This Month in New Horror Books: August 2021

It’s another killer month for new horror books, friends – as amazing as July’s new releases were, August’s might be even better! Read on for the full slate of fresh horror coming this month, featuring new books from Stephen Graham Jones, Brian Evenson, Hailey Piper, Zoje Stage, & more!

Also, a note: we’re continuously updating release dates and newly announced books both here and on our 2021 horror releases master post.

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August’s new horror titles:

• Queen of Teeth, Hailey Piper (Aug 1): Within forty-eight hours, Yaya Betancourt will go from discovering teeth between her thighs to being hunted by one of the most powerful corporations in America. She assumes the vagina dentata is a side effect of a rare genetic condition. But, when a pharmaceutical company upend her life, she realizes her secondary teeth might be evidence of a new experiment for which she’s the most advanced test tube… a situation worsened when Yaya’s condition sprouts horns, tentacles, and a mind of its own. Note: This title was available in a limited hardcover run in June 2021 and is in paperback as of August 1.
• All’s Well, Mona Awad (Aug 3): From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny, a darkly funny novel about a theater professor suffering chronic pain, who in the process of staging a troubled production of Shakespeare’s most maligned play, suddenly and miraculously recovers.
• Billy Summers, Stephen King (Aug 3): King’s newest follows a killer-for-hire who only kills the worst of the worst, and who’s very, very good at what he does. When he’s hired for his biggest job yet, though, everything starts to go horribly wrong.
• Chilling Cocktails: Classic Cocktails With A Horrifying Twist, Jason Ward (Aug 3): These chilling concoctions inspired by classic works of literature and scary movies will put you in the mood to enjoy the darkest and stormiest of nights. Included are recipes for 50 thematic cocktails such as Redrum, Scrèam de Menthe, and Turn of the Screwdriver—along with a dozen equally creepy party snacks to add more shivers to your evening.
• The Dead and the Dark, Courtney Gould (Aug 3): Courtney Gould’s thrilling YA debut is about the things that lurk in dark corners, the parts of you that can’t remain hidden, and about finding home in places—and people—you didn’t expect.
• The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, Brian Evenson (Aug 3): In this new short story collection, Brian Evenson envisions a chilling future beyond the Anthropocene that forces excruciating decisions about survival and self-sacrifice in the face of toxic air and a natural world torn between revenge and regeneration. Combining psychological and ecological horror, each tale thrums with Evenson’s award-winning literary craftsmanship, dark humor, and thrilling suspense.
• A Lesson in Vengeance, Victoria Lee (Aug 3): For fans of Wilder Girls and Ninth House: a dark, twisty, atmospheric thriller about a boarding school haunted by its history of witchcraft and two girls dangerously close to digging up the past.
• The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie, M. Rickert (Aug 3): A fantastical mystery brimming with flawed, tragic characters and a soupçon of magic, from the author of The Memory Garden.
• Tidepool, Nicole Willson (Aug 3): Lovecraftian dark fantasy gets a modern treatment in this terrifying debut novel. When Sorrow’s brother Henry disappears while on a business trip, she travels to Tidepool, the last place Henry is known to have visited. Residents of the small, shabby oceanside town can’t quite meet Sorrow’s eyes when she asks about her brother. And when she discovers the town’s dark secret, some denizens of Tidepool—human and otherwise—are hell-bent on making sure Sorrow never leaves their forsaken town.
• When the Reckoning Comes, LaTanya McQueen (Aug 3): A haunting novel about a Black woman who returns to her hometown for a plantation wedding and the horror that ensues as she reconnects with the blood-soaked history of the land and the best friends she left behind.
• Oblivion in Flux, Maxwell Ian Gold (Aug 6): The debut prose poetry collection of Maxwell I. Gold takes the reader on a trip along demented railways and past rhizomatic tubular dreamscapes, to find themselves transported to plastic cities where the Cyber Gods sit on thrones of ivory and bone. With over 50 poems in this volume, you’ll discover artifacts and forgotten places, ruins and dark secrets. Oblivion in Flux intertwines prosaic story-telling and poetic visions, to tell the narrative of the Cyber Gods and those who have met them. The book will feature original poems and reprints as well as a brand-new collaborative prose poem written by the author and Bram Stoker Award winner and SFPA Grandmaster, Linda D. Addison.
• Mark of the Wicked, Georgia Bowers (Aug 10): A young witch tries to unravel the mystery of who is framing her for dark magic in Georgia Bowers’ creepy YA debut fantasy, Mark of the Wicked.
• Mine, Delilah S. Dawson (Aug 10): A twisty, terrifying ghost story about twelve-year-old Lily, her creepy new home in Florida, and the territorial ghost of the young girl who lived there before her.
