Published April 21, 2026 by Atria/Emily Bestler Books/12:01 Books

Published September 1, 2026

Some doors are locked to keep you in. This one was sealed to keep the end of the world out.

Harvey Covington wakes with tubes in his arms, no memory of his name, and four strangers who know as little as he does.

They call their captor The Host. He restocks their food without ever being seen and leaves nothing behind but a note claiming they chose this life underground. None of them believe it.

As starvation sets in and the group turns on itself, Harvey discovers something waking inside him — abilities that shouldn't be possible, and a truth far worse than any prison. The memories they lost weren't taken to protect them.

They were taken to hide what he did.

Beyond that vault door lies a dead and gray world. Cities emptied. The infected roaming in place of the people they used to be, hollowed out like zombies by something ancient that Harvey set loose with his own hand.

It has a name. And it remembers his.

The Whisper of Death is coming for the last thing standing between it and eternal life — and Harvey is the only one who can stop what he started.

Kevin Koelbl is a fiction author and storyteller who spent eight years serving in the National Guard before trading the uniform for the page. His writing spans dark fantasy, sci-fantasy, and beyond — genre-bending stories built around morally complex characters, high stakes, and worlds that don't play by the rules. Kevin believes the best fiction doesn't stay inside the lines, and he brings that same restless spirit to every story he tells. When he's not writing, he's chasing new experiences across the globe, convinced that the best stories live somewhere between the places you've been and the ones you haven't found yet. The Whisper of Death is his debut novel.

Published October 6, 2026 by Dutton

The Greers built their fortune on alligator bones.

Dartrine Beaumont believes her mother’s sudden death has left her alone in the world—until she learns of long-lost wealthy relatives living in Florida. Confused but delighted by the possibility of extended family, Dart travels to her grandmother’s stately Gilded Age mansion on Amelia Island for answers, just in time to stake a claim on an unusual inheritance: an alligator farming empire.

Her arrival at Greer House isn’t everything she hoped. Without warning, Dart finds herself in fierce competition with her grandmother’s arrogant heir-apparent, and tensions rise as threatening acts of vandalism escalate on one of the farms. More unsettling is her hostile grandmother’s fanatical belief that the danger stems from a curse; according to legend, a larger-than-life alligator hunted down by a bloodthirsty ancestor still haunts the family. Yet Dart can’t deny that the farm’s placid alligators hiss only at Greers, or that a shadowy figure creeps through the mansion’s halls, plaguing her with suspicions that the mythical alligator and monstrous, long-dead matriarch may have unfinished business.

As Dart uncovers the truth about her violent birthright, she faces a terrible accept her place in her family’s grim legacy or forge a new path by slaying a different beast entirely.

Add to Goodreads

 

The premise of this one had me completely sold. Florida Gothic? A crumbling mansion? An alligator farming empire haunted by a vengeful spirit? The bones (ha!) of something genuinely great are here, and I really wanted this book to deliver. It didn't quite get there for me, and I've been chewing on why.

The MC: Let's start with Dart. I wanted to root for her: she's grieving, she's an outsider, she's walking into a family that doesn't want her there. But her desperation to fit in with the Greers drove me absolutely crazy! These people are hostile to her from page one, and she just keeps trying to ingratiate herself with them anyway. I get that she is starved for family and connection, I do, but at some point it tips over from sympathy into frustration, and I lost patience with her faster than I expected to.

The Horror: The central threat, Ironheart, the alligator spirit haunting the family, sounds like a wild, creepy concept. And there are flashes of atmosphere where the swamp and the mansion genuinely drip with unease. But the tension never really builds into anything. Every time the story starts to feel genuinely unsettling, it pulls back. The family curse storyline resolves in a way that felt tidy rather than terrifying, and I finished the book feeling like I'd been promised something that never fully arrived.

The Setting: The muggy ambiance is doing heavy lifting here, and it does it well! Huneycutt clearly loves Florida's particular brand of gorgeous, rotting strangeness, and Amelia Island is rendered with care and detail. 

One thing I do want to flag loudly: there is a significant amount of animal harm in this book. Given that the story centers on an alligator farm, this isn't exactly surprising, but it's woven throughout and unavoidable. If that's a hard trigger for you, please go in prepared or sit this one out.  

If you're a die-hard for Southern Gothic and you can vibe with a slow, more character-driven read, there's something here for you. But if you need the horror to solidify, you might walk away a little underwhelmed.

Published October 20, 2026, by St. Martin's Press

From the bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence comes a new, genre-bending supernatural horror about a vampire broodmother fighting against her own monstrous descent.

Beatrice is a broodmother: a vampire responsible for nursing newly made fledglings through the first years of their unlife. She nests in an abandoned, isolated warren of office space beneath her patron's skyscraper, raising two fractious fledglings: Gorgeous—once a heartthrob, now to all appearances a living corpse—who longs for the return of the lover who made him immortal with all the fervor of a rebellious teen, and Fortunata, the scion of Beatrice's mistress, alien and ambitious in her desires.

