Horror – Marked for Plot

Green Fuse Burning – Introspective Horror

I’ve always enjoyed objects as a frame through which stories are told. The Empress of Salt and Fortune comes to mind, which leverages museum-style artifacts and descriptions through which a story is told. Green Fuse Burning takes a different route: paintings! This is an unabashedly queer indigenous horror that feels multidimensional and more thoughtful than genre fiction normally goes for. It’s the type of book that has a very specific audience in mind, but for whom this book is likely perfection.

The Premise:
When Rita’s girlfriend goes behind her back to get Rita an artist residency in the town her father grew up in, Rita isn’t sure it’s a good idea. The isolation and unfriendly locals light the coal of creativity, however, along with the lingering trauma that haunts her life. This story is told through the lens of the six mixed-media landscapes she paints during her residency, which trace a dark path through her mind.

Read if You Like: books about mental health and suicidal ideation, mushroom horror, internal monologue getting the spotlight

Avoid if You Dislike: racist small town residents, stories where ‘nothing happens’, bad audiobook narrators

The Halls of the Dead – The Dirty Side of Necromancy

It’s no secret to those who’ve been in my orbit for a while that How to Survive this Fairytale is one of my absolute favorite books. So, when Hallow dropped her next book, I knew I was going to have to pick it up. Halls of the Dead is a very different reading experience, and I didn’t jive with it quite as much. However, the through-lines between these two books (relentlessly queer, unconventional takes on common tropes, and unusual structural choices) is something I’m very interested in, so Hallow remains on my list of authors whose release schedule I will be avidly following.

The Premise:
Irene is the first necromancer to perform a resurrection since Jesus himself. She brought back her love, Agnes, with the help of her husband John. John is himself ancient, sworn to keep the necromantic arts alive despite not practicing them himself. This story weaves these three characters’ past and present, tangling them together in a desperate knot as they try to secure a future for the necromantic arts. It’s a horror/fantasy hybrid about gore, necromancy, and revenge.

Read if You Like: magic that doesn’t shy away from grime, literal beetles inside your stomach, character-focused stories, getting lost in the language

Avoid if You Dislike: another book in Victorian London, bugs, stories that de-prioritize plot, frequent flashbacks

Fabulous Bodies – A Riot and a Gorefest

My only previous experiences with Chuck Tingle have been his Comedic Erotica, most notably My Macaroni and Cheese is a Lesbian Also She is My Lawyer. I left having had fun, but not seriously considering Tingle as a novelist despite knowing he’s unrelentingly queer, was an icon during the Hugo debacle that was Rabid Puppies, and generally seems like an all-around good guy. Turns out, his Horror was delightful and I want to read more by him. Fabulous Bodies isn’t going to hit my favorite books of 2026, but it’s certainly in the top half of the 200-odd stories I’ve tackled this year. A very fun way for me to start America’s obligatory spooky season.

The Premise:
By day, Poppy is a dedicated mom and queer fashion influencer. By night she steals dead bodies for the black market. When her biggest job (a famous musician’s corpse) reanimates and is on his own macabre mission, Poppy suspects something is very wrong. She has no idea how much she’s underestimating the situation, and it’s about to get very bloody.

Read if You Like: assertive and competent protagonists, realistic portraits of a girlboss, high-energy horror

Avoid if You Dislike: characters who aren’t parenting paragons, horror without deep social commentary, body horror (see below)

Body Horror Content

graphic and plentiful once you hit the midpoint. Most notably, violent self-harm (mind-controlled), stabbing of eyeballs, stripping skin, cannibalism

Wife Shaped Bodies – So Much Fungus!

It’s unfair of me to claim that Fungi are having a moment right now, considering some of the oddly high amount of mushroom content came from books half a decade old, or my tabletop group’s year long campaign dedicated to them elevating their fungal deity to ascendency. However, I do feel like I’m seeing mushrooms around more the past year or two. Maybe it’s because The Last of Us show was such a hit?

Anyways, I thought this one was serviceable. Great mushroom content, but that’s about the only thing I can recommend the story on. I think there’s a New Weird reinterpretation of The Handmaid’s Tale out there for me to love, but this one didn’t hit the notes I needed it to.

