2024 is shaping up to be a good year for book lovers with a taste for the darker side of fiction.
In May, Stephen King’s ‘You Like It Darker,’ a new collection of short stories written by the horror master, was released to critical acclaim.
And in the months prior, such titles as Nick Medina’s ‘Indian Burial Ground,’ Christina Henry’s ‘The House That Horror Built,’ and Melissa Albert’s ‘The Bad Ones’ did much to chill the bones of horror-loving readers.
There are plenty of scary novels still to come and we have picked out our 10 most-anticipated books for this article. Do you agree with our choices? Are there any other books you’re looking forward to? Let us know in the comments below.
Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi
Release Date: June 4
Synopsis:
Andrew Larimer has left his past behind. Rising up the ranks in a New York law firm, and with a heavily pregnant wife, he is settling into a new life far from Kingsport, the town in which he grew up. But when he receives a late-night phone call from an old friend, he has no choice but to return home.
Coming home means returning to his late father’s house, which has seen better days. It means lying to his wife. But it also means reuniting with his friends: Eric, now the town’s sheriff; Dale, a real-estate mogul living in the shadow of a failed career; his childhood sweetheart Tig who never could escape town; and poor Meach, whose ravings about a curse upon the group have driven him to drugs and alcohol.
Together, the five friends will have to confront the memories—and the horror—of a night, years ago, that changed everything for them.
Because Andrew and his friends have a secret. A thing they have kept to themselves for twenty years. Something no one else should know. But the past is not dead, and Kingsport is a town with secrets of its own.
Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Release Date: June 11
Synopsis:
In the late 90s, five queer kids, whose parents want them “fixed,” find themselves thrown together at a secretive “tough love” camp deep in the scorching Utah desert.
Tormented and worked to the point of collapse by hardline religious zealots intent on straightening them out, they slowly become aware that something in the mountains north of the camp is speaking to them in their dreams, and that the children who return home to their families have…changed.
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
Release Date: June 11
Synopsis:
Summer, 1993 – a group of young guerrilla filmmakers spend four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror film. Steeped in mystery and tragedy, the film has taken on a mythic, cult renown, despite only three of the original scenes ever being released to the public.
Decades later, a big-budget reboot is in the works, and Hollywood turns to the only surviving cast member – the man who played ‘the Thin Kid’, the masked teen at the centre of it all. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the crossed lines on set.
Caught in a nightmare of masks and appearances, facile Hollywood personalities and the strangeness of fan conventions, the Thin Kid spins a tale of past and present, scripts and reality, and what the camera lets us see. But at what cost do we revisit our demons?
After all these years, the monster the world never saw will finally be heard.
We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
Release Date: June 20
Synopsis:
Young couple Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they got on an old house in a beautiful yet remote neighbourhood nestled deep in the mountains. One day, there’s a knock at the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.
As soon as the family enters their home, strange things start to happen, and Eve wants nothing more than for them to leave and never come back. But they can’t – or won’t – take the hint that they are no longer welcome.
Then Charlie suddenly vanishes, and Eve begins to lose her grip on reality. She’s convinced there’s something terribly wrong with the house and its past inhabitants . . . or is it all in her head?
I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
Release Date: July 16
Synopsis:
1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton―and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge.
Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, the unfairness of being on the outside, through the slasher horror he lives but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.
No Road Home by John Fram
Release Date: July 23
Synopsis:
For years, single father Toby Tucker has done his best to keep his sensitive young son, Luca, safe from the bigotry of the world. But when Toby marries Alyssa Wright—the granddaughter of a famed televangelist known for his grandiose, Old Testament preaching—he can’t imagine the world of religion, wealth, and hate that he and Luca are about to enter.
A trip to the Wright family’s compound in sun-scorched Texas soon turns hellish when Toby realizes that Alyssa and the rest of her brood might have some very strange plans for Toby and his son. The situation only grows worse when a freak storm cuts off the roads and the family patriarch is found murdered, stabbed through the heart on the roof of the family’s mansion.
Suspicion immediately turns to Toby, but when his son starts describing a spectral figure in a black suit lurking around the house with unfinished business in mind, Toby realizes this family has more than murder to be afraid of. And as the Wrights close in on Luca, no one is prepared for the lengths Toby will go in the fight to clear his name and protect his son.
Incidents Around The House by Josh Malerman
Release Date: June 25
Synopsis:
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parent’s marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
But Other Mommy needs an answer.
A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons
Release Date: August 6
Synopsis:
In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller has no choice but to return to her family’s cabin–a secluded shack in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother’s untimely death.
Along for the ride are Jessup, Anne’s badly wounded partner, and Dutch, the police officer she’s taken hostage. As they wait for help, Anne discovers strange relics from her mother’s past and begins to unfold the mystery of her childhood at the cabin.
Then Jessup goes missing, only to turn up dead. Anne and Dutch bury her friend, but that night, he comes back and knocks at the cabin door.
Not a dream, not a hallucination, but not exactly Jessup, either. Something else. Something wearing her friend’s face. Something hungry…
So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison
Release Date: September 10
Synopsis:
Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life. Her husband surprises her with a birthday weekend getaway―not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi. Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity.
But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear Naomi has something else in mind. She wants Sloane to stop letting things happen to her, for Sloane to really live. So Naomi orchestrates a wild night out with a group of mysterious strangers, only for it to take a horrifying turn that changes Sloane’s and Naomi’s lives literally forever.
The friends are forced to come to terms with some pretty eternal consequences in this bloody, seductive novel about how it’s never too late to find satisfaction, even though it might taste different than expected.
The Queen by Nick Cutter
Release Date: October 29
Synopsis:
On a sunny morning in June, Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a new iPhone on her doorstep. She switches it on to find a text from her best friend, Charity Atwater. The problem is, Charity’s been missing for over a month. Most people in town–even the police–think she’s dead.
Margaret and Charity have been lifelong friends. They share everything, know the most intimate details about one another…except for the destructive secret hidden from them both. A secret that will trigger a chain of events ending in tragedy, bloodshed, and death. And now Charity wants Margaret to know her story–the real story.
In a narrative that takes place over one feverish day, Margaret follows a series of increasingly disquieting breadcrumbs as she forges deeper into the mystery of her best friend–a person she never truly knew at all…
Read More: 10 Books Like Stephen King’s You Like It Darker
Which of these books are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments below.