Catriona Silvey’s Vervain Hollow is a masterclass in folk horror and psychological suspense. Through the eyes of an unreliable narrator, this cult horror novel weaves a tale of memory and magnetism that lingers long after the final page.
horror book review
House of Wyrd by Maura McHugh: A Tarot-Infused Occult Horror That Walks the Path
Maura McHugh’s House of Wyrd is an occult horror novella that uses the Tarot’s Major Arcana as both structure and sacrament. When art provocateur Aly Wyrd vanishes on the eve of her visionary project’s opening, her estranged daughter Pallas must walk the Illumination Trail—a physical journey up an Irish mountain that mirrors the Fool’s journey through the twenty-two trumps. What unfolds is a mother-daughter reckoning wrapped in the skin of a magical mystery.
Enter Vengeance by Weldon Burge: A Fury Works a Murder Case
Weldon Burge’s Enter Vengeance is a paranormal police procedural that starts as a locked-room mystery and slides into supernatural dread. A guilt-ridden detective and a reluctant psychic chase Tisiphone, a Greek Fury dealing out revenge to those the courts let walk. Lean, unsettling, and built on old-fashioned suspense.
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.
Blood in the Bricks: Urban Folk Horror That Crawls Out of the Pavement
Blood in the Bricks proves folk horror doesn’t need fields or standing stones to unsettle you. Neil Williamson’s anthology hauls the genre into the underground, the surgery ward and the skate park, with standout urban horror short stories from James Bennett, Dan Coxon and Ray Cluley. A bleak, brilliant collection that finds the uncanny in the everyday city.
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.
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 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.
What Happened to Those Girls: Review of Carlyn Greenwald’s Chilling Thriller
Carlyn Greenwald’s What Happened to Those Girls drops three teenagers into a witch-haunted ghost town and lets only the bodies come back. My review digs into why this queer YA horror thriller, all grief and betrayal and small-town folk horror, hands its murder investigation to the one girl everyone wants to blame.