Kick Off a New Year of Reading with These January Horror Releases

January is also bringing us a new book from horror/thriller favorite Simone St. James. This novel is about Violet, Vail, and Dodie Esmie, siblings who lost their six-year-old brother Ben in what started as a regular game of hide-and-seek. Their brother’s strange disappearance changed everything. Their parents grew increasingly distant, and the kids were haunted by visions that drove them to run away from their hometown for good. But now, two decades later, Ben is back, and the siblings want answers.

It’s winter, and we love nothing more than a chilling winter horror this time of year. On this small suburban street in Massachusetts, the snowstorm came without warning, and so did the strange whispers. Everyone in the neighborhood hears the storm calling to them in one way or another. Little do they know an ancient curse has come for them, and many of them will not make it out of the other side of the storm alive.

This debut is a queer Gothic horror story that is advertised as a butch Black Swan. Hemlock follows Sam, who is newly sober and leaving behind her boyfriend and cat in Brooklyn to return to her family’s deteriorating cabin in the Wisconsin Northwoods. It’s the place where her mother disappeared years ago, so what could go wrong, right? As you might have expected, the ghosts of the past and the decaying setting of the cabin the woods start to get in Sam’s head. Before she knows what she’s doing, she’s reaching for a drink again, beginning her descent into darkness.

From the author of The Black Queen comes I Don’t Wish You Well, a horror/thriller perfect for fans of true crime podcasts. Five years ago, four teenage boys were murdered by a killer wearing a Trojan mask. All four of them were star players on Moss Pointe High’s football team. Eventually, someone was arrested for the crime, but all these years later, 18-year-old Pryce Cummings is unsure they got it right. Now Pryce returns to his hometown to record an investigative podcast, reopening the case.

This Southern Gothic debut novel is set in the forests of Southern Georgia, where Judith Rice once fled to escape the grip of her abusive mother. Judith spends 13 years in her crumbling house in the woods, hiding from the past and gaining a reputation as a wise woman and a healer. But then a strange and beautiful woman shows up on Judith’s doorstep, threatening to destroy the shelter and safety that Judith has worked for years to create for herself. The woman sparks a strange desire in Judith, opening up memories of Judith’s past that she thought she had long buried.

Maria Tureaud’s historical horror novel is set during Ireland’s Great Famine in 1848. Maggie O’Shaughnessy has lost everything she holds dear and is barely making it by with a job at Ennis Workhouse. Then the mysterious Lady Catherine approaches her with a strange proposition—asking Maggie to impersonate Lady Catherine’s late daughter, Wilhelmina, so that she can collect her widow’s pension. Succeeding could change Maggie’s life forever, and so she accepts, even as the villagers warn her about strange hauntings and curses and a strange power that is hungry for vengeance.