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Horror Book Reviews
Ginger Nuts of Horror has been reviewing horror books for 18 years. Here you will find reviews of new horror novels, novellas and short story collections, from small indie presses to the big imprints, across folk horror, gothic, cosmic, psychological horror and everything in between. Every review is free, independent and honest.
Lionhearts by Dan Howarth Review: Horror With an Axe to Grind
Dan Howarth follows Last Night of Freedom with Lionhearts, a political horror novel about grief curdling into hate somewhere Northern and thoroughly let down. Our Lionhearts book review looks at Henry Oswald, the staccato prose, and an ending that turns a depressed landscape florid, charged and brutal. Bring paracetamol.
Blacktail by Scott Hawkins Review: A Wolf, a Sleeping God and the End of Human Exceptionalism
Scott Hawkins ends an eleven year wait with Blacktail, a folk horror revenge novel told entirely by animals, in which a grieving half-breed wolf sets out to wake a sleeping Forest God and finish off the human race. Our review looks at the language of the Hunt, the squirrel death cult of Car, and why this eco-horror odyssey earns every one of its five stars.
Summer Coven Review: A Queer Cosy Mystery With a Corpse in It
Kat Hillis and Rosiee Thor return to Trident Falls in Summer Coven, the second Dead & Breakfast paranormal cozy mystery. Two married vampire innkeepers investigate a poisoned pet psychic, a coven of witches, and a missing person. A queer, funny, warm-hearted whodunit for anyone who wants their vampires kind.
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Devil Inside by Clay McLeod Chapman: The Horrormance That Makes Love Look Like an Infestation
Clay McLeod Chapman’s Devil Inside is a horrormance in the fullest sense: a demonic possession horror novel that treats its love story with total seriousness and is all the more frightening for it. Jordan died for two and a half minutes. Lilith has never had a body of her own. Our five star review of one of the boldest horror romance books of 2026.
Where the Roaches Are by CC Adams: Horror Collection Review
CC Adams returns with Where the Roaches Are, a horror short story collection set in a hospital where the real damage is social rather than supernatural. Echoes of Nigel Kneale, Mark Morris and Roald Dahl run through a book built to disquiet rather than terrify. Read the stories in the order Adams gives you, because the order is doing work.
A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-young: The Korean Lovecraft Retelling That Grieves
Kim Bo-young takes Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth and relocates it to a quarantined Korean fishing village in A Plagued Sea, her first horror novella in English. Translated by Sophie Bowman for Tor Nightfire, it turns cosmic horror into a pandemic elegy about grief, guilt and the people we cannot protect. Our five-star review explains why this hundred-page Korean Lovecraft retelling lingers.
The Minimalist by Kailee Pedersen – A Masterclass in Artistic Horror
Kailee Pedersen’s The Minimalist is a gruelling, unflinching psychological horror novel about a composer’s descent into madness. Published by St. Martin’s Press, it follows Mia Voss as she returns to her mentor’s Santa Fe mansion to complete his unfinished masterpiece, only to find the manuscript exerting a disturbing hold over her. Drawing from Pedersen’s own experiences as an adoptee and classical musician, this is body horror at its most intelligent—a meditation on artistic obsession, adoption trauma, and the sacrifices we make in pursuit of creative perfection.
The House That Eats the Dead by Max Doty: A Hungrier Haunted House
Tor Nightfire’s August 2026 debut from Max Doty reinvents the haunted house novel with no ghost at all, only a property that eats the dead and unmakes the record of them. Our review digs into the complicity horror at its core, the class and money threaded underneath, and why this domestic horror lingers long after the last page.
