Violet's Favorite Reads of 2025
Time to be loud about the books I adored!!
It’s absolutely bonkers that we’ve already reached the end of 2025. This year has essentially felt like Raskolnikov’s murder fever in Crime & Punishment but minus the murder.
If you’ve been following this blog with any form of frequency, you know it’s been a massively challenging year here at Fort Violet. The year began with a car accident that severely limited my ability to travel, sharing one car between an apartment of four. There’s also been some very challenging mental health challenges in our home that took a large portion of my, as well as my roommates’, energy and focus.
As introverted of a person as I am, connection is immensely important to me. I’ve had to take a massive step back from just about every community I’ve been a part of. Because of this, I have been battling intense feelings of isolation. Thankfully, it hasn’t all been doom and gloom, with plenty of wonderful and fulfilling moments, events, and accomplishments going on in the background. Despite my feelings of isolation, we’ve had an excellent support system.
Something that took a huge backseat this year was unfortunately my ability to read, which is essentially torture for my nervous system. This year did see an overwhelming number of horror releases, so it was definitely difficult to see so many cool titles go by without getting to be “a part of it.” *cue Piebald*
That said, I was able to read a TON of great books this year, despite the terrors. This is always a time of year I dread and love, as Christmas has devolved into this hellish ouroboros, eating itself and shitting out advertising and consumer headaches, but it’s also End of Year listicle time! Side note: I did get to watch Krampus this year after a few years of missing out on this yearly ritual, and god…that movie still rules.
So, in honor of this most blessed of literary traditions, I stand before you to present my humble list of 2025 releases I absolutely adored. Many of these are near and dear to my heart, truly getting me through some of the darkest I faced. For that, I thank many of the authors listed here, as well as those within the horror community who did what they can to help me through it all. You know who you are and I fucking love you more than you could fully comprehend.
With the mushiness out of the way, let’s talk books, nerds.
****Important Note: These are in no particular order, as I don’t deal in that shit, so there is no specific ranking of these books, I adore them all.*****
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar, Tordotcom
There was never a universe where this book wasn’t mentioned first. This novella lived in my heart throughout the entire year.
I imagine like most, my exposure to El-Mohtar’s writing was 2019’s stunning This is How You Lose the Time War, co-written with Max Gladstone. The poetry of that novel was unforgettable, so I was giddily excited when I learned a stand-alone novella was coming from her.
This was one I listened to first, and I implore anyone who enjoyed or is curious about this little book to listen to the audiobook. Not only is the vocal performance utterly transcendent, but the sound effects and music will completely immerse you in this beautiful world. As someone oddly obsessed with Christina Rossetti’s classic poem “Goblin Market,” this story sang to me like the titular goblins. The themes are similar, focusing on the love between sisters, as opposed to solely on romantic love. Esther and Ysabel made me cry so hard, and the way in which El-Mohtar created an entirely lived-in world in under 200 pages remains a craft I will be studying for decades.
In a market saturated by heterosexual, monogamous Romantasy novels, this was an absolute breath of fresh air, and will remain one of my favorites until I draw my last breath. If you love fantasy, I cannot recommend this masterpiece enough.
But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo, Tordotcom
Before I left Lahaska Bookshop, I did one more sweep of our ARCs in the back office and had found one for a Tor title I hadn’t heard of, but the cover and title drew me in immediately. Little did I know, Hache Pueyo’s But Not Too Bold would remain lodged in my cerebellum for the entire rest of the year.
As someone often unsettled by the appearance of spiders—especially big ones—I should not have enjoyed this novella as much as I did, but there’s no way in hell any arachnophobe can deny the beauty and transcendence of this story. Billed as The Shape of Water meets Mexican Gothic, which does check out, but it also shares DNA with authors such as Mariana Enriquez, Andrés Barba, Yuri Herrera, Katherine Dunn, Karen Russell, and many more.
Pueyo, like much of the best Tor roster, builds an entire world within the claustrophobic setting of Capricious House, where Dália has served for her entire life, though she’s never witnessed the enigmatic and terrifying owner of the house: Lady Anatema. Anatema is part of a race of creatures that existed long before humanity. She’s most easily described as a humanoid spider whose taste for laudanum and human brides, as well as a quick temper, leaves many in the house constantly on their toes.
When the Keeper of the Keys is seemingly murdered, Dália is summoned to Anatema’s chambers to act as interim Keeper of the Keys, as well as detective to find out why the murder took place and who stole one of Anatema’s bride dolls. If she can’t solve the mysteries, Anatema will kill her. But as the two spend more and more time together, an unexpected fire begins to burn. Despite its horrific sounding set up—which believe me, there is creepy shit in here—But Not Too Bold is an undeniably gorgeous story, wrapped in prose just as awe-inspiring. Pueyo paints the most vivid paintings in your mind as you root for this unconventional yet passionate connection.
Reading just as much as a fairytale as it is a gothic horror, But Not Too Bold is a title that deserves to be remembered as an important piece of Argentinian-Brazilian fiction.
Play Nice by Rachel Harrison, Berkeley Publishers
Now I will admit, I am slightly biased when it comes to this one, as Rachel is a dear friend and I often love her work. However. Play Nice is nothing like your typical Rachel Harrison book. Considering The Return is my favorite book of hers, to have this surpass it was unexpected but beyond earned.
Haunted house stories have seen a spike in recent years, with juggernauts such as Rivers Solomon’s Model Home and Grady Hendrix’s How to Sell a Haunted House, it can be difficult to spice up a “well-tread” subgenre, but has this ever stopped Harrison? Fuck no. Easily the fieriest and angriest of her novels, Play Nice sets itself apart by tackling the theme of maligned women within a framework familiar to us: The Amityville family drama.
Perhaps the perfect analog to Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts, Rachel evokes pop culture’s feral treatment of women in crisis, allowing readers to re-frame figures such as Brittney Spears, revealing the deep misogyny in how we view public crises, both in terms of missteps and mental health. While so much feels up in the air as we read the accounts of main character Clio’s mother’s trauma, we see how men in marriages so often hold the power in many dynamics, getting to tell whatever story they wish so as to protect their image.
Clio is additionally a hilariously and complexly flawed and messy character, which is always one of my favorite aspects of any Rachel Harrison novel. This one also is scary as hell, never once letting up on the danger, but also the empathy we extend to Clio, her mother, and sometimes even the entity we’re told lives in the house.
I know I’m not alone in singing this books praises, but I will continue to sing until people see the cathartic light of this novel. Jesus, it’s so good.
A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang, Titan Books
I have absolutely no problem calling Ai Jiang one of my all-time favorite writers. Witnessing her star rise has left me feeling so proud, between Linghun justly winning many awards and accolades, alongside I Am AI, it’s impossible not to love her incisive and powerful style and voice.