The Premise:
Nicole’s mother just died, and it is her wedding day. She hasn’t left her house … ever. And now she must obey the whims of a man she has never met. While living in his home, she becomes connected with the mysterious Teagan, whom she as long admired from afar.

Read if You Like: ambiguity on bodies, weird science, disturbing sex scenes

Avoid if You Dislike: mushrooms; extensive depictions of marital abuse, sexual assault, and pregnancy (amongst other things)

The Girl With a Thousand Faces – Hong Kong Never Felt so Haunted

Sunyi Dean’s debut novel The Book Eaters is the type of story that I have spent three years thinking about. Needless to say, there was no question about whether or not I’d pick up her sophomore work. Craft remain Dean’s strength, as do characters that don’t quite line up with easy moral labels. However, I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as The Book Eaters. As has been the case (and probably will continue for at least another week or two), lingering concussion effects are partly to blame. Not entirely though, I think.

The Premise:
At the end of World War II, Mercy found herself on an island outside Hong Kong with no memories. Thirty years later she is a ghost talker in the haunted Kowloon district, working for the leader of the Snakeskin Triad. She been seeing visions of a drowned woman, and they’re getting worse. It turns out that an evil spirit has very special plans for Mercy, and she’s not going to enjoy them one bit.

Read if You Like: haunting visuals, competent women in their 50s, casual queer representation, ghost cat sidekicks

Avoid if You Dislike: unconventional narrative structures, shifting POV (including 2nd person), depictions of drowning

Novella Readathon #19: Cabaret in Flames

Last year one of my favorite reads was Pueyo’s debut novel But Not Too Bold, which was a delightfully gothic monster romance – with an emphasis on monster. Cabaret in Flames was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and I’m mostly disappointed in it. As with some of my other three star novella reviews, I still think it’s worth a look for readers who are excited about the specific premise and tone of Cabaret in Flames, but not for a more general audience.

Elevator Pitch:
Ariadne is a doctor, and her patients are Guls, creatures with unnaturally long lives who can feed only on human flesh and blood. When a strang Gul comes looking for her 5-years vanished mentor, she is forced to confront her dark past that Erik saved her from. This Gul, Quaint, wants to find Erik and asks for Ariadne’s help as they travel to a Rio De Janerio club that serves Guls almost exclusively.

Read If Looking For: characters processing intense childhood sexual trauma, monster romance, stories unable to be separated from their setting (Brazil, in this case)

Avoid If You Dislike: why the fuck won’t you two just talk to each other!, uninspired prose

Novella Readathon #15: The Salt Grows Heavy

As I slowly grow into reading horror, I’ve had a complicated relationship with the more grotesque side of the genre. I thought I disliked it, and certainly I need to avert my eyes in any medical show I watch. Body horror authors like Andrew Joseph White capture that visceral repulsion that forces me to skip pages. I thought that The Salt Grows Heavy might be similarly challenging for me. This book features the plucking of eyeballs and the cradling of intestines in one’s hands, yet it was palatable even for me. Khaw married this body horror to a dark fairy tale atmosphere; the result so enchanting that I couldn’t look away.

The Premise:
The mermaid has given birth to her children, and they have feasted upon the land. The country which stole her from the water lays in ruins, a corpse to rot in the sun. Now she travels with the plague doctor, seeking a new country and a new home. They come upon a commune of children and their saints, the strange trio who pursue surgical immortality. The mermaid and the plague doctor’s shifting relationship is confronted by the plague doctor’s past, and the mermaid must decide what is important to her, versus what is simply meat to be consumed.

Read If Looking For: bespoke body horror, the tentative love of monsters, uncommon word choices, inhabiting the mind of a creature of the deeps

Avoid If Looking For: windowpane prose, genre romance, Disney mermaids, fast pacing

Novella Readathon #3: The Flesh of the Sea

The best book I read last year was How to Survive this Fairytale by SM Hallow. It was by a new indie publishing house, so I decided to pick up a few other of their titles. Unfortunately, Hedone Books has gone under, because I very much would have been interested in more of books they put out. Currently, you can only read The Flesh of the Sea via Audible; I was lucky enough to have purchased my physical copy before the publisher went under. This won’t be my favorite read of the year (or even this project), but it was very enjoyable. It’s a quick read – even in the context of novellas – and I think it would be a fairly good palette cleanser, especially when paired with other weird-nautical series like Tide child.