But when Beatrice decides to take on a third fledgling, the product of an attempted siring gone wrong, teetering between vampiric purity and ghoulish depravity, Beatrice finds herself strained to breaking between the societal and physical demands of her position, her own ravenous hunger, and an obsessive need to discover what’s happening to her—because her body is changing too, transforming her into something even more monstrous. She begins to crave the taste of flesh, something anathema to all vampires, and to swing between desperate hunger and vicious power.

Desperate to master herself once more, Beatrice courts a mortal OBGYN who might be able to unravel the secrets of her unnatural anatomy. But soon their connection threatens the secrecy of her vampiric coven as well as the safety and development of her dependent nurslings… and the humans they stand to slaughter if left to their own devices.

Add to Goodreads

 

Motherhood in horror seems to be all the rage these days, but Milkteeth takes it in a brand new direction. Who knew vampires need mommy too?

Most vampire stories are focused on the change to vampire. Someone gets bitten by a vampire, dies, wakes up again, and bam, new vampire. Milkteeth takes it in a different direction and questions what happens in between life and undeath and life again. What steps have to be taken for a newly turned vampire to become a productive member of vampire society? What does feeding look like as a hungry newly undead? How does a fledgling learn to control its hunger so the world isn't littered with dead bodies? 

As a broodmother, Beatrice does all that and more for newly turned vampires or "fledglings". However, while she's trying to keep her fledglings fed, teach them to control their hunger, and generally trying to keep them from becoming a menace, strange things start happening to her too. The changes become more and more concerning, and her hunger is getting worse, her body is changing, and none of it makes sense. Beatrice turns to a mortal doctor for help, which brings a whole other set of problems. 

Instead of treating the fledgling as a finished vampire the second they rise from the transformation, Starling gives us the messy, prolonged, very physical process of becoming one. It made me look at her vampires as an entirely different creature instead of just a human with fangs. The broodmother angle brought something new and different, of course, but I think what I liked most about Milkteeth is that it made vampires feel weird again. Not sexy and brooding. Not tragic and moody. Just weird and very unhuman. I guess what I'm saying is that mothering made vampires less human instead of more. See? Weird. 

Published September 1, 2026 by DAW

What starts as a missing person investigation morphs into something much darker when an FBI-agent-turned-Catholic-priest and a junior constable arrive on a remote Newfoundland island

This murder-mystery-turned-nail-biting-horror is perfect for fans of religious horror like The Possession of Alba Díaz and the cult-classic movie The Wicker Man.

An isolated town. A missing priest. An ancient, hungry darkness.

When Father Shane Ryan is summoned to a meeting with His Eminence Cardinal Jacobs, he’s confused. A recently ordained priest at a small Maryland parish, Father Ryan has no idea why His Eminence would want to meet him. When he arrives, the Cardinal opens by laying out Father Ryan’s past as an FBI analyst. It seems a priest has gone missing, and the case is…unusual. 

Weeks ago, Constable Miriam Rideout from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary fielded a frantic call from a priest on a remote Newfoundland island. He begged for help, but then the line went dead, and no one has since been reported missing. When permission to perform a wellness check is denied by her superiors, Miriam takes some vacation time and books a ticket on the ferry. 

Thrown together with friendly but cagey locals, Miriam and Father Ryan soon learn that something about the island isn’t right. There’s a fishing port without boats, a town with no stores and no cars, and strange, bulbous purple wildflowers are growing everywhere. The two don’t trust each other, but they begin to learn that an alliance, however uneasy, is a necessity. Because something evil lurks beneath the island—something ancient, eternal, hungry—and neither it nor the uncanny islanders have any intention of letting these newcomers leave.

A growing sense of dread intensifies until it explodes in this pulse-pounding supernatural horror.

Add to Goodreads

 

We Are for the Dark starts out feeling more like a mystery than a horror novel. Miriam Rideout arrives on the isolated Bale Island to investigate a disappearance, and between the creepy location, strange townspeople, and all the secrets floating around, I was fully expecting a cultish religious mystery. The island immediately has that feeling of a place where everyone knows something you don't. There are enough odd details and suspicious characters to keep you wondering where the story is headed, but it was so slow to get started.

The atmosphere is the best part of the book. Bale Island is isolated, weird, and full of people who appear to know more than they are saying. There's a constant feeling that something is off. The island itself almost feels like another character, with its isolation and history adding to the sense that Miriam has wandered into a place she most definitely should have stayed away from. The townspeople did nothing to help that feeling. There's just enough weirdness in the way everyone behaves to make you wary.

Eventually, the story shifts from mystery into horror, and there are some genuinely creepy moments. Miriam being followed by something she can't see was unsettling, especially because you don't know exactly what it is or what it wants. The scenes in the cave were another highlight. There's something about being trapped with no idea what might be lurking in the dark with you that works every time. These moments weren't exactly terrifying, but they did create some good tension and gave the story a much darker feel as things started to unravel.