A Palace Near the Wind finds Jiang firmly entering the fantasy realm, delivering a novella I believe Ursula K. LeGuin would uplift had she lived to read it. It’s certainly daunting to compare any contemporary work to hers, but Palace is one of the strongest contenders I’ve read in the last decade.
Similar to El-Mohtar, Jiang has built a fully fleshed-out world, using metaphor and mysticism to bring attention to the inequities we currently face, as well as our steep descent into neo-fascism. Liu Lufeng is one of my favorite heroines from this year, shirking the hero’s journey for something far more powerful and revolutionary. Being the first in a duology, I am extremely excited to see how she brings this gorgeous gem of a story to a close. I’m certainly not ready to let go of these characters, but I trust Ai, and I know she’ll deliver.
Part climate-warning and part fantastical adventure, this novella will not only help you believe in magic, but embolden you to use it to change the world.
The Lamb by Lucy Rose, Harper
I endlessly struggle to adequately express why I love this novel so god damn much. I didn’t even entirely know what to expect as I began the audiobook, but to say it exceeded so many of my expectations is perhaps the understatement of the year. Lucy Rose’s tender coming-of-age-folk-horror-generational-trauma-class-cum-cannibalism displays the utter beauty in restraint; the insurmountable wisdom and powerful innocence of a childhood mourned as the darker corners of desperation swiftly usher you into premature adulthood.
The Lamb additionally explores the “messier” connections between queer humans, both considering Margot’s mother’s troubling relationship with Eden (her own name a surreal undercurrent beneath the consistent uneasiness clinging to our central duo like fog), as well as her own burgeoning queer explorations. Similar to other excellent examples of effective fiction, none of the characters in this novel are particularly “good,” “virtuous,” or “likeable,” but this is never the point. Margot is a richly compelling character and storyteller, in her own right. Her status as the symbol of innocent, powerless lamb calls to mind the works of William Blake, as well as a powerful indictment of how our society/culture values and devalues the lives and rights of children. As we’ve been forced to witness the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children every single day, The Lamb is a breathtaking read amidst the collective weight of our countries apathy.
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris, Amistad Books
If I were forced to claim a single, definitive favorite author of all time (one of my greater nightmares), I would say Octavia Estelle Butler. Of all the transcendent, varied genres and mediums I’ve read throughout my life, Butler has and will always show me the vast galaxy of possibilities to challenge fascism and imperial apathy. Butler consistently makes me strive to want to be a better writer. A more versatile and empathetic writer.
Within pages of Susana M. Morris’s new biography of the legendary author, I could tell she was someone whose life was similarly struck by her. Part cultural criticism, this impassioned and encompassing trip along Butler’s timeline not only situates her life and work among the many places she inhabited and the power of her positive obsessions, but also the people, the influences, the care she infused into her impactful novels and stories. All along the way, Morris provides us pieces of her research and critical engagement with Octavia’s repertoire, joining amongst the likes of Alexis Pauline Gumbs, adrienne maree brown, Sheree Renée Thomas, and even Levar Burton, in expanding upon her revolutionary work.
If you’re looking for some fresh scholarship surrounding science fiction’s greatest mind, I implore you to pick up this stunning love letter. I sobbed so much as I was finishing it because Susana M. Morris truly understands the importance and enduring poetry of Octavia E. Butler.
rekt by Alex Gonzalez, Erewhon Books
Last week, my partner and I were able to fly out to the Ponce de Leon area of Atlanta due to the generosity of our dear friends Jason and Ankita. They paid for our tickets to come house and pet sit for them, offering Saher and I some time to get away, clear our heads, and try and work on things that enrich us. Some time in the near-ish future I may write about our time there.
As we boarded the plane, I decided to fire up the e-ARC of Alex Gonzalez’s rekt that had been sitting in my tablet for months. I could not let the year end without reading this book. Most persuasive was Eric Larocca’s glowing praise of the novel, naming it as one of their favorite books of 2025. Their description of the book called to me in deeply eldritch lullabies, beckoning me ever-closer to the immaculately designed jacket cover…
Dramatics aside, I did feel drawn to this book in a way I hadn’t felt in quite some time. The sort of uneasy excitement that sets off the humming bees in your tummy. It feels simultaneously wrong, yet transcendently right. rekt exists within so many interconnecting interests of mine: Complex critique of toxic masculinities, new millennium-era internet horror, creepypastas, tech mysteries, surreal tone glitches that have you questioning every second of the narrative—god, the list goes on.
Following a series of traumatic losses, Sammy Dominguez enters his 20’s in a spiral. Coming of age in the edgier corners of online horror spaces, Sammy finds odd comfort in watching the most depraved videos he can find. When he feels the sudden compulsion to log back into the creepypasta forum he posted on to cope with the grief of the loss of his uncle, he finds his whole account has been torched, erased from the matrix. He tries to post around to learn information about the new rules when he receives a DM from a random username, offering links to a site even more extreme than what Sammy is used to. Surrendering his anonymity to the programs he must first download to run this transgressive bacchanal, our unwitting hero does encounter videos previously beyond his comprehension.
However, as he explores the various pages of vitriol and violence, he discovers something far worse than any potentially realistic snuff film. Staring right back into Sammy’s soul is the CCTV footage of the car accident that killed his longtime girlfriend. But that’s not even the worst of it, because as he falls further down the gore-soaked rabbit hole, Sammy witnesses seemingly impossible videos of Ellery experiencing various alternate, horrific deaths, including one where she dies of natural causes in her old age. What the hell is this site? And who the hell is the person that sent it to him?
What unfolds travels alongside the work of Gabino Iglesias, S.A. Cosby, Stephen Graham Jones, and even classics like Joe R. Lansdale. Gonzalez melds horror, sci fi, crime, and tech thriller seamlessly, while never answering enough questions to keep readers tethered to the narrative. If any of this sounds even slightly appetizing to you, I cannot recommend this shining star enough.
Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time by Rasheedah Philips, AK Press
Absolutely one of my favorite books from this year, Rasheedah Phillips’s companion to the work she introduced in 2014’s Recurrence Plot (And Other Time Travel Tales), this vital piece of scholarship gets to the center of one of our most baffling of accepted social conventions: time.
Often, as any left-leaning person will understand, revealing the initial supremacist conventions of our oldest rituals prompts the ever-popular rebuttal of “Oh come on…not everything is about race!” However, the deeper you dig into history, the more our most benign customs and mores are revealed to be smaller cogs in the larger imperial machine. Phillips takes us back to the very beginning, detailing how clocks themselves were instrumental centerpieces to the plantation master’s home, controlling the way time passed for enslaved Africans.
Also featured is how the prevailing racist stereotypes of laziness and lateness wove into our social fabric from these imperial movements to gain and hold onto control. For anyone familiar with experiences along the poverty line, much of how time is used as a weapon against poor and non-white communities still effect and harm everyone to this day. Phillips even details how people were essentially coerced into excepting the new idea of “standard time,” itself stemming from the necessities of colonial expansion.
