Ah, spring, that beautiful season–birds are singing, trees are budding, and the air is filled with enough pollen to choke a werewolf. (I’ve yet to encounter a monster that doesn’t immediately become less frightening once you’ve seen it sneeze.) This month, we’ve got new books coming from Alma Katsu, Jennifer McMahon, Premee Mohamed, Joe Koch, Paul Cornell, and many more!
Also, a note: we’re regularly updating release dates and newly announced books both here and on our 2022 horror releases master post. (Missed last year’s list? Right this way!)
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April’s new horror titles:
- One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve, M. Shaw (April 1): In this novella illustrated by Echo Echo, two halves of a human cadaver awaken on a cold morgue slab. The two distinct personalities, Left and Right, remember nothing of their previous life as a singular body. Bound by necessity to carve out an existence on the fringes of society, the two brothers have very different ideas of the life they want. Their impending schism will lead each on his own frightening path; one forward to a new life, one backward to the origin of their struggle. A surreal body horror journey that redefines familial bonds and what it means to be an individual.
- Under Her Skin, ed. Lindy Ryan and Toni Miller (Apr 5): Black Spot Books’ inaugural poetry collection spotlights women in horror poetry, centering on the concept of body horror, and featuring work from Bram-Stoker award-winning and nominated authors, as well as dozens of poems from women (cis and trans) and non-binary femmes in horror.
- Every Crawling, Putrid Thing, David Busboom (Apr 8): In his debut collection, David Busboom presents fifteen tales of dark fantasy and horror, populated by bizarre reptiles, occult serial killers, carnivorous protoplasms, and parasitic worms. A child faces down the giant ape destroying his parents’ marriage. A cheating husband wakes up to find his hand replaced by a mucous-covered tentacle. A Midwestern office complex becomes the setting for a ghastly, apocalyptic nightmare. Here, where weird pulp horror meets the darker sides of love and disillusion, you’ll find slime, and stink, and Every Crawling, Putrid Thing.
- And Then I Woke Up, Malcolm Devlin (Apr 12): In the tradition of Mira Grant and Stephen Graham Jones, Malcolm Devlin’s And Then I Woke Up is a creepy, layered, literary story about false narratives and their ability to divide us.
- The Doctor’s Demons, Maria Abrams (Apr 12): Child psychiatrist Hannah Cohen thought she could handle difficult cases. But medical school never prepared her for Elena. Nor the demon that’s possessing her. Hannah finds a way to rid Elena of her demon, but not without a price. Years later, Hannah has grown comfortable exorcising the demons of her patients. Until she meets Lucas. Whatever is inside of Lucas is far more powerful than anything she has faced. The denizens of Hell are angry with Hannah. And they sent one of their leaders to destroy her.
- Maggots Screaming!, Max Booth III (Apr 12): On a hot summer weekend in San Antonio, Texas, a father and son bond after discovering three impossible corpses buried in their back yard.
- Woman, Eating, Claire Kohda (Apr 12): A young, mixed-race vampire must find a way to balance her deep-seated desire to live amongst humans with her incessant hunger in this stunning debut novel from a writer-to-watch.
- Convulsive, Joe Koch (Apr 19): A collection of weird horror stories from Shirley Jackson Award finalist Joe Koch, author of The Wingspan of Severed Hands.
- End of the World House, Adrienne Celt (Apr 19): Groundhog Day meets Ling Ma’s Severance in End of the World House, a thought-provoking comedic novel about two young women trying to save their friendship as the world collapses around them.
- Passersthrough, Peter Rock (Apr 19): A father and his estranged daughter reconnect to try to understand a decades-old trauma in this haunting novel, part ghost story, part lyrical exploration of family, aging, and how we remember the past.
- The Devil’s Gift, Joshua Robinson (Apr 20): All twelve-year-old Daniel wanted was a girlfriend. What he got was way more than he bargained for in this thrilling debut novella by London-based horror writer Joshua Robinson.
- Revelations: Horror Writers for Climate Action, ed. Seán O’Connor (Apr 22): 100% of the proceeds from this charity anthology, featuring a star-studded table of contents that includes Stephen King, Paul Tremblay, Tananarive Due, Clive Barker, and more, benefit climateoutreach.org. With an introduction by Sadie Hartmann.
- Sifting the Ashes, Michael Bailey and Marge Simon (Apr 22): A collaborative poetry collection by Bram Stoker Award-winning writers Michael Bailey and Marge Simon—dissecting a fiery world’s relentless destruction. What might be found in the remains after all is lost?
- And At My Back I Always Hear, Scott Nicolay (Apr 26): From World Fantasy Award-winning author Scott Nicolay comes And at My Back I Always Hear, a new collection of eight tales of the macabre and the uncanny.
- The Children on the Hill, Jennifer McMahon (Apr 26): From the New York Times bestselling author of The Drowning Kind comes a genre-defying new novel, inspired by Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein, that brilliantly explores the eerie mysteries of childhood and the evils perpetrated by the monsters among us.
- The Fervor, Alma Katsu (Apr 26): From the acclaimed and award-winning author of The Hunger and The Deep comes a new psychological and supernatural twist on the horrors of the Japanese American internment camps in World War II.
- Leech, John C. Foster (Apr 26): Archibald Leech is the secret weapon Control unleashes when the fabric of reality tears and alien mathematics leak into our world. Control wields him like a barely understood instrument, because Leech can see through the curtain, and it’s enough to drive a man mad. But now his relationship with Control is slowly disintegrating as his need to create a safe home for his volatile and hard-drinking wife increases. Unfortunately, people in Leech’s line of work don’t retire so easily—not when he’s pitting himself against doppelgangers, demigods, and whatever the hell else might be waiting in line to give him a bad day.
- Rosebud, Paul Cornell (Apr 26): A multilayered, locked-room science fiction horror novella in which five sentient digital beings—condemned for over three hundred years to crew the small survey ship by the all-powerful Company—encounter a mysterious black sphere. Their course of action is clear: obtain the object, inform the Company, earn lots of praise. But the ship malfunctions, and the crew has no choice but to approach the sphere and survey it themselves. They have no idea that this object—and the transcendent truth hidden within—will change the fate of all existence, the Company, and themselves.
- The Void Ascendant, Premee Mohamed (Apr 26): The mindblowing, cosmic conclusion to the breakout Beneath the Rising trilogy. Seven years ago, the last survivor of Earth crashed through uncountable dimensions to a strange new world. Nick Prasad found shelter, and a living, as a prophet for the ruling family—servants of the Ancient Ones who destroyed his home. Now, he’s been offered a chance to rid the multiverse of the Ancient Ones, past and present and forever, although he’ll have to betray his new masters to do it. The first step is jailbreaking a god—and that’s the easy part…
As always, if we missed anything, let us know in the comments!
View our 2022 new horror release masterlist here, and view previous monthly new releases posts here.