While I enjoyed the atmosphere and the mystery, I never found myself particularly invested in the characters. The blossoming romance between the two just felt contrived. I don't mind romance in horror, but it felt stilted and out of place here. Instead of adding to the story, it pulled me out of it, especially when there was a perfectly good mystery and increasingly creepy island to keep me interested. In the end, it is very integral to the story, but it was annoying along the way.

Overall, We Are for the Dark wasn't a bad read by any means. I liked the setting, the strange townspeople, and the gradual reveal of what was really going on. It didn't completely blow me away, but the unsettling island and its people, along with a few genuinely creepy moments, made it a decent read.

Published September 2, 2026

Ebon Hollow has always kept its secrets close.

When Jeni Michaelson returns to the rituals her family taught her as a child, the old rules no longer feel like superstition. Hold the threshold. Count the beats. Never answer what calls from the other side.

Then the house begins answering back.

As an unnatural tide approaches the isolated coastal town, Jeni and those closest to her uncover generations of hidden journals, forbidden rituals, and a secret buried beneath Ebon Hollow long before any of them were born. Something imprisoned beneath the island is waking—and it has spent centuries learning the voices of the people who keep it contained.

Every answer draws them deeper into a legacy built on sacrifice. Every discovery makes it harder to know whom they can trust.

David Baldus is a Marine Corps veteran and the author of Tides of Ebon Hollow, his debut novel.

After more than sixteen years of service in the United States Marine Corps, David traded military life for a career in recruiting—but never lost his fascination with dark stories, unexplained things, and the question of what ordinary people will do when faced with something they cannot explain or escape.

His fiction blends slow-burn gothic horror, supernatural mystery, family bonds, and atmospheric settings, with an emphasis on characters who feel human even when the world around them becomes anything but.

David lives in Oklahoma with his wife and family. Tides of Ebon Hollow is his first published novel.

Published August 16, 2026 

What happens when a story refuses to end with the final page?

When a series of mysterious deaths draws Chicago detectives Andrew Hudginson and Ben Turner into an increasingly disturbing investigation, one object keeps appearing: a strange bookmark that looks different to everyone who sees it.

It reveals the reader’s deepest desire and seems to make it real. But every wish comes with a price.

As the investigation leads from present-day Chicago to the secrets of a British family and Damascus in 1330, Andy and Ben uncover the history of an object that has survived for centuries, waiting for its next reader.

Some books are meant to be read. Others are meant to find you.

Eugene A. Stripe writes psychological and supernatural thrillers where history is never merely background, the supernatural is never an escape, and every choice has consequences.

Published July 7, 2026 by Union Square & Co.

Persephone Green doesn’t have a heartbeat. In a country where the dead has eerily lurked among the living for nearly two decades, even she knows its absence is not normal.

In place of her heart, something inhuman stirs, an ancient ocean she discovers twinned in the chest of Sebastian, the charmingly bizarre new student. When they’re together, they attract ghosts like a beacon, and when they kiss, white flowers bloom in the dead, autumn ground.

To exhume the truth, Persephone and Bas travel across the Midwest to the deserted facility where it all began. Pursued across state lines by writhing swarms of ghosts, militant government agents, and—maybe worst of all—her mother, they unspool a tangled web of conspiracies. At its center: a divine and devastating truth.

Forced to choose between an imperfect life that’s wholly hers or an otherworldly responsibility older than time, the echoes of Persephone's decision will alter the fates of all souls—living and dead—forever.

Add to Goodreads

 

I've read Cynthia Prith before and really enjoyed A Fairy Hunter's Guide for the Recently (Un)Dead, so I was excited to pick this one up. 

The premise of All Her Ghosts is interesting, especially when Persephone discovers she has no heartbeat. The world-building was probably my favorite part. Ghosts aren't some rare, terrifying thing hiding in the shadows. They're just part of everyday life. People have figured out how to live with them, work around them, and use salt and iron to repel them. They even have Remnant Safety classes at schools. 

Persephone comes across as a very sulky teenager. There are a lot of questions surrounding her and the world she's living in, and all the adults seem to be gaslighting her, her mom included. When she met Bas, her world brightened. The romance goes quickly from adorable to "I would die for you and also possibly die without you". I'm not a proponent of instalove romance, but there’s something sweet about the idea that these two always meant to find each other, especially when they’re both dealing with something so strange and isolating. 

Once things get rolling, the pacing is very fast. There's no shortage of action, and some genuinely interesting ideas. While I was never bored, I did reach the end wanting a few more explanations. Overall though, I liked All Her Ghosts. The world-building and the idea of ghosts being an everyday part of life were unique, and all the secrets kept me curious. It wasn't a new favorite for me, but I had a good time with it.