Essentially, if you’re tired of arguing with people about how fucked up our conceptions of time are as a country, and want something concrete to steer people towards in their journey of unlearning white supremacy, get them a copy of Dismantling the Master’s Clock. You’ll learn SO much, while additionally holding onto the hope that we don’t have to continue living like this. You’ll also learn cool shit about physics in an engaging and accessible way!
Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Society by Sophie Lewis, Haymarket Books
There is a veritable laundry list of non-fiction books I wanted to get to this year, and despite being deeply upset I didn’t get to read them, I lick my wounds and hope for 2026. One of the absolute stunners I did get to read, however, was theorist Sophie Lewis’s new evisceration of White Feminism and the ways in which many of our conceptions of mainstream feminism continue to hurt the movement, and the many movements it often gleefully excludes.
Analyzing some of the notorious examples from history, Lewis not only details the crimes, violence, and failings of these examples, but also calls on her previous work to call for bodily abolition, as well as further intention when it comes to trans futurisms. They not only critique, but show us exactly how we can challenge and CHANGE the ways we interact with one another and the world.
Sophie’s work is accessible and necessary in a world always attempting to tell us who we should look up to, who we should become, and much more. This book is not anti-woman or anti-feminism, but an urgent call for us to shift the movement alongside our more positive shifts toward better, more open and empathetic world.
Honestly it’s the perfect gift for your friends and loved ones who claim their “not very political.”
Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing, One World Books
While there is tons of horror on this year-end list, Eve L. Ewing’s Original Sins is likely one the most genuinely horrific (and completely unsurprising) books I read this year. I’ve been a big fan of Ewing for years, initially through her poetry and then through the powerful Ghosts in the Schoolyard. Original Sins continues her non-fiction explorations by plumbing the deepest, darkest depths of our country’s history to illustrate why our structures of education still harm non-white communities, as their basis was always colonial and imperialist. This book is not anti-education, but rather a revealing expose to show where we need to unearth praxis, theory, and coalition as we continue to fight for education rights.
Providing enough primary sources and direct quotes from the progenitors of both the education and eugenics movements, as, surprise, their venn diagram is a solid circle. From early schools acting as experimental playgrounds for assimilation practices of Indigenous communities, taking children away from their tribes as a means of forcing the hands of tribal leaders, as well as eradicating their cultural and religious practices to further dehumanize and exploit these communities in the name of “civilization.”
This book naturally gets DARK, as it quickly becomes evident how much of our accepted social fabric was put into place as part of the genocidal campaign of the birth of our nation. While practices have become far more sanitized over the years, so as to seem intentionally benevolent in the name of preservation of the status quo. This isn’t to say education, schooling, or schools are themselves racist or colonialist, but the structures that were built alongside, or even within, them.
In the wake of Palestine, this book rings like a klaxon, as this history reveals our deeply entrenched practices of dehumanization of ANY non-white community we claim enriches our “melting pot” of American and global ideology, as well as shining blinding spotlights on how schools have assisted organizations such as ICE, the open-air concentration camps we witness forming in the US and Israel, and their use in further distancing people from their ancestral land and customs.
However, the book is not solely doom and gloom. This book is not going to provide simple answers to this enduring problem, but it does offer the kind of expanding of imagination and call for hope that can only enrich our continued battle to uproot imperialism. If you’re invested in this struggle, you need to push Original Sins to the front of your TBR immediately.
The Butcher’s Daughter: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett by David Demchuk & Corinne Leigh Clark, Hell’s Hundred
Y’all…I had a piece I wanted to write this year that would dive into the history of Sweeney Todd as a character and the many iterations the story has taken on over the years, that would feature an interview with David Demchuk. I still have his answers to the questions and I do still hope to write and release it. I’m sorry, David!
I greatly admire David as a writer, as Red X and The Bone Mother stand as two absolute-fave horror novels of mine. There’s something about the way he handles horror stories with multiple POVs, framing styles, and even plotting is something I resonate with strongly. What he and Corinne Leigh Clark have created with this historical horror re-interpretation of Mrs. Lovett’s immensely complex history both in the universe of Sweeney Todd and the character as written.
If you, like me, predominantly had Tim Burton’s 2007 adaptation to work off of, you imagine Helena Bonham Carter’s puppy-dog-love, goth-aesthetic Lovett whose love for Todd is her ultimate undoing. As I began reading The Butcher’s Daughter, I realized I didn’t know much about the history of Sweeney Todd as character or show, so I started researching and found a much more fascinating story than I could have ever expected. From countless adaptations created to change the narrative, from its alleged inspiration taken from a real murder, to Britain, to book, to play, to another book, to musical, and so on.
What always stood out to me over the course of my obsessive researching, aside from its immensely queer early versions, is how Mrs. Lovett shifted and transformed as a character—typically victim to whomever was writing her at the time. This brings me back to Burton’s adaptation, which upon revisiting in the year of 2025 was so much worse than I remember it being. Partially this is due to a large separation of time; I was obsessed with this movie when it came out. Yet, following this sudden flurry of research, it became clear to me how little Burton misunderstood the source material—something he’s been deeply familiar with since the late 00’s.
The film became this vapid shell of a deeply compelling story of vengeance, class, and love. But it’s the treatment of Lovett as Burton’s atypical Helena Bonham Carter insert with all the quirky outcast-isms he loves to feature. While The Butcher’s Daughter doesn’t set out to challenge Burton’s adaptation, but rather ALL of them, it’s difficult not to consistently think about the film as this masterful reevaluation plays out.
Clark and Demchuk construct their Fleet Street with the detail of classics such as Dickens, with added class consciousness underlying the narrative at every turn. Mrs. Lovett in this universe is the daughter of a belligerent butcher, whose misfortunes force her into constant survival mode. We follow her as she attempts to find a place in the world, facing sexism, assault, classism, violence, and much more. We also learn more about her child, which is a plot point often ignored in more contemporary adaptations. We’re also treated to a queer Mrs. Lovett, which simply makes sense because if you dealt with half the British men of this time as she did? You’d be a fuckin lesbian, too.
It’s not even until about halfway through the book that we even meet Sweeney Todd, who naturally plays a complex role in Lovett’s fight to lay low and potentially get her daughter back. Todd is far less glamourized in this telling than Johnny Depp’s swaggering edgelord, closer to the classical framings of his blind journey toward revenge and less sure of himself. It’s a unique perspective that takes the monster out of the limelight. I’m also a sucker for epistolary-centric novels, and Lovett’s voice is positively charming and heartening throughout. We meet her as a women forced to endure the horror of her time, as opposed to some groupie of Todd’s who only serves to assist him.
If you too loved the Burton film as a youth, I deeply implore you to give this novel a whirl. It is gorgeously written with a measured approach to pace and world-building that only Demchuk and Clark could provide. It’s a love letter to one of the most misunderstood characters across literature, stage, and screen, respectively, and it’s immensely difficult not to fall in love with her reinvigorated voice.
