New year, new TBR list – and what a year it’s going to be! This month alone we have new titles from Josh Malerman, Eden Royce, S.T. Gibson, Catherine Cavendish, and more. Read on!
Also, a note: we’re continuously updating release dates and newly announced books both here and on our 2021 horror releases master post.
blank text
blank text
January’s new horror titles:
- Bloodline, Jess Lourey (Jan 1): In a tale inspired by real events, pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. But something is off in the picture-perfect village. Her fiancé tells her she’s being paranoid. He might be right. Then again, she might have moved to the deadliest small town on earth.
- Scream to the Shadows, Tunku Halim (Jan 1): This collection of twenty shadowy tales from “Asia’s Stephen King” features frights across genres and themes, from the occult to human madness, and from modern technology to the deep history of Malay mythology.
- Taiping Tales of Terror, Julya Oui (Jan 1): A collection of stories that about the restless paranormal entities that walk among us that also serves as an homage to the author’s hometown and her favorite horror writers.
- Animal, Munish K. Batra, M.D. & Keith DeCandido (Jan 5): An enthralling crime thriller about a serial killer who targets those who brutalize innocent animals. Who is the real animal?
- The Push, Ashley Audrain (Jan 5): A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family—and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for—and everything she feared.
- Root Magic, Eden Royce (Jan 5): Eden Royce‘s middle grade debut arrives with a wondrous story of love, bravery, friendship, family, and the folk traditions of the Gullah people, filled to the brim with magic great and small.
- The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, Mariana Enriquez (Jan 12): Following the “propulsive and mesmerizing” Things We Lost in the Fire comes a new collection of singularly unsettling stories, by an Argentine author who has earned comparisons to Shirley Jackson and Jorge Luis Borges.
- Tales from the Hinterland, Melissa Albert (Jan 12): A gorgeously illustrated collection of twelve “lush and deliciously sinister fairy tales” (Kelly Link) by the bestselling author of The Hazel Wood and The Night Country. Journey into the Hinterland, a brutal and beautiful world where a young woman spends a night with Death, brides are wed to a mysterious house in the trees, and an enchantress is killed twice—and still lives.
- The Wind In My Heart, Douglas Wynne (Jan 15): Miles Landry is trying to put violence behind him when he takes up work as a private detective focused on humdrum adultery cases. But when a Tibetan monk hires him to find a missing person, things get weird fast. Charged with tracking down the reincarnation of a man possessed by a demonic guardian from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Miles is plunged into a world of fortune-tellers, gangsters, and tantric rituals. The police attribute the killings to Chinatown gang warfare. Miles–skeptical of the supernatural–is inclined to agree. But what if the monster he’s hunting is more than a myth?
- A House at the Bottom of a Lake, Josh Malerman (Jan 19): From the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box comes a haunting tale of love and mystery, as the date of a lifetime becomes a maddening exploration of the depths of the heart.
- In Darkness, Shadows Breathe, Catherine Cavendish (Jan 19): In a luxury apartment and in the walls of a modern hospital, the evil that was done continues to thrive. They are in the hands of an entity that knows no boundaries and crosses dimensions – bending and twisting time itself – and where danger waits in every shadow. The battle is on for their bodies and souls and the line between reality and nightmare is hard to define.
- In the Garden of Spite, Camilla Bruce (Jan 19): An audacious novel of feminine rage about the Widow of La Porte, one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history–and the men who drove her to it.
- Mad Men, A.R. Braun, Matt Leavitt, Willy Martinez (Jan 19): Mad Men is a collection of three disturbing horror shorts from authors living in the Midwest, exploring themes of man versus self, man versus man, and man versus creature.
- The Route of Ice and Salt, José Luis Zárate (Jan 19): A reimagining of Dracula’s voyage to England, filled with Gothic imagery and queer desire. The cult vampire novella by Mexican author José Luis Zárate is available for the first time in English. Translated by David Bowles and with an accompanying essay by noted horror author Poppy Z. Brite, it reveals an unknown corner of Latin American literature.
- Shiver, Allie Reynolds (Jan 19): In this propulsive locked-room thriller debut, a reunion weekend in the French Alps turns deadly when five friends discover that someone has deliberately stranded them at their remote mountaintop resort during a snowstorm.
- Don’t Tell a Soul, Kirsten Miller (Jan 26): Stay up all night with this modern day Rebecca. Perfect for fans of Truly Devious–a haunting story about a new girl in an old town filled with dark secrets . . . that might just kill her.
- Unchosen, Katharyn Blair (Jan 26): Katharyn Blair crafts a fiercely feminist fantasy with a horrifying curse, swoon-worthy sea captains, and the power of one girl to choose her own fate in this contemporary standalone adventure that’s perfect for fans of The Fifth Wave and Seafire, and for anyone who has ever felt unchosen.
- The Unwelcome, Jacob Steven Mohr (Jan 29): She should have known Lutz would never let her go so easily…. After a chance roadside meeting, Kaitlyn Brecker’s jealous ex-boyfriend pursues her into the Appalachian foothills, revealing the monster under his skin for the first time.
- A Dowry of Blood, S.T. Gibson (Jan 31): A lyrical and dreamy reimagining of Dracula’s brides, this is a story of desire, obsession, and emancipation.
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.
