Swan launches the Great Silence trilogy, set 200 years after the Empire of the Wolf series, with this dazzling and immersive epic fantasy. After Peter Kleist’s father buys him a Sovan Army commission, the callow officer confronts more than he bargained for at the so-called “fort at the end of the world,” located near the Sovan Empire’s front with its enemies, Casimir and Sanque. In addition to those adversaries, the Sovans stationed there are at risk from some possibly supernatural creatures, responsible for the grisly massacre of several soldiers. As Kleist struggles to survive, Sovan diplomat Renata Rainer joins an expedition investigating an unsettling claim made by two monks from a sect that regularly converses with the dead. They claim that the spirits have gone quiet, which may herald the Great Silence, a prophesied apocalyptic event. The pages fly as Swan alternates between the two plotlines, building the stakes of each sky-high. The worldbuilding is lush, enhanced by Swan’s rich descriptive prose, and the characters are complex. Readers won’t need to be familiar with the earlier series to be drawn in—and this promising start will leave them eager for more. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 11/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

Rebelein (Edenville) takes a novel approach to the small-town horror story in this collection whose 12 entries interlock to form a dark diorama of Renfield County, a Hudson River Valley community cursed by a historical episode of violent bloodshed. In “The Stain,” a frame narrative whose events are also interwoven between the individual stories, Rachel Durwood emails her estranged brother, Tom, a report cobbled together from “anecdotes and articles and newspaper clippings” about a local father’s inexplicable slaughter of his family in 1927. Blood and debris from the man’s blighted homestead have since been dispersed around the county, spreading the madness that fuels each tale’s horrors. “Red X” follows a young woman whose paranoid belief that she endured an alien abduction culminates in her horrific attempt at self-salvation. “Detour” is a Twilight Zone–esque tale of a motorist diverted down back roads to a destination whose signposts appear increasingly ominous. In “So My Cousin Knew This Guy,” a harried worker’s search for tranquility through meditation opens a window on a world of demons. Rebelein deploys gruesome physical horrors, including cannibalism and self-mutilation, in service to his elaboration of the haunting setting. There’s enough fear and mystery on offer here that horror fans will hope to return to Renfield county in future installments. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 11/22/2024 | Details & Permalink

Robson’s darkly enchanting debut centers on a small Northern European country, Stenland, whose female citizens live under threat of a curse. It’s impossible to predict when a new Skeld season will begin or which women will be affected, but those who are marked by the curse will spend three months unable to look others in the eye without turning them to stone. Kitty Sjöberg, Linnea Sundstrom, and Tess Eriksson grow up with the rules to mitigate potential harm drilled into their heads, including always waking up alone and checking the mirror for the marks before leaving the house. One morning, Tess’s mother fails to check the mirror, and, not realizing she’s been marked, unwittingly turns two people to stone. Robson teases out the consequences of those tragic deaths as Tess and her friends find and lose love and try to run from the magic that’s been nipping at their heels since they were born. The author infuses their coming-of-age with a fairy tale quality and makes the bonds between them feel believable and robust. This is sure to win fans. Agent: Andrea Somberg, Harvey Klinger Literary. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 11/22/2024 | Details & Permalink

Stross’s excellent 13th installment in his Laundry Files series (after Season of Skulls) comprises a gleefully nerdy novella and two bite-size stories. In 1984, at a time when role-playing games were viewed as potentially satanic, Derek Reilly and his teenage D&D group were swept up by the Laundry, Britain’s ultrasecret anti-occult agency, and taken to Camp Sunshine, where Derek has lived to middle age. When he learns that the campers will all be relocated during an upcoming renovation, Derek manages to escape to a gaming convention. His time at camp has taught him to recognize magical activity, so he’s the one gamer present who’s prepared to deal with a cultish LARP group attempting to conjure their deity into existence under the cover of role-playing. Stross follows this great bit of fun with two short adventures featuring mid-level Laundry agent Bob Howard. In “Overtime,” Bob works as a night duty officer over the Christmas holiday and must wrangle with Santa Claus, and in “Down on the Farm,” he investigates mysterious activity at the Laundry’s secure mental health unit. This is urban fantasy with its tongue firmly in its cheek, and it reads a bit like Terry Pratchett trying his hand at Lovecraftian horror. The result will delight newcomers and longtime fans alike. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this equal-parts creepy and sultry collection of 12 interconnected horror shorts from Castro (The Haunting of Alejandra), monsters drawn from Indigenous folklore rise from the shadows to wrest back their power and control over humans. The flesh-eating seductresses of the opener, “Carnival of Gore,” target wealthy and corrupt men during Rio’s Carnival. In “Only Fans,” Aztec god Huitzilopochtli bestows volcanic powers on the narrator, who goes on to lure men to join her revolutionary army. Each entry builds to the title novella, in which Valentina, another flesh eater, runs a motel as a safe haven for creatures like her. Castro has a powerfully sensual style, and part of the pleasure here is the union she creates between the desires for consumption, destruction, and sex. At times, the prose overshoots its poetic goals and lands at abstractly purple, and the descriptions of blood and gore occasionally feel repetitive. Still, for lovers of sexy gothic horror, there’s plenty here to enjoy. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 11/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