Lessons In Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders, Tor Books
Typically, when folks ask me what my favorite book is, I struggle to answer because I hold so many favorites, and then what about genre and subgenre??? But I’ll always name Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds In the Sky as one of my top favorites, always.
As I was getting back to reading a bunch again, I had a coworker at one of my library jobs who didn’t often suggest recommendations, but back when All the Birds came out, he told me I should read it as it seemed like something I’d really like. Having never heard of the author, I read the dustjacket description and thought it sounded super fun. That night, I finished the book I was reading at the time and decided to start this recommendation.
If I could travel back in time and experience reading that book for the first time again, I would. The way it has influenced and inspired me throughout the last…holy shit, decade. The last decade. Christ…
When Lessons In Magic and Disaster was announced, I couldn’t be more excited. One of my favorite writers was finally releasing a new adult novel (side note: her YA novels rule too), so I was more than ready to see where Anders would take us next. As it turns out, I would sort of get that similar sensation to reading Birds for the first time in reading this book.
I knew this would be a complex read for me, as it deals with an adult trans woman and her tenuous relationship with her mother. This is relatable in several ways haha. Jamie has been practicing witchcraft for many years, though she more focuses on smaller-scale spells and the like; ways of making her life run a little more smoothly. When she sets out to mend her relationship with her mother Serena, it’s clear their respective griefs over the loss of Jamie’s other mother/Serena’s wife is part of what is obscuring the space between them. Jamie believes that if she teaches Serena some magic, it may assist her mother in finding some sort of healing. Since this is a 300-some-page book, however, you can imagine it’s not that simple.
As I listened to the audiobook, I was overcome with feelings of familiarity—as though my 32-year-old self was reading with my 23-year-old self. Lessons felt almost like a spiritual sequel to Birds in ways I never could have expected. The word that came to mind most often was: mature. This story feels like the natural maturation of the story within Birds—as though some of the themes explored in Birds were built upon in Lessons. Instead of a young couple, we’re focusing on the relationship between a mother and daughter. It felt so real to be experiencing this novel at this time, in this way, and at my current age. Where I have adored and connected to every CJA book over the past decade, this one felt the closest to just how deeply Birds touched my heart.
Lessons In Magic and Disaster has the hallmark humor, heart, and existential anxiety prevalent in much of Anders’s work, but if feels as though this time you’re accompanied by a kind stranger who’s meeting you where you are energy-wise, taking your hand in a sense of joining you on your travels through the chapters, but they’re not leading you in any particular direction. It’s a fantastical novel well worth the wait and time it took for this story to get to us. Yet another reinforcement of the adage that Charlie Jane Anders is the Le Guin of our time.
Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive!: Stories by Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Astra Publishing House, Ltd.
When one of your faves enters the short story arena, you take notice and get excited. Coming hot off the heels of her 2023 masterwork Candelaria, poet Melissa Lozada-Oliva returns with a series of stories that subvert genre and gender expectations by twisting the worlds we know and love into bizarre and unrecognizable shapes.
I raved about this one earlier this year, so you can delve into my longer review if you’d like, but this is a story collection on par with the greats, delving into fantasy, horror, apocalyptic fiction, absurdity, and all those goodies that make the medium what it is. This, and the next story collection I’ll mention, are emblematic of the future of short stories. Perfect for folks slowly getting into shorter fiction.
Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine: Stories by Kristina Ten, Stillhouse Press
When I saw friends sharing the cover reveal for this collection, saw that SGJ blurb on the front and knew I needed to read this book immediately. A few conversations with the very kind Kristina later and Stillhouse Press sent a print ARC over (thank you again, folks!)
In the new year, I’m hoping to finally finish and post my review/interview with Kristina, as I absolutely fell head over heels for this book. Featuring stories focused on the intersections of immigrant experience, childhood imagination, social mores, and urban legends, Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine touches on nostalgia, as well as the alchemical, superstitious rituals of childhood play with an anthropological, fairytale filter of clarity and haze. Surreal, powerful, but always wholly/darkly human. The characters in these stories are curious, exhausted, persecuted, even “weird,” but just as many of her contemporaries best understand: Monster takes on fluid form once it interacts with Human.
Part of what I adore so much about this collection is the tone and voice Ten uses to analyze these modern “rituals” written about from some unknown future. Readers quickly realize many of these seeming occult-like rituals are merely our beloved childhood games, viewed through the detachment of a future study. Perhaps a guess at the direction our world seems to be heading in? Perhaps a far more benevolent form of speculation? No matter how you read them, these stories hold the kind of lasting strength of writers such as Gianni Washington, Daisuke Chen, and even Karen Russel.
If you’ve trusted my opinion on short stories before, trust me now. Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine is an astounding debut from a storyteller I will learn from for the rest of my life. 20/10.
When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy, Tor Nightfire
Hell, it feels like it’s been so long since I read this fantastic deep-dive into fear and all of her various guises. Where many subgenres have reaped the fruits of generations raised on Ursula K. Le Guin’s gargantuan influence, horror novels aren’t necessarily as obvious when it comes to highlighting these influences. Going into When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy, completely unawares of much of the plot, I found myself positively floored as I realized Nat was engaging with one of my favorite Le Guin stories, The Lathe of Heaven.
A lot of my scholarly focus, as a part of a larger non-fiction project I’m writing, has been zeroing in on dreams, especially nightmares, and how they respond somatically in our bodies. Part of what makes The Lathe of Heaven so influential in fiction is its cosmic implications; what would it look like for someone whose dreams manifest in real life? With the powers of imagination, what fresh horrors could we unleash on our species with the horrors of our minds? Unfortunately, Le Guin’s concept is made manifest as we witness seas of apathy fall over our nation, deadened inside to the unnecessary slaughter of hundreds of thousands, all at the whim of the sick fantasies of power-hungry men gambling on their lives.
When the Wolf Comes Home pushes Le Guin’s concepts even further, offering a heartbreaking and positively beautiful examination of not only PTSD, but how bodies can be used, experimented on, and discarded following their use, only for the complications of said experimentation to create something far more innocent/hopeful, but simultaneously world-endingly dangerous as well: A child with the power to make anything/anyone into whatever his fears manifest as.
I’ll never forget reading this novel for the first time because it was one of the first books this year to break me so thoroughly. Not only are there many brutally inventive kills—since Nat, Clay McLeod Chapman, Brian McAuley, and the lot of them keep attempting to one-up each other in terms of whacky, mind-bending kills—but its emotional beats are definitely some of the most devastating of the last few years.
A brilliant and incisive combination of The Lathe of Heaven, the 1953 short story “It’s a Good Life” by Jerome Bixby, as well as the Twilight Zone adaptations, and Cassidy’s wildly inventive style and voice, When the Wolf Comes Home has become one of my favorite books of all time. I know I’m not alone in loving this one, but if you hadn’t heard of it yet, get reading.
