This Month in New Horror Books: February 2021

This Month in New Horror Books: February 2021

This Month in New Horror Books: February 2021 - 169

It’s the worst part of winter (at least in this hemisphere), so why not try insulating your house with books? Even if it doesn’t work, hey, reading material! Read on for 20+ new horror books on sale this month, including new work from C.J. Tudor, Cynthia Pelayo, Ramsey Campbell, Isabel Yap, Gemma Files, and 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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February’s new horror titles:

  • The Blood Prince of Langkasuka, Tutu Dutta (Feb 1): A vampire novel set against the political landscape of 12th century Southeast Asia, following a prince whose chance encounter with an irresistible woman leaves him craving blood.
  • The Dead Hours of Night, Lisa Tuttle (Feb 2): In a career spanning almost 50 years, Lisa Tuttle has proven herself a master of the weird tale, and now this new collection of twelve unsettling stories – some never previously collected – offers readers a chance to discover some of her finest work.
  • Spec Ops Z, Gavin G Smith (Feb 2): A handsome new re-issue of a high-octane military-SF, as Russian Spetsnaz commandos are turned into zombies in ‘80s New York.
  • What Big Teeth, Rose Szabo (Feb 2): Rose Szabo’s YA debut is a dark and thrilling novel about a teen girl who returns home to her strange, wild family after years of estrangement, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls.
  • The Children God Forgot, Graham Masterton (Feb 4): Forsake the living. Forget the dead. Fear the children. A brand new chilling page-turner from the master of horror
  • The Burning Girls, C.J. Tudor (Feb 9): An unconventional vicar must exorcise the dark past of a remote village haunted by death and disappearances in this explosive and unsettling thriller from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man.
  • Children of Chicago, Cynthia Pelayo (Feb 9): A modern-day homage to the fairy tale, as well a love letter to the underworld of Chicago. Chicago detective Lauren Medina’s latest call brings her to investigate a brutally murdered teenager in Humboldt Park. She recognizes the crime, and the new graffiti popping up all over the city, for what it really means: the Pied Piper has returned. When more children are found dead, Lauren is certain her suspicion is correct. She knows she must find out who has summoned him again, and why, before more people die.
  • A Flood of Posies, Tiffany Meuret (Feb 9): When a storm of biblical proportions strikes, two wayward sisters are begrudgingly forced together as the rain waters rise, each attempting to survive both the flood, the monstrous creatures called Posies, and each other.
  • Rafael, Laurell K. Hamilton (Feb 9): Rafael, king of the wererats, must fight to the death to defend his crown. He wants Anita Blake, one of his closest allies, with him as he faces an opponent unlike any he’s faced before. He will ask Anita to risk everything to be at his side.…
  • The Repeater Book of the Occult: Tales from the Darkside, ed. Tariq Goddard & Eugene Thacker (Feb 9): A selection of Repeater authors choose their favorite forgotten horror stories for this new anthology, with each also writing a critical introduction for the story of their choice.
  • Hearts Strange and Dreadful, Tim McGregor (Feb 15): In 1820s New England, Hester Stokely, an orphan with unusual abilities, struggles to find her place in the pious town of Wickstead. When a deadly plague comes to town, Hester becomes indispensable as a healer. Yet as Hester watches the town’s residents rapidly fall ill, she realizes that something more dangerous than disease has come to Wickstead.
  • In That Endlessness, Our End, Gemma Files (Feb 15): Hot on the heels of her This Is Horror Award-winning short story collection Spectral Evidence, critically-acclaimed horror author Gemma Files compiles fifteen more of her most startling recent nightmares—a creepily seductive downward spiral of dark poetry and existential dread, entirely suitable to the slow apocalypse going on all around us.
  • The Harrowed Paths, ed. David Annandale (Feb 16): Explore the darker, mysterious side of Warhammer Fiction with this great anthology of stories from Warhammer Horror. This collection features tales of the grim and uncanny by Graham McNeill, Jake Ozga, Lora Gray and more.
  • The Searching Dead, Ramsey Campbell (Feb 16): On a school trip to France teenager, Dominic Sheldrake begins to suspect his teacher Christian Noble has reasons to be there as secret as they are strange. Meanwhile a widowed neighbor joins a church that puts you in touch with your dead relatives, who prove much harder to get rid of. As Dominic and his friends Roberta and Jim investigate, they can’t suspect how much larger and more terrible the link between these mysteries will become.
  • The Bone Fire, György Dragomán (Feb 23): From the award-winning and internationally acclaimed European writer comes a chilling and suspenseful novel set in the wake of a violent revolution, about a young girl rescued from an orphanage by an otherworldly grandmother she’s never met.
  • Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons, Keith Rosson (Feb 23): With grace, imagination, and a brazen gallows humor, Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons merges the fantastic and the everyday, and includes a number of Rosson’s unpublished stories, as well as award-winning favorites.
  • The Loosening Skin, Aliya Whiteley (Feb 23): A gripping and strange story of shedding skins, love and moving on from the award-winning author of The Beauty. Includes an exclusive short story set in the world of The Loosening Skin.
  • Never Have I Ever, Isabel Yap (Feb 23): Spells and stories, urban legends and immigrant tales: the magic in Isabel Yap’s debut collection jumps right off the page, from the joy in her new novella, “A Spell for Foolish Hearts” to the terrifying tension of the urban legend “Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez.”
  • The Russian Cage, Charlaine Harris (Feb 23): Bestselling author Charlaine Harris is at her best in this alternate history of the United States where magic is an acknowledged but despised power in this third installment of the Gunnie Rose series.
  • The Upstairs House, Julia Fine (Feb 23): A provocative meditation on new motherhood—Shirley Jackson meets The Awakening—in which a postpartum woman’s psychological unraveling becomes intertwined with the ghostly appearance of children’s book writer Margaret Wise Brown.
  • Shelter for the Damned, Mike Thorn (Feb 26): A scary, fast-paced horror novel that doubles as an unflinching study of suburban violence, masculine conditioning, and adolescent rage.
  • Midnight Doorways, Usman T. Malik (February): From the winner of The British Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award comes a short story collection highlighting the scope of speculative art and literature in Pakistan.
  • Paradise Club, Tim Meyer (February): Welcome to Paradise. Sandy beaches. Crystalline waters. An all-inclusive resort with virtually everything you can think of. A true idyllic paradise, and now the site of a dangerous game pitting the hotel’s guests against a gang of bloodthirsty maniacs. A team of killers have been unleashed, and they won’t stop until every single guest is dead. Let the mayhem begin.

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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