8 Exciting New Horror Books to Read in July 2023

Tremblay is the award-winning author of several books, including The Pallbearers Club, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Cabin at the End of the World (which was made into Knock at the Cabin.) This is his second published collection of frightening stories, which includes a giant monster in a village, children who find something upsetting in a shoe box, and a person contained in a white room receiving instructions from a disembodied voice.

London translator Anisa Ellahi is dissatisfied with her job of translating Bollywood movies for subtitles and is looking to branch out. Then she learns about The Centre, a top-secret language retreat. It’s like a spa for the fabulously wealthy, and it guarantees you will learn any language in very little time. Anisa is skeptical but manages to get an invite — and she is stunned when it works. But what is really going on at The Centre? Who is behind it and how are its attendees managing to learn so quickly? She’ll discover some questions are better left unanswered.

Looking to flee her violent ex, Anna goes in search of Whisperwood, a fabled town not found on any map. But what she discovers is not the serenity she had hoped for, but a place of isolation, secrets, and terror. And not only that, she’s now trapped in the town, as well. Can she find a way out and the safety she seeks?

And if you like your horror to be pretty much “omg wtf” the whole time, buckle up for this one. It’s set in the early 1900s in a boys’ home in Pennsylvania. Things are not great for the residents of the very strict St. Vincent’s Orphanage for Boys. And then they get a lot worse when a knock on the door in the middle of the night brings a raving sick man into their house. And just like that, it is already too late for many residents. Soon a terrible evil is spreading through the orphanage like a virus, forcing the boys to fight those infected. It’s a great horrifying historical bloodbath.

And this is the first collection from Tobi Ogundiran, a Shirley Jackson award-nominated author who has had a story included on Levar Burton Reads. These are dark tales of fantastical creatures, powerful entities, murder, and revenge. There’s a librarian who will stop at nothing to get a book back, an “eye for an eye” tale involving goats, a wooden boy in search of his mother, and more!

And this is the newest novel from the always-awesome Moreno-Garcia, author of Mexican Gothic, Certain Dark Things, and more! Set in Mexico City in the 1990s, it follows Montserrat and her best friend Tristán as they get mixed up in the life of a cult horror director. He claims he was cursed by magic silver nitrate stock, and if Montserrat and Tristán help him finish shooting his last movie, the curse will lift. But weird things start happening to them, and the two must decide if having their lives changed is worth remaining involved with someone who is mixed up with Nazi occultists and curses.