Year: 2021

Stephen Graham Jones, a Blackfeet Native American, has written a terrifying story about a spirit that seeks revenge. The Only Good Indians won both the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson awards for best horror novel at last year’s Horror Fiction Awards.

Earlier this year, British-American author Catriona Ward released her third literary horror novel, The Last House on Needless Street. Ward previously published two novels, Little Eve and Rawblood.

“Horror is in a very exciting place,” says Neil Mcrobit, who hosts the Talking Scared Podcast and interviews some of horror fiction’s biggest names. Frequently mentioned along with Rebecca Netley’s novel The Whistling is The Haunting Season, which collects the stories of authors such as Andrew Michael Hurley, Imagin Hermes Gower, and Bridgett Collins.

Paul Trembley, the author of one of the scariest novels out there, A Head Full of Ghosts, says, “With so many new voices being published, there’s never been a more exciting time for horror readers.” Tembley suggests two debut novels, Violet Kupersmith’s Build Your House Around My Body, about two young Vietnamese women going missing decades apart; and Gus Moreno’s This Thing Between Us, a genuinely creepy novel about grief and a widower fighting the evil that inhabits the smart speaker in his house. Jones also recommends Haley Piper’s Queen of Teeth, which revolves around a woman discovering teeth between her thighs, and Shane Hawke’s Anoka, a collection of Indigenous horror stories.

Author Jonathan Sims, who wrote Thirteen Stories, and hosts horror podcast The Magnus Archives, has an interesting view of how the horror market is currently changing. He says that many of the best horror writers are not on shelves, but online. He points to podcasts such as Pseudopod and Nightlight as examples of where readers can find some of the most exciting voices in horror.

Adam Nevill, whose The Ritual ended up on the big screen, recently self-published his latest novel, Cunning Folk, which follows a man who suspects that his hostile neighbors are in control of evil forces.
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