Precious Rubbish by Kayla E., Fantagraphics
This book…I don’t even know where to begin. Last year, I messed up big time and somehow forgot to include one of my absolutely favorite graphic novels in a long time—Mary Tyler Moorehawk by Dave Baker. Hands down one of the most inventive, visually stunning, and in-depth passion projects I’ve read in a long while, I was hoping I’d read something in 2025 that would blow me away just as much.
Then I finally sat down to read Kayle E.’s debut graphic memoir, Precious Rubbish. Guys…this book…it is so good. Throughout my initial reading, I often had to re-hinge my jaw because it just kept popping open with each successive page.
Graphic memoir, as well as non-fiction comics as a whole, has seen a resurgence as people rediscover works such as Fun Home, Joe Sacco’s Palestine, Persepolis, and many other powerful works. This has set the stage for some of the best graphic memoirs to come out of a decade with the historical stories of Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, Nagata Kabi, Nora Krug, Tessa Hulls, and even Zoe Thorogood. Precious Rubbish joins these ranks, all the while delivering a companion alongside Mary Tyler Moorehawk in terms of experimentation.
Part queer coming-of-age, part southern gothic, all dark, yet earnest engagement with religious trauma, parentification, disordered eating, existential dread, and much more. As the story continues, Kayla borrows and reinvents different characters and illustration styles of 1950’s comics, utilizing the expressive, brightly colored aesthetics to sow discomfort as you read on. It’s painful, but just as breathtaking visually, as its consistent clashing of theme and aesthetic makes for some of the most gorgeous panels of the year.
Unsurprisingly, this book has already won quite a few awards including the 2025 Ignatz for Outstanding Graphic Novel, as well as an Honorable Mention in the 2025 International Latino Book Awards. If that doesn’t tell you how freaking incredible this book is, I’m not sure what else to tell you.
The Nice House By the Sea, Vol. 1 & The Department of Truth, Vols. 5 + 6 by James Tynion IV, DC Comics (Vertigo) & Image Comics
I read A LOT of James Tynion IV books this year. Part of this is due to my discovery of his recent series, The Department of Truth, and the ways in which it helped further inspire the horror book I’m working on. Playing off of some of the most infamous conspiracy theories of the last several decades, this series is not only a modern take on internet, film, and news literacy, but also an ingenious dismantling of the American dream, nationalism in general, and how many conspiracies just narrowly miss the point of systemic abuse.
It also melds folklore, urban legend, cryptids, and even forms of found footage horror that just screamed my name with feeling. This year saw two new installments in the series, with volumes 5 and 6 releasing before the end of the year. Just when I think I know where the story might be going, he hits us with even more lore complicating everything. Many of the characters in this series are so engaging—whether its our main protagonist Cole Turner and his ever-further falling down the rabbit hole, to everyone’s favorite turncoat Hawk, there are so many kaleidoscopic pieces to this puzzle, you’ll never know what horrors await.
2025 also featured the continuation of Tynion IV’s spellbinding The House series with the first volume of The Nice House by the Sea, which reveals there’s another being like Walter but so much more dangerous. What I love about shifting the narrative to another group is, yes, deepening mystery and rising stakes, but additionally the way it injects further confusion about the sequences we see of “after the end,” where we’re told of events within the bubbles post-escape (maybe???). We also get sooooo much more of my favorite character, Norah, as well as putting much of future installments potentially in her hands??? Hard to say…But for those who loved the first two volumes of The Nice House on the Lake, this is a fantastic continuation into the unknown.
This is probably the most of his work I’ve read in any given year, and I am in no way complaining.
Meet Me At the Crossroads by Megan Giddings, Amistad Books
One of my favorite parts of being a reader is getting to witness the evolution of an author in real time. Megan Giddings has been one of my favorites ever since I was introduced to Lakewood in 2021. That novel remains one of many that actually freaked me out. The moment I truly fell head-over-heels in love with her writing was upon reading/finishing The Women Could Fly in 2022. That story, and the expansiveness of its message, is what helped to firmly cement her as one of my auto-buy authors.
Needless to say, I was massively excited to see Meet Me At the Crossroads show up on Edelweiss. I tried to nab a physical ARC, since I sometimes lose track of e-ARCs, but time got away from me and it was suddenly the end of the year. I couldn’t let 2025 close out without reading this new novel. I was fortunate to find a copy amidst the glorious shelves of Atlanta’s Charis Books & More feminist bookstore (seriously check these folks out. The store is AWESOME). I had started my e-ARC but found I was already adoring the writing and story, so I wanted to purchase a copy to have on the plane with me. This was definitely the right choice.
Meet Me At the Crossroads is a speculative coming-of-age and coming-of-grief narrative following the world after a series of strange doors begin popping up around the world, prompting new religions, cultural experiences, and more. The doors themselves are beyond mysterious, as they will open to different, fantastical places. Some who enter the doors are able to walk inside and explore, while others will “pop” nearly immediately, ending their lives. Ayanna and Olivia are twins whose father helped to find the newer faith surrounding the doors. While their mother disagrees with the religion and raises Olivia to be catholic, while Ayanna stays with their father and grows up within the faith. Despite their distance, the siblings try to keep their close relationship intact.
As Ayanna approaches her eighteenth birthday, she prepares for a ritual where she will enter their particular door as a show of faith. Olivia decides she wants to be there for her sister’s rite, which the parents agree to, only when Ayanna goes to enter the elsewhere, Olivia decides to join her at the last second, closing both of them in this alternate dimension. After some brief exploration, they find another opening, and as Ayanna turns around to check on her sister, the door is already gone, and so is Olivia.
From here, the tone shifts as we follow Ayanna through the years, grieving her sister’s disappearance, as well as the sudden disappearance of all the doors. Not only are she and her family unable to attempt searching for Olivia, but her mother especially seems to blame Ayanna the most for her disappearance. This is where the fantastical nature of the book shifts toward focusing on what it means to contend with grief in a world seemingly moving on without her. Yet instead of focusing solely on how much Ayanna “should heal,” Giddings highlights the very real grief, depression, and suicidal ideation that blooms from survivors guilt. Without having final closure, the reverberations of Olivia’s disappearance sound throughout her life, connections, and relationships.
I didn’t expect this book to hit me as hard as it did, but folks, the final 40 or so pages will HIT if you’ve ever lost a sibling, or for my own experience, losing someone about as close to a sibling (cousin). I finished the book last night and I was crying so hard throughout the climax. Honing in on the questions of existence, the afterlife, familial trauma, generational trauma, wonder, exploration, and so much more, Meet Me At the Crossroads is another game changer from one of fictions brightest stars. Blending genre and humanity in equal, powerful measures, Giddings only gets better and better with each book. This one is no exception.
The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw, Tor Nightfire
Okay, I’ll admit it: I haven’t delved too deeply into the Dark Academia subgenre. Like many of the recent subgenre explosions, I was coming into the dark academia world kind of sideways. I still have Ai Jiang and Christi Nogle’s Wilted Pages anthology on my shelf, waiting patiently to be read.