The Premise:
Wilford is a natural scientist who, after getting rejected by the Royal Society in London, ends up on a really weird pirate ship. He sends letters of his misadventures to a fellow naturalist, Jean Baptiste, whom he had been avoiding after a drunken kiss. On his travels, Wilford encounters all sorts of disturbing and disgusting creatures, befriends his crewmates, and generally tries to prove his worth to himself, Jean Baptiste, and the Society. Meanwhile, Jean Baptiste’s journal shows his life feels empty without Wilford in it, and he gets very upset about an overprotective pirate who has been making moves on Wilford.

Read If Looking For: weird travelogues, disaster academics, yearning and pining, epistolary novels, quirky pirate crews

Avoid If Looking For: intense horror and gore, bespoke prose, Romantasy

Comparable Media: Tide Child, Memoirs of Lady Trent, Someone to Build a Nest In

Japanese Gothic – Time Travel Behind the Sword Ferns

I knew very quickly that this was a new release I wanted to carve out time for. As much as I don’t love derivative naming conventions, I loved Mexican Gothic and had high hopes for Japanese Gothic. Ironically, they are very different types of Gothic fiction, and I don’t think this book references the style of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s at all. Considering this one is getting a good amount of buzz, I think you can expect to see more [Country] Gothic titles in the future. It’s a shame, because I think Japanese Gothic stands on its own two feet as a really delightful horror story, even if not every element worked for me.

The Premise:
Lee is a college student who fled to Japan after murdering his roommate. His father lives in an old Samurai house with a rotating cast of short-term Japanese girlfriends. Meanwhile, Sen is the son of a disgraced Samurai in the late 1800s, and she desperately wants to live the path of the warrior and live up to her father’s hopes. The world has moved past Samurai, however, and she knows her father’s living breath is a testament to his cowardice, which he takes out on Sen. These two protagonists discover that they can communicate through time. Lee hopes that Sen – obviously a ghost – can give him insight into how he can find the mother who was kidnapped when he was a child. Sen hopes to find details of her family’s fate, for she would do anything to protect them.

Read If You Like: paranormal time travel, historical settings, turtle myths, a creeping sense of unmooring from reality, psychological horror

Avoid If You Dislike: abusive families, unreliable narrators, dead animals, descriptions that feel claustrophobic

The Iron Garden Sutra – Spaceship Gothic

I’ve been feeling like 2026 is going to be a very good year for books featuring queer men. The Iron Garden Sutra is my first of the lot, and I enjoyed it a lot! The book has a bit of a weak opening 100 pages, but once it hit its stride I loved it. Unconventional Gothic settings have been growing more and more on me, and this book did a great job of blending a tense atmosphere with the portrait of a man facing an existential crisis. Kind of feels like a darker, more serious Becky Chambers book. It’s not going to be for everyone, but it sure was for me.

The Premise:
Iris is a monk of the Starlit Order. He is a Vessel. As he travels the universe, he performs funeral rites, comforts those about to die, and helps their loved ones mourn. His newest assignment is to perform last rites for a Generation Ship that has turned up after it’s long voyage and, like all other Generation Ships, don’t have any living humans aboard. He is greeted by carpets of moss, curtains of vines, and a cohort of academics intent on studying and exploring the ship. Yan, an engineer who specializes in AI negotiations, has a special hatred for Vessels; Iris is of course forced to spend some uncomfortably close time with him. It becomes clear that someone – or something – doesn’t want them to leave alive.

Read If Looking For: haunted spaceships, characters coming to terms with death and mortality, explorations of autonomy and personhood, the crumbling of religious conviction

Avoid If Looking For: flawless prose, logical worldbuilding, characters who can put the pieces of the puzzle together

Comparable Media: A Psalm for the Wild Built, Mexican Gothic, A Botanical Daughter