Happy 2024! First things first: as I mentioned at the end of last week’s post, I will be moving to an every-other-week posting schedule this year. But though I’ll be posting less often, I am still just as excited as always about all of the new books coming out this year! Here are just a few of the new releases I am most looking forward to:
1) The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan (set to be released January 9)
This Gothic horror novel is set off the coast of South Africa in a ruined mansion haunted by a djinn. When a young girl named Sana moves in with her father, she uncovers the estate’s long-buried secrets and a tragic tale of lost love. I always love to see classic Gothic tropes in new, unfamiliar settings.
2) What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (set to be released February 13)
This is the sequel to one of my favorite reads of 2022, What Moves the Dead. After their terrifying ordeal at Usher manor, Alex Easton returns to their family hunting lodge only to find the caretaker mysteriously dead and the villagers whispering of a breath-stealing monster.…
3) The Briar Book of the Dead by A.G. Slatter (set to be released February 13)
This dark fantasy novel is set in a fairy-tale-like world populated by witches and vampires. When, for the first time in centuries, a non-witch is born into the family of powerful witches tasked with guarding the border to the Darklands, she wakes up all sorts of old sins and secrets.
4) An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson (set to be released February 13)
I loved S.T. Gibson’s take on Dracula in A Dowry of Blood, so I can’t wait for this reimagining of Le Fanu’s Carmilla with a dark academia twist! Laura Sheridan and the mysterious Carmilla find themselves rivals at a cut-throat magical college in Massachusetts.
5) My Throat an Open Grave by Tori Bovalino (set to be released February 20)
So far, the only book by Tori Bovalino I’ve read is the YA folk horror anthology she edited, The Gathering Dark, but when I saw this new book described as “Labyrinth meets folk horror” I knew that needed to change! Struggling teen Leah Jones is already having a hard enough time making it through high school. Then her baby brother gets stolen by the Lord of the Wood.…
6) Diavola by Jennifer Thorne (set to be released March 26)
I keep seeing this book described as “vacation Gothic,” and I’m so intrigued to learn what that means. When the Pace family rents out a remote villa in Monteperso for an uncomfortable exercise in family bonding, Anna Pace must contend both with being the black sheep of the family and with the possibility that the villa they are staying in is haunted by a dark and deadly past.
7) Cinderwich by Cherie Priest (set to be released May 14)
The last book of Cherie Priest’s I’ve read was her sapphic, Lovecraftian reimagining of Lizzie Borden’s story, Maplecroft, which came out almost a decade ago, so I’m excited to see how her writing has changed in that time. In this Southern Gothic tale, a journalist and her college mentor set out on a road trip to rural Tennessee in search of answers to the mystery of a decades-old murder.
8) Escape Velocity by Victor Manibo (set to be released May 21)
I loved Victor Manibo’s debut sci-fi thriller The Sleepless and I was lucky enough to read an early draft of Escape Velocity a couple of years ago, so I can’t wait to see the finished book! As an Earth wracked by rampant industry and climate change is threatened with imminent destruction, the wealthy elite party it up on Space Habitat Altaire. Graduates of the prestigious Rochford Institute gather for their twenty-five-year reunion and jockey for spots on the first shuttles heading to an exclusive Mars colony. But four of the guests are haunted by an unsolved murder that took place their senior year, and they’ll soon find that no amount of money or fame can help you escape the sins of your past….
9) The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim (set to be released June 25)
The cover alone of this debut horror novel coming out from Erewhon Books next summer is enough to make me want to read it! Then there’s the description of it as “feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.” Chafing under the blue-eyed gaze of her mother’s obnoxious new boyfriend, Ji-won begins to develop a dark appetite…
10) Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle (set to be released July 9)
Chuck Tingle so brilliantly blended commentary on current social issues with truly visceral horror in his first traditionally published horror novel, Camp Damascus, which came out last year. After that, I’m eager to see what he has in store for us next! Bury Your Gays seems to be a similarly ambitious horror novel, this time centering on a Hollywood scriptwriter who is being pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character.
What books are you looking forward to this year? Anything else I should add to my list? Are you planning to read some of the books above? Let me know in the comments! And remember, there will be no Morbid Monday post next week, but I’ll be back on January 15.
I went back and pulled my response to your 2023 “Books I’m excited for” post to see how things have shaped up.
Alecto the Ninth: Still waiting for this one, which remains at the top of my list. Currently reading These Fleeting Shadows by Kate Alice Marshall, featuring the spooky mansion Harrowstone Hall, as a coping mechanism. Nonajesimitis is a disease that has no cure.
Hellbent: Was excellent and goes into my pile of book worship along with everything else Leigh Bardugo. Certainly hoping for more in either the Alex Stern or Grishaverse. Her next novel, The Familiar, looks to be something very different.
Skyward 4, Defiant, by Brandon Sanderson was excellent if too short for the amount of material that needed to be addressed. The spinoff Cytoverse should hold some promise.
I will continue to hold a torch for V.E. Schwab’s Villains series. In the meanwhile, I seem to have missed the release of The Fragile Threads of Power in late September. Looking forward to 21.5 hours of Antariverse.
The Quantum Temple by Derek Kunsken is also overdue, and I’m hoping for a release date in 2024.
Based on your list, I’m definitely adding The Briar Book of the Dead to my list, as well as the two titles you mention by S.T. Gibson. A Dowry of Blood and Robber Girl appear to be included in the Audible Plus catalog as well.
Robber Girl was excellent, as well. That was the first S. T. Gibson book I read.
I read Dowry of Blood at the same time as Harrow and was impressed by the way both books successfully pull off the second-person narration in completely different ways.
I’ll have to check out some of the books you mentioned! I still havent read any Sanderson or Schwab’s Villains series