However, I still love reading these kinds of books when I get the chance, even some have massive issues. Granted, if you tell me Cassandra Khaw is writing a horror-fueled dark academia novel…well now you have my attention. While I haven’t been able to track down any accreditation sites to earn credit as a Cass Khaw fangirl, but holy hell do I adore their writing. It’s a level of gruesome I typically don’t feel drawn to, but there is something about their prose that simply sucks me in. And that’s across genre because if you haven’t read The All-Consuming World, you absolutely should.
The Library at Hellebore is a cornucopia of delightfully unhinged characters who are as engaging as the villains they’re set out to be. Hellebore is a school where “evil” people are sent, including spawns of antichrists, murders, and much more. Oh, and the school is constantly trying to kill them too. Part of what makes Khaw’s characters engaging is so often their morally gray ways of viewing the world. Humanity is as gruesome as the villains it creates, and to have the school itself be a danger is its own commentary. These are adults dealing with academia, but give it the speculative twist, poking fun at the institution in ways similar to Lev Grossman’s Magicians series.
I had so much fun with the audiobook for this one. Natalie Naudus gives a layered, deceptive performance, drawing listeners deep into the blood-soaked halls of Hellebore. As a dark academia, The Library at Hellebore brings sardonic humor and supernatural chaos to freshen up the template, as well as the Cass Khaw school of body horror I’ve come to expect from them. This is a fantastic addition to their already stacked repertoire.
Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle, Tor Nightfire
I don’t know if anyone has tried to form a support group for those grappling with the implications and events of this book, but maybe we should.
Holy hell, this book. I wrote an intense deep-dive into this book earlier in the year, so you can read that for my deepest thoughts…but to summarize: I really adored this newest entry into the ever-expanding Tingleverse. I’ve been following Chuck for years, and it’s truly been heartwarming to watch the horror community and the wider reading public embrace this angel's whacky, yet empathetic tales of love and cosmic dread.
There are truly images in this book that will remain engrained in my brain forever. As I said in my review, Junji Ito had a run for his money with some of the deaths detailed in Lucky Day. Tingle truly grows more and more as a writer and thinker with each novel, showing the decade or so of speculative erotica helped him create this massive and loving world he’s created, despite its dark horrors. It provides a both/and form of reading that allows us gruesome kills and existential dread, while holding out a hand to help you through it. There’s no one quite like Chuck Tingle.
Shoot Me In the Face on a Beautiful Day & The Drowning Machine and Other Obsessions by Emma E. Murray, Apocalypse Party Press & Undertaker Books
Emma E. Murray is one of those authors I struggle to recommend to people due to her deeply upsetting subject matter. She doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of our lives, especially surrounding our demonization of mental illness, domestic violence, serial killers, and even more. I know it seems impossible, but she somehow is able to find beauty and produce beauty from some of the most horrifying situations and characters.
At the beginning of this year, I had the pleasure of reading her collection of short stories from Undertaker Books, The Drowning Machine and Other Obsessions. This was such a fascinating experience, as it followed me finishing Sam Rebelein’s own The Poorly Made and Other Things; that book is an endurance test on its own. So I knew I was getting myself prepared for even more emotional/sleep-related destruction.
Drowning Machine deals in the concept of obsession, something Murray has explored in just about every book so far. Just about every story will get deep under your skin, especially towards the end. There are at least two entries that made me weep genuine tears because of how they connected to me. One features aspects of Dementia/Alzheimer’s, which now joins Brian McAuley in my list of gorgeously devastating Alzheimer’s stories.
The collection also includes the sort of excitable violence and gore Murray is infamous for, getting into some of the body horror we’ve come to expect. If you are a fan of short fiction, and enjoy stuff that gets a little darker and more transgressive, this is definitely one for you.
Now, Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day…that’s a whole other story. From its title that reminds me so much of early The Matches song titles, to the framing devices that lead us down the icy, pitch-black roads of its narrative, this has to be one of the best “domestic thrillers” I’ve ever read. Beginning from the perspective of one of our central serial killer’s most recent corpses, readers are dropped into a dreamy, poetic experience of somehow remaining conscious after death, feeling the way the body is shutting down, and the process of decomposition as the book continues. This truly starts the book off with a breathtaking bang, providing us our own supernatural form of Greek chorus.
However, the larger narrative revolves around Birdie and her abysmal relationship with her POS boyfriend, Russ (pitch perfect name choice). Russ is a deeply abusive partner both emotionally and physically. He mainly deals in emotional abuse, breaking Birdie down only to build her back up again, constantly keeping her on her toes. Birdie herself is a somewhat difficult character, as she exhibits all the hallmarks of someone trapped in an abusive relationship. She makes enraging decisions, consistently supports Russ throughout his issues, and holds the conviction of staying with him because of her past.
You see, Birdie’s son was killed in an accident years before, and Birdie shoulders all of the grief and guilt of the aftermath, punishing herself in the ways familiar to many of us. As always, Murray explores all of these characters with her unique psychological eye. This book may aggravate many, as almost every choice made is frustrating to those who have not experienced abusive dynamics, but Emma is immensely skilled at presenting these dynamics in multi-faceted ways. Even the ending will likely be viewed as divisive, but it feels so important and earned, while presenting a realistic ending to something so seemingly otherworldly. That is simply the power of Emma E. Murray.
If you have the stomach for the darker side of horror, I cannot recommend these books enough. You’ve never read anything quite like it before.
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, Scribner Books
Tender is the Flesh will forever hold the banner for messing me up big time upon finishing. I know the day will come, but I hold onto my joke about how I’ll never read it again because the ending effected me so much. Lord knows I’ll read it again at some point haha.
When Scribner sent me an ARC of Bazterrica’s newest novel, The Unworthy, I was definitely excited to see how I felt, as I very much loved Tender, horrific ending included. Only several pages in, however, I knew I would greatly enjoy this effort due to its framing. I’ve chatted with a few people who couldn’t get into the meandering epistolary aesthetic of the story, but for some reason that drew me in further. Our main narrator presents this post-apocalyptic world through poetic eyes, keeping the truth of the central religious order obscured just enough to keep readers at arm’s length.
And you know the queer part of the story made me soooooo happy.
Overall, this sort of slow-burn, gothicky sort of storytelling is always fascinating to me. Bazterrica knows how to lead readers toward her endings, using the darkness to embolden the actions of characters who have very little agency. I also always love some good ole fashioned religious horror. So far, this is definitely my favorite of her works/
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes & Acquired Taste: Stories by Clay McLeod Chapman, Quirk Books & Titan Books
Such as it was for the last few years, Clay McLeod Chapman had plenty of sights to show us this year. While I unfortunately couldn’t keep up with ALL of the releases—I’m sorry, Clay, I still have to read Shiny Happy People, but I promise I’ll hold their hands soon enough!—my two favorites were definitely January’s Wake Up and Open Your Eyes and the absolutely chilling story collection, Acquired Taste.