Herz (Red Stars and Shattered Shields) makes good on the fascinating premise of his latest anthology, bringing together 20 high-octane stories that add terrifying monsters to the battlefields of WWII. The creatures range from the familiar—the vampires in Peter Clines’s “The Night Crew”—to the more obscure, including taniwha, a monstrous serpent from New Zealand, which features in Lee Murray’s “Breakout.” That variety is also manifested in the list of contributors, which puts genre titans like Jane Yolen and Jonathan Maberry alongside relative unknowns. Herz himself provides one of the collection’s standout tales, the gripping, Soviet Union–set “Das Mammut.” In it, Germany deploys the eponymous weapon, a supersized “walking battleship,” and the Soviets summon a dragon to counter it. Jeff Edwards’s “The Fourth Man” is another highlight, told as an English academic’s confession to his priest about his battlefield clash with “a mountain-sized sea crab or lobster, with arms like a gigantic octopus.” All the entries provide gritty depictions of the fog of war and combat stresses that facilitate suspending disbelief at the introduction of mythic creatures. Fans of alternate history and military horror will want to check this out. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 11/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

Japanese horror artist and writer Uketsu makes a triumphant international debut with this eerie chiller. A university student becomes curious about the haunting, childlike drawings he finds on an abandoned blog. The more he scrolls, the more he gets the sense that the illustrations point to something sinister, leading him to question what exactly happened to a young housewife named Yuki, who is frequently mentioned in the blog, and how she’s connected to a larger web of unnerving events and deadly crimes. The answer emerges through a series of delightfully creepy illustrations and diagrams and the interconnected stories of their creators, allowing the reader to play detective alongside the characters. The result is part police procedural and part Pictionary. Savvy mystery readers may be able to decode the clues before the protagonist does, but it’s still enjoyable to experience the shocks and scares as they unfold. The gimmick is fun, but this book also proves greater than the sum of its visual tricks, with a surprisingly strong emotional core that will keep readers glued to the page until the unsettling conclusion. This intricate puzzle box is a must for horror fans. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/15/2024 | Details & Permalink

Song’s surreal and byzantine conclusion to the Hospital trilogy (after Exorcism) returns to a topsy-turvy sci-fi world. The timeline is so unclear that the characters themselves debate whether it is 1976, 2049, or 2066, but 3D printing technology has advanced enough to produce human beings and, readers are told, Vincent van Gogh died in 1989 after producing both Starry Night and Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. Against this impossible backdrop, 40-year-old Yang Wei, whose narrative unfolds in second person, is reintroduced following his drowning death after the sinking of a hospital ship affiliated with the Allied forces in a world war. His resurrection comes through immersion in the Pool of Dead Souls, which “looks like a massive piece of gauze soaked in blood and pus” but is actually a medicinal liquid polymer. The meandering plot, which also involves space travel, is exhausting, and the lead, an admitted murderer and necrophiliac, is too repellent for most readers to be invested in his bizarre odyssey. This is strictly for series completists. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/15/2024 | Details & Permalink

This overloaded supernatural thriller from Duncan (Headcase) toggles between past and present to reveal the surprising link between Tom Baxter, a Victorian schoolchild, and Simon Beaver, a would-be journalist supporting himself by writing restaurant reviews and tutoring. Tom’s father, Frank, lost his job when he became blind, forcing Tom to try his best to provide for his parents and younger sister. This responsibility brings him into the orbit of two repellent figures. Haberdasher Theodore Hush insists that Tom steal a watch for him in return for food, and then, when Tom is caught, the intended victim, Arthur Snipe, withdraws charges in exchange for Tom working in Snipe’s paint business, which is actually a front to distribute narcotics. This Dickensian plot is harrowing and easy to get sucked into, but the story loses steam in the modern sections when Tom surfaces as a ghost and teams up with Simon through a kind of spirit world “exchange program.” Simon, meanwhile, accidentally becomes embroiled with a drug ring himself through one of his tutoring clients. The past is far more vivid than the present, and the device connecting the two eras feels clunky. Readers will be frustrated. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/15/2024 | Details & Permalink

Becker’s enchanting debut tracks the magical healing abilities passed down through one family for several generations. In 1942 Rouen, France, Helene works at Hôtel-Dieu, a convent turned military hospital. Already uncertain in the innate skills as a healer she’s inherited through her maternal line, Helene encounters an unforeseen obstacle to using her gift in the form of her devout cousin, Cecelia, who also works at the hospital and believes that their powers come from the devil. But in the aftermath of the disastrous Allied landing at Dieppe, Helene cannot resist using her magic to save one of the soldiers from the brink of death. In 2019, Helene’s great-granddaughter Louise is driving home from a party with her best friend, Peter, when they get into a car accident, sending Louise’s life reeling in a direction she never expected. Family secrets come to light as Louise’s and Helene’s paths begin to mirror each other. Becker skillfully braids the timelines to create a powerful ode to the strength of those who have dedicated their lives to healing and caregiving work. The magical elements are light enough that this is sure to have crossover appeal. Fans of Heather Webb and Alice Hoffman ought to take a look. Agent: Jessica Felleman, Jennifer Lyons Literary. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 11/15/2024 | Details & Permalink