Rebecca Barrow’s Doe is a YA horror novel in verse that uses sharp, incantatory lines to build a dual-narrative story of jealousy, an ancient deer-like entity, and a deal that costs everything. Full review.
horror book review
Rebecca Barrow on Doe: Inside Her YA Horror Novel in Verse
Rebecca Barrow’s Doe is a YA horror novel in verse about a cheer captain, a centuries-tired deer creature, and the dangerous pull between girls. In our interview, Barrow digs into feminist horror, female rage, and why she wrote the squad as a single hive-mind “we.” A must-read for fans of Bad Things Happen Here and dual-timeline horror.
Roost by Hope Madden: A Folk Horror Built on Quiet Dread
Hope Madden’s Roost is a literary folk horror novella that follows twin sisters Joy and Hope across four Easter birthdays in a slowly dying Ohio town. With Catholic dread, small-town American gothic atmosphere, and a winged shadow that keeps coming home, this 2026 Lacandon Jungle Press reissue proves Madden’s gift for restraint. Here is why this coming-of-age horror sits with you long after the final page.
By Dawn’s Early Light by Graeme Reynolds: Supernatural Horror Review
Graeme Reynolds’ By Dawn’s Early Light pulls private investigator Jack Carlton back into the dark, trading AA meetings for the hunt for a serial killer called The Witchfinder. This splatterpunk sequel to Night Bleeds Into Dawn blends occult detective horror, real human characters and unflinching gore — and a finale that truly rips.
We Call Them Witches by India-Rose Bower: You Will Never Look at Anything the Same Way After This Novel
India-Rose Bower’s debut We Call Them Witches is a folk horror that braids eldritch creatures, pagan ritual and a sapphic romance through a post-apocalyptic Britain. Our review digs into how Bower builds dread, writes family, and lands right on the front edge of where horror is heading.
Bad Things Happen Here by Mark Morris: Horror That Never Left Room 55
Mark Morris’s Bad Things Happen Here is slow-burn British supernatural horror at its most character-driven and most unsettling. Five former university friends are pulled back together after twenty years when the past trauma they never actually dealt with starts bleeding into their children’s lives. Published by Flame Tree Press on 30 June 2026, this is ensemble horror fiction with the psychological precision and atmospheric dread that defines Morris at his best.
Slasher Summer by E. L. Chen: A Bloody Love Letter to ’80s Slashers
E. L. Chen’s Slasher Summer drops seven friends back at the cabin where their favourite 1980s slasher was filmed, then lets the masked killer arrive on schedule. My horror book review digs into the Final Girl twist, the meta-slasher structure, and why this throwback belongs beside books like The Final Girl Support Group.
Mark Morris: Bad Things Happen Here and a Life in Horror
Mark Morris has been writing British horror fiction since 1989, and Bad Things Happen Here may be his most emotionally precise novel yet. In this wide-ranging interview, he talks about intergenerational fear, the Nordic folklore that shaped That Which Stands Outside, and what it actually takes to survive four decades in a genre that has buried far bigger names. Essential reading for anyone who takes UK horror seriously.
The Devil’s Banquet by Phil Lecomber: Dark, Occult, and Unmissable
Occult decadence, Nazi shadows, and a Cockney detective who won’t look away — Phil Lecomber’s Piccadilly Noir reaches its full dark potential
Our Top 5 Mark Morris Novels: Blood, Floods, Folk Legends, and Whatever’s Standing Outside
This week, Ginger Nuts of Horror is marking the release of his new novel, Bad Things Happen Here, with three consecutive days of Mark Morris. Today, we are running our Top Five Mark Morris novels, five books drawn from across his career that show what he does when he is operating at full power. On Wednesday, Jim McLeod sits down with Mark for an in-depth interview. On Thursday, we publish our full review of Bad Things Happen Here.
Vic Kerry Is Stuck in A Horror Franchise
Vic Kerry wakes up in I Know What You Did Last Summer—and he’s not scared. Between crushing on Jennifer Love Hewitt and exploiting Ben the Fisherman’s terrible wardrobe choices for a heat stroke victory, this horror interview template gets weird. Plus: why Velma needs Dr. House and Geordi La Forge.
The Kids Are Alright: Horror Books for 10 Year Olds
Horror books for 10 year olds that pass the classroom test. Twenty middle grade picks from a librarian’s 100 Book Challenge, backed by real pupil reviews.
Deadbeat by Maxim Volk, A Choose Your Own Queer Adventure Horror at Its Nastiest
Maxim Volk’s Deadbeat — the first entry in Slashic Horror Press’s Extremities series — drops you dead on page one and hands you a choice. A choose-your-own-path narrative maze in relentless second person, it follows a gay househusband resurrected by a naked cult and left to navigate undead existence with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Funny, nasty, structurally inventive, and built around complicity as its core horror mechanism, Deadbeat is one of the most confident debut novels in queer horror this year. Jim McLeod reviews.
Pam Kowolski Is a Monster! by Sarah Langan Review: And I Thought I Held Grudges!
Sarah Langan’s Pam Kowolski Is a Monster! (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2025) is a 119-page psychological horror novella about failed journalist Janet Chow, who attempts to expose her high school nemesis — now “Madame Pamela,” America’s favourite doomsday psychic — and uncovers a version of their shared past she’s spent twenty years getting wrong. Langan builds horror from the inside out: bitter, funny, and structurally precise, this is one of the most accomplished novellas published in horror this year. Read the full review at Ginger Nuts of Horror.
Home Sick by Rhiannon Grist Review: Folk Horror That Gets Under Your Skin
Rhiannon Grist’s debut novel Home Sick (Solaris, 2026) is a slow-burn psychological horror rooted in Scottish folklore and the particular dread of the domestic uncanny. Following Tamsin as her Scottish countryside fresh start becomes something far less clean, Grist builds claustrophobic menace from shared walls, unreliable narration, and a folkloric framework that deepens rather than resolves the horror. Read the full Ginger Nuts of Horror review of this essential 2026 folk horror debut.