“Gingerly” is supposed to mean cautious and frightened, but it has nothing to do with red hair and everything to do with bad faith. From Erik the Red and Elizabeth I to Shirley Manson and Ginger Wildheart, this is a celebration of the famous redheads who never once tiptoed, with one gloriously snarky paragraph about Mick Hucknall thrown in. Ginger Nuts of Horror goes to bat for its own kind.
Horror book
If You Loved Fawn by C.N. Vair, Read These 10 Folk Horror Books Next
C.N. Vair’s Fawn is one of 2026’s most talked-about folk horror debuts, built around Tess Wynne, an Appalachian witch who rescues a red-mouthed, full-toothed fawn with unnatural appetites, and must decide what she is willing to become to protect what is hers. If that book has already got its teeth into you, this reading list was made for you. We’ve put together ten books that share Fawn’s DNA — from Emilia Hart’s multi-century witch saga Weyward to Cassandra Khaw’s blood-soaked fairy tale The Salt Grows Heavy to Genevieve Gornichec’s Norse folk horror The Witch’s Heart — each with a full mini-review. This is the definitive reading list for fans of folk horror, powerful witches, and women who bite back.
Fawn – The Devil Knows Her Name by C.N. Vair’s Debut Is Appalachian Feminist Horror at Its Sharpest
C.N. Vair’s debut folk horror novel The Devil Knows Her Name follows Tess Wynne, a century-old witch bound to her Appalachian land by a devil’s bargain, running a wildlife sanctuary against every threat the community and the devil himself can bring. Precise, slow-burning, and built on a genuine ecological and feminist argument, this is Appalachian horror at its most assured. Full review at Ginger Nuts of Horror.
Jeff Strand’s Fun Times at the Bloodbath: Horror Comedy Review
Jeff Strand’s Fun Times at the Bloodbath is horror comedy with teeth, a video game horror novel about a playtest no one can quit. The Bram Stoker Award winning author weaponises the attention economy and folds extreme horror into his sharpest comic engine yet. Here is why it gets under your skin.
The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley: A Vampire Coven in 1869 Paris
Sara Hinkley’s The Red Sacrament is historical vampire horror with a sharp political edge, set in a midnight Paris theatre in 1869. My review digs into the slow dread, the gorgeous gothic prose, and the way this queer vampire novel turns the Anne Rice tradition toward class, labour, and the coming Paris Commune.
Marion by Leah Rowan: A Feminist Horror Remix of Psycho
Leah Rowan’s debut Marion reimagines Psycho with one savage swap: the woman in the shower fights back and kills Norm. My review digs into this feminist horror standout, from its dark humor and dual-POV craft to its themes of female rage, sisterhood, and surviving domestic abuse.
Daggermouth by H.M. Wolfe: Dark Dystopian Romance With Teeth
H.M. Wolfe’s Daggermouth is being sold as dark dystopian romance, but it reads like social horror with the safety off. In New Found Haven, love outside your ring is a death sentence, feminine rage is a survival skill, and a forced marriage becomes a cage. Here is why this enemies-to-lovers opener to The Heart duology belongs on any dark fiction shelf.
Nothing Tastes as Good by Luke Dumas: Body Horror Review
Luke Dumas follows A History of Fear and The Paleontologist with Nothing Tastes as Good, a body horror novel that drops Emmett Truesdale into the Obexity weight-loss trial and watches the miracle curdle into cannibal cravings. My review digs into how Dumas turns fatphobia, diet culture, and the Ozempic moment into the year’s most quietly devastating horror.
The Past Wears a Mask: A Conversation with E. L. Chen
Slasher Summer drops seven friends, each named after a slasher icon, back into the cabin where a cult ’80s film was shot. E. L. Chen talks to Ginger Nuts of Horror about the Final Girl, slasher tropes, the nostalgia economy, and writing diverse horror into a canon that killed people like her first. From Sweetside Motel to a Final Girl she keeps marching back onto set, Chen is the literary slasher’s sharpest new voice.
Queens of the Crone Age by Tracy Fahey: The Finest Irish Folk Horror
Tracy Fahey’s Queens of the Crone Age (PS Publishing, 2026) wakes the Cailleach, the Hag of Beara, and threads standalone tales into one long incantation. My review digs into why this feminist folk horror collection, steeped in Irish mythology and the power of older women, is some of the boldest work of her career.
My Top 5 DNF Horror Books I’ve Lied About Finishing
Every reviewer lies about the horror books they didn’t finish. This is my DNF confessional, five abandoned novels, the page I quit on, and the daft personal reasons I never made it to the end. Folk horror, slashers, and one book that made me put the telly on.
Stephanie Campisi’s The Unfinished Business: A Cosy Ghost Story
Stephanie Campisi’s The Unfinished Business is a cozy middle-grade ghost story that treats grief and letting go with rare honesty. I dig into the craft, the comedy, and why this spooky middle grade ghost story for kids about found family and the dead we carry sits out in front of where the genre is heading.
Stephanie Campisi on The Unfinished Business and the Ghosts We Keep
Stephanie Campisi kills off her mentor figure on page eighteen and rehires her as a ghost. In this interview the author of The Unfinished Business talks through her middle grade ghost story: grief played for laughs, a factory fire turned labour satire, and the one death the book refuses to console. Required reading for anyone tracking where cosy horror for kids goes next.
Steal Me by Helen Grant: A Folk Horror Novella That Reads You Back
Helen Grant’s Steal Me is a folk horror novella built on fairy-tale bones, set in a small Scottish town where a bookshop sells each customer the one thing they most want to hide. My review digs into the cursed bookshop, the Grimm folklore at its root, and why this Scottish Gothic chiller about desire and temptation belongs on the same shelf as the folk horror revival.
While They Watch by Leicole Lang: A Horror of Isolation
Leicole Lang’s debut horror novel While They Watch channels the spirit of classic isolation horror, building on sequestered distress to instil some of the most intense chills in recent literary memory. Taking time to establish character before ratcheting up the spookiness, this indie horror masterpiece delivers a slow-burn dread that explodes into pure, adrenaline-pumping fear, refusing to hand-feed answers and staying true to its uncompromising principles straight through to the end.