• We Feed the Dark: Tales of Terror, Loss, and the Supernatural, William P. Simmons (Aug 16): The first collection in fifteen years by critically acclaimed author William P. Simmons. This September, he returns with a stunning and heart-wrenching collection of interconnected fiction, autobiography, and revelation. These atmospheric and uncompromising stories chart the terror, loss, and supernatural dread hiding within the everyday. Simmons tells us a terrible truth: we feed the dark, nourishing it with our fears and desires. In turn, we are fed by it. This collection subverts reality, asking where fiction ends, and life begins.
• August’s Eyes, Glenn Rolfe (Aug 17): When dreams start bleeding into reality, a social worker is forced to face the mistakes of his past. A serial killer has found a way to make his land of graveyards a sinister playground to be bent at his sadistic will. The secrets behind August’s eyes will bring two worlds together, and end in a cataclysm of pain and ruin.
• Chasing the Boogeyman, Richard Chizmar (Aug 17): The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Gwendy’s Button Box brings his signature “thrilling, page-turning” prose to this story of small-town evil that combines the storytelling of Stephen King with the true-crime suspense of Michelle McNamara.
• Dagger Hill, Devon Taylor (Aug 17): Stranger Things meets One of Us Is Lying in this creepy paranormal mystery about four friends who find themselves hunted by a malevolent presence in their sleepy hometown.
• Getaway, Zoje Stage (Aug 17): A cinematic and terrifying new thriller from the bestselling author of Baby Teeth and Wonderland, about three friends who hike into the wilds of the Grand Canyon—only to find it’s not so easy to leave the world behind.
• It’s Your Funeral, Kathy Benjamin (Aug 17): Put the fun back in funeral with this hilarious yet practical guide to planning the funeral of your dreams! From selecting your burial outfit to your funeral theme, guided-journal elements and worksheets will help you think outside the coffin.
• Sometimes We’re Cruel and Other Stories, J.A.W. McCarthy (Aug 17): Obsession. Selfishness. Cruelty. Doppelgängers. In these dark, speculative stories—six reprints and six never before published, including the novelette “Girls Tied to Trees”—J.A.W. McCarthy explores how far humans and the not-quite-human will go to tame the darkness in their world and within themselves.
• Bad Witch Burning, Jessica Lewis (Aug 24): For fans of Lovecraft Country and Candyman comes a witchy story full of Black girl magic as one girl’s dark ability to summon the dead offers her a chance at a new life, while revealing to her an even darker future.
• The Deer Kings, Wendy N. Wagner (Aug 27): In 1989, Gary Sheldon and his friends created their own saint. In 2018, they discover it’s become a god. Gary thought he’d escaped Kingston, Oregon, the town where his parents died and where one tragic summer he and a group of outcast teens turned to the supernatural to protect themselves from a deranged drug dealer. But when his wife lands her dream job as a high school principal, he is forced to return to his hometown. As Gary reconnects with old friends and his son thrives on the football team, the past feels like a distant memory. But unsettling encounters and mutilated animals in the woods reveal that the Deer Saint is still at work. Now Gary must look into his past to find answers: Who is making sacrifices to the Deer Saint? And what do they want with his family?
• My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones (Aug 31): In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town, Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest novel from horror master Stephen Graham Jones.
• Red X, David Demchuk (Aug 31): A hunted community. A haunted author. A horror that spans centuries. Men are disappearing from Toronto’s gay village. One by one, stalked and vanished, they leave behind small circles of baffled, frightened friends. Against the shifting backdrop of homophobia, from the HIV/AIDS crisis and riots against raids to gentrification and police brutality, the survivors face inaction from the law and disinterest from society at large. But as the missing grow in number, those left behind begin to realize that whoever or whatever is taking these men has been doing so for longer than is humanly possible.
• Revelator, Daryl Gregory (Aug 31): From the acclaimed author of Spoonbenders comes the gripping southern gothic tale of a family’s mysterious religion, and the daughter who turns her back on their god.
• The Woods Are Always Watching, Stephanie Perkins (Aug 31): A traditional backwoods horror story set–first page to last–in the woods of the Pisgah National Forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Two girls go backpacking in the woods. Things go very wrong. And, then, their paths collide with a serial killer.

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As always, if we missed anything, let us know in the comments!

View our 2021 new horror release masterlist here, and view previous monthly new releases posts here.

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