I’ll mainly focus on Acquired Taste here, as I went much deeper into Wake Up in my review, but I think anyone who knows me well will understand why I really loved the latter. When my dear friends bought me a copy of Acquired Taste at year two of Dark Ink this summer, it stared at me for several months before I was able to finally settle down with its sepulchral pages. It’s been a little bit since I’ve read short fiction from Clay, and each story in this collection is relatively quick, so I found myself flying through each dark, horrific story out of excitement.
Meeting and befriending Chapman has been such a wonderful experience, as seeing his writing only grow with each release leaves me feeling so much pride for wherever his unhinged mind takes us next. His signature humor and heart never fades to the background, but enhances the subversive pieces, leading to the literary equivalent of an unhinged, villainous laugh.
Also, I hope some of y’all got to experience him on the tour for Wake Up because he gave quite the performance each time.
Both of these books feature Clay at his most bold, which as a horror reader is exciting alone, but especially in a publishing industry typically afraid to speak up on just about anything, he wrote a book like Wake Up and challenged some corners of the genre. It’s just so nice to see and get to shout about.
GO READ CLAY!!!!
Blood On Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen, Poisoned Pen Press
Not only was I immediately drawn to this book due to its positively picturesque cover, but hearing Brian McAuley speak so highly of it last year sealed the deal. While I missed out on van Veen’s My Darling Dreadful Thing last year, I did start off the year listening to it, only to immediately pre-order Blood On Her Tongue upon finishing it.
Johanna van Veen has her finger directly on the pulse when it comes to sapphic, gothic, folkloric horror, providing books that relish in their influences only to completely upend and transmogrify them to deliver searing cultural commentary. Where the first novel explored homophobia and the woefully harmful history of mental health care, Blood On Her Tongue, similarly to The River Has Roots, uses sisterhood as the central core of the novel, calling to mind the sisters in “Goblin Market” yet again.
When Lucy receives several concerning letters from her sister surrounding a recently recovered bog body on her husband’s new property, it becomes clear Sarah needs her. The strange, occult-like manner of the body’s death consumes Sarah until it seems to sicken her, leading to a deadly flu that seemingly kills her sister, yet, when days later the body arises yet again, it would appear something much weirder is occurring.
To say I wasn’t prepared for the mid-book rug pull about halfway through would be a massive understatement. My lips are sealed, as it’s best experienced on your own, this instantly became a favorite when the entire tone shifts in a different direction and shows its hand. I think there are so many incredible ideas in Blood On Her Tongue, and van Veen sets and tears down the stage with fluid grace. With plenty of twists and turns to keep you engaged, while providing something uniquely its own.
If you love gothics that take place in the 1800s, then Johanna van Veen is definitely your author and I am sooooooooo excited to see what she has to offer us next.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones, S&S/Saga Press
There are many SGJ books I would consider favorites over others, and even then, those other books are still ones I love. I first heard whispers about The Buffalo Hunter Hunter when I saw Stephen at Strand Books in New York. The sound of him tackling the vampire genre was music to my ears, as I knew if anyone could tell a unique vampire tale, it’d be this guy. Boy was I right.
Structurally, this book presents one of SGJ’s most playful and delirious framing devices yet. Presenting the large bulk of the narrative as a story within a story within a story (?) was exciting and cohesive. I was almost afraid I’d get lost/confused, but of course he nailed it. Good Stab has become one of my favorite of Stephen’s novel characters, as we witness the duality of his human and vampire identities, while offering vampirism as its own proxy for white supremacy against Indigenous cultures. Honestly, this book pairs excellently with Sinners, if you’ve been hungry for more of that kind of horror.
It’s been so wonderful to see people coming into the store looking for Buffalo Hunter Hunter, because while it retains the classic Stephen Graham Jones feel, it is ultimately a historical novel, first and foremost. As we witness more and more readers dip their toes into horror through various means, to have books like Buffalo Hunter Hunter to point to brings more people into the fold, and that’s super exciting. At least to me.
This was another one I dove deep into earlier this year, so if you’d like to read all my thoughts on this epic, it is available!
The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas, Berkley
Goddamn I love the work of Isabel Cañas. Yet another author whose power only grows with each passing novel, The Possession of Alba Díaz may very well be her best novel yet. I say that as a fan, but I would argue this as a critic as well.
Out of all of her novels, this one likely had the most glaringly Violet-coded plotline. Mines, unearthed ancient evils, big middle fingers to colonialism—the list goes on. While the romantic aspects of Cañas’ work are not always my favorite—mainly due to their perceived heterosexual nature—I have to say I REALLY enjoyed the chemistry between Alba and Elías. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I was really rooting for these cuties.
This novel also obliterated any expectations I had going in. I saw “possession” in the title and knew there was likely going to be some fun subversion of the subgenre in here, but the title also speaks to the larger conversation of bodily autonomy as well, setting Alba on a journey to kick as much ass as possible. Control of her body is under attack from patriarchy and religion, but also entities who only view her as a vessel, much as her human counterparts do as well.
Throw in some really cool twists, Latinx folklore and occultism, and a brutal taking-to-task of the Inquisition and all of its grossness, and you have what may be Cañas’ most enraged, powerful novel yet. Come for the horror, stay for the awesome historical components.
Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Pelayo, Thomas & Mercer
I bet you thought I wasn’t going to include Cynthia, didn’t you????
Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you knew I would. I don’t have much to say about this one that I didn’t already express in my full review, but good lord can this woman release any bad books?? The answer is no, and Vanishing Daughters is yet another example of why.
Horror’s hardest working author turns to the history and story of Sleeping Beauty in this delicately horrifying thriller. Featuring a time-and-space altering serial killer with some of the most tender ways of viewing and describing violence I’ve ever read. There’s something oddly alluring about our dream killer, but nowhere near as engaging as our central Briar Thorne. Feeling as though she’s fumbling following the death of her mother, most of this book is following her along her grief journey, as well as the steady unveiling of just what is happening in her area of Chicago.
Shot through with her signature themes of fairytales, the darkness of history, and contending with grief, this is Pelayo at her finest, and with a take on Peter Pan coming early in 2026, lord knows you’ll get another deep dive from me once I read it.
Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuley, Poisoned Pen Press
What happens when a group of adults head out to a mysterious “wellness” retreat in the middle of the desert? Why, they get picked off one by one by a killer, of course!
Brian McAuley is no stranger to slashers. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if he rivals SGJ in the sheer passion he holds for this subgenre, and, like his contemporary, is additionally reigniting interest and providing fresh new stories for an audience ravenous for it.
Is Breathe In, Bleed Out a spoof of slashers? Absolutely not. While McAuley brings his signature wit and endearing one-liners to the table, the subversion is more along the lines of Scream and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. As a well-studied student of these classics, he seamlessly sets up every single piece of the narrative, but doesn’t call on your complete attention until the collapse is already imminent. Endlessly fun, propulsive, and earnest as hell, Breathe In, Bleed Out sees an exciting new voice become all the more exciting. You’ll have a hell of a time.
