
by Alma Katsu In 1944, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, held in an internment camp in the Midwest, discover a mysterious disease spreading among the interned is linked to a demon from the stories of Meiko’s childhood, hellbent on infiltrating their already strange world. |
Nothing but blackened teeth
by Cassandra Khaw A Heian-era mansion resting on the bonds of a bride, the perfect venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends, brought back together to celebrate a wedding, find a night of revelry turning into a bloody nightmare. |
Woman, eating : a novel
by Claire Kohda Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But, Lydia can't eat any of these things. Her body doesn't work like those of other people. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London - where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated. |
Summer sons
by Lee Mandelo When his best friend dies of an apparent suicide, Andrew uncovers lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. |
Tripping Arcadia
by Kit Mayquist Working for one of Boston’s most elite families, Lena, when she discovers they are responsible for the ruin of her own family, embarks on a poison-filled quest for revenge that leads her into a hedonistic world where she must decide how much she is willing to risk for payback. |
Siren queen
by Nghi Vo Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill-but she doesn't care. She'd rather play a monster than a maid. But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes-even if that means becoming the monster herself. |