Summer of Horror – 2023

This summer seems to have more horror releases coming out than usual, and so I decided to do a post highlighting eighteen horror books releasing this June, July and August that I’m very excited about. This isn’t a complete list, so let me know what I’ve missed in the comments!

Books are listed in order of their release date (dates subject to change) and linked to Goodreads. Here we go!

(I’m linking up with Top Ten Tuesday. Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Check out upcoming Top Ten themes on Jana’s blog!)

Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede. Release date: June 6th (Tor Nightfire). “By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child’s favorite ice princess. By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes. But when Gideon Green – her best friend’s brother – moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet.”

Night’s Edge by Liz Kerin. Release date: June 20th (Tor Nightfire). “Liz Kerin’s Night’s Edge is a sun-drenched novel about the darkest secrets we hide and how monstrous we can be to the ones we love most.”

Dead Eleven by Jimmy Juliano. Release date: June 27th (Dutton). “On a creepy island where everyone has a strange obsession with the year 1994, a newcomer arrives, hoping to learn the truth about her son’s death–but finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into the bizarrely insular community and their complicated rules…”

Burn the Negative by Josh Winning. Release date: July 11th (G.P. Putnam’s Sons). “In this incendiary mash-up of horror and suspense, a notorious slasher film is remade…and the curse that haunted it is reawakened.“

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates. Release date: July 11th (Poisoned Pen Press). “From bestselling author Darcy Coates comes Dead of Winter, a remote cabin in the snowy wilderness thriller that will teach you to trust no one. There are eight strangers. One killer. Nowhere left to run.”

Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi. Release date: July 11th (Tor Nightfire). “St. Vincent’s Orphanage for Boys. Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania. Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future… a family.”

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Release date: July 18th (Del Rey). “From the New York Times bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film–and awakens one woman’s hidden powers.”

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle. Release date: July 18th (Tor Nightfire). “A searing and earnest horror debut about the demons the queer community faces in America, the price of keeping secrets, and finding the courage to burn it all down.”

They Lurk by Ronald Malfi. Release date: July 18th (Titan Books). “From the bestselling author of Come with Me , five collected novellas from the master of terror, featuring possession, parasites and something monstrous lurking outside…”

Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine. Release date: August 1st (Sourcebooks Landmark). “The Push meets The Silent Patient in a gripping thriller that follows a woman convinced a sinister figure is going to great lengths to make sure her pregnancy never happens—while the men in her life refuse to believe a word she says.”

Wild Spaces by S.L. Coney. Release date: August 1st (Tordotcom). “Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life meets H. P. Lovecraft in Wild Spaces, a foreboding, sensual coming-of-age debut in which the corrosive nature of family secrets and toxic relatives assume eldritch proportions.”

Mister Magic by Kiersten White. Release date: August 8th (Del Rey). “Who is Mister Magic? Former child stars reunite to uncover the tragedy that ended their show—and discover the secret of its enigmatic host—in this dark supernatural thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hide.”

Whalefall by Daniel Krauss. Release date: August 8th (MTV Books). “Whalefall is a scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.”

The Vein by Steph Nelson. Release date: August 8th (Dark Matter INK). “It’s 1989 and failed detective, Syl Dixon, has returned to her childhood home in Pate, Idaho, to sell the old place she grew up in, back before her Gran mysteriously disappeared. But when the shriveled corpse of a local man is discovered inside the old silver mine the town was built around, Syl is unexpectedly asked to help investigate.”

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward. Release date: August 8th (Tor Nightfire). “Catriona Ward delivers another mind-bending and cleverly crafted tale about one man’s struggle to come to terms with the terrors of his past… before it’s too late.”

Fever House by Keith Rossen. Release date: August 15th (Random House). “A small-time criminal. A has-been rock star. A shadowy government agency. And a severed hand whose dark powers threaten to destroy them all.”

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas. Release date: August 29th (Berkley). “Vampires and vaqueros face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda.”

The Horror at Pleasant Brook by Kevin Lucia. Release date: October 17th (Crystal Lake Publishing). *I’m making an exception for this October release, since I plan to read it over the summer. “This Halloween, a malevolent, creeping horror invades a small, isolated town nestled deep in the Adirondacks. It cares nothing for this town’s secrets, prejudices, or flaws. Its only desires are to consume everything in its path and spread, until nothing else remains. It is ancient, pitiless, and unstoppable. It is the horror at Pleasant Brook.”

Are you planning to read any of these books?

Posted June 6, 2023 by Tammy in Lists / 39 Comments

Divider

39 responses to “Summer of Horror – 2023”

  7. Stormi

    There are a lot coming out. I am curious how they are going to make a interesting book out of a guy swallow ed by a whale.

    Reply
  12. todd

    So many here look interesting. I’m probably most drawn to Dead of Winter and They Lurk because I’ve enjoyed work by the authors in the past, and Whalefall because, well, swallowed by a whale! 🙂

    Reply
  13. Zezee

    This reminds me that I’ve yet to read a book by just Daniel Kraus. Also the synopsis of his whale book reminded me of a news story I came across couple months ago about a dude who got swallowed by a whale (something like that, somewhere in New England, I think; forgot the type of whale — I swear it was an actual news story despite my lack of hard facts, lol) but then it spit him out.

    Reply
  20. Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight

    I need SO many of these, Idk where to even begin! So I read Night’s Edge, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it! I am reading Boys in the Valley and Camp Damascus right now, so verdict is out on those. I will soon be reading Mister Magic, Whalefall, and Vampires of El Norte. Fingers crossed with those! And then I also really want to read Dead of Winter. I am a bit on the fence about Dead Eleven because I have a hard time with parents mourning dead kids, Wild Spaces, and Looking Glass Sound so I will definitely be looking forward to your thoughts on those! And we certainly know that Maeve Fly was a trip, heh! Thanks for sharing all of these, my TBR will be growing!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.