Bat Eater or Other Names for Cora Zheng by Kylie Lee Baker, MIRA Books
You’re likely seeing this one listed in almost every end-of-year list you come across and I am here to tell you there is a massive reason for this. This book fucking rules.
Taking aim at the virulent anti-Asian sentiment that blossomed from our country throughout all of Covid, Baker’s crime thriller horror novel shines the brightest light on the very real bigotry and violence many folks faced during this time.
A serial killer with a particularly unique calling card, the hungry ghosts festival, Chinese Folklore, and some genuinely creepy and unsettling moments are but a few of the things you’ll find in this heartbreaking tale of, oh hey, sisterhood again! But having the pandemic as a backdrop really helped sell the consistent isolation throughout the novel. You can practically hear the walls breathing and feel them continuing to press in on you.
Of the many books I read this year, Bat Eater was one of my favorite surprises, as I had no idea what to expect from the novel other than the overwhelming praise I heard. I was not ready for just how hard and how far it goes, and Kylie Lee Baker absolutely delivered one of the best novels of this year.
You Weren’t Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White, S&S/Saga Press
Last year, I followed my deep-dive into the work of Vincent Tirado by finally digging into the back catalogue of Andrew Joseph White. I never heard a bad word about his books, so I was very excited to listen to each of the YA books that had come out up to that point and loved every single one of them. Compound Fracture likely remains my favorite, but all three are fantastic, and I’m cautiously optimistic for the movie (or series?) they’re developing for Hell Followed With Us.
An adult debut from AJW is no laughing matter, so when I finally sat down to read it I decided to go in cold and experience the story as it unfolded before me. That was absolutely the right move for me because wow…this novel.
There haven’t been many trans pregnancy novels in the past few years, but when they show up, they naturally make a splash. You Weren’t Meant to be Human follows the very real path we’re currently traveling when it comes to abortion access and the autonomy of bodies in general, but adding that semi-science fiction, horror twist to make it, at least for now, speculative. In this world, a strange race of sentient worms and bugs have set up little broods throughout the world, due to their aversion to sunlight. As we’re introduced to Crane and Levi, two people indebted to their particular nest set up in a gas station somewhere in West Virginia, we learn the worms have stingers that connect your consciousness to the larger nest. Crane is a trans man in a complex, yet abusive relationship with Levi, and what Crane doesn’t realize is he’s been pregnant for at least a few weeks.
This novel is BRUTAL. It’s absolutely one of the most viscerally felt body horrors I’ve read in a long time. AJW often displays levels of brutality, even in his YA books, but holy hell did he swing for the fences on this one. Not a moment is unflinching or sparing in the violence inflicted upon Crane’s body, as well as some of the other cis female characters we meet throughout. This book also boasts one of the best last-second heel-turns I’ve read in the past decade.
Filled with plenty of moments to make any pregnant parent reconsider, as well as all the creepy crawlies to make you flinch at every phantom sensation on your body, You Weren’t Meant to be Human is a bombastic adult debut from one of the most politically-minded horror writers out there right now. I will say, however, read the content warnings and proceed with your own forms of caution because this certainly won’t be for everyone!
Hollow by Taylor Grothe, Peachtree Teen & Penguin Random House
Reviewed right alongside AJW just a few months ago, you knew Hollow would wind up on here!
Taylor Grothe is yet another exciting debut from this year, providing an autistic-centered folk horror young adult novel about a young woman trying to find her way back into her friend group after an explosive meltdown sends her back to her hometown from New York City. When Cassie joins her reluctant group on a hiking trip to an infamous, dangerous area, a massive winter storm blows through and separates her from the rest of the group. When she is knocked unconscious by falling debris and wakes up in a seemingly idyllic community nestled in the woods, things begin to grow stranger and stranger as she tries to search for her missing friends.
This. Book. Rules. Cassie is an incredible character, built with love and care by Grothe themselves, presenting readers with an authentic representation of an aspect of autistic experience. But what I love most about this book is how many questions it chooses to not answer. You’ll see what I mean, but oh boy, I had plenty of lingering questions about events long after I finished the book.
Filled to the brim with puppets, weird communities, crows, and queer shit, this is a fantastic little folk horror brimming with dread. And tell Taylor how much you read it, whenever you do, because they’re an absolute sweetheart and would appreciate it!
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, Trans. by Martin Aitken, New Directions
I hadn’t heard about this one before it’s release, but New Directions was kind enough to send me a copy to read and I now see what all the fuss was about.
The Wax Child is one of those weird little novels that can be hard to describe, but the journey of reading it is similar to reading a fairytale of fantasy novel for the first time and getting sucked into its world. Written simultaneously poetically and simply, this fictionalized retelling of a seventeenth-century witch trial in Denmark follows the arrival of a royal to a new town, the group of friends she forms, and their eventual persecution as a coven of witches. Events are relayed to us from a wax figure that our main “witch” Christenze crafts as her own small companion.
The wax child serves as both the audience proxy and the Greek chorus presiding over the events, fears, and growing mob-mentality of the town, revealing the cruel plans of the government, the shifting and distorting information surrounding their friend group. There is additionally the themes of how women are weaponized against each other, as one of their group, a woman more directly connected to the church, betrays her sisters once witchcraft becomes the focus of their town.
The narrative serves as both historical reinterpretation and cautionary tale of our current time of misinformation and individualism. The Wax Child highlights the exact process of how many of these witch trials came to be, how patriarchy and religion was used to stoke those fires, and the kinds of women/individuals easily targeted by these moments in history. Christenze doesn’t even necessarily practice any kind of explicitly pagan practices, and despite her status as a noblewoman, cannot outrun the judgement of her fellow humans.
The Wax Child is a fast-paced, dreamy, and incisive look at power, who has access to it, and the cyclical nature of history as we witness similar actions taken as we glide into neo-fascism. Definitely one of my absolute favorites of this year. 2026 will probably see me do an even deeper dive into Ravn’s work haha.
The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T. Wurth, Flatiron Books
White Horse remains as one of my favorite horror novels of the past several years. Erika T. Wurth has this energy to her work I haven’t quite put my finger upon just yet, but it pulses throughout her novels. This trend continues with The Haunting of Room 904, a novel about a paranormal investigator whose tragic loss of her sister, Naiche, has followed her throughout her career. The questions left behind by the seemingly cursed room 904 of the Brown Palace, a destination Denver hotel. Anyone who stays in room 904 winds up dying by suicide, or so it seems…
When Olivia is contacted by the Brown Palace to investigate the dangerous quarters, it becomes clear the spirit residing in the room is old, heartbroken, and angry. When its power seems to be even greater than Olivia’s capabilities, she has to figure out how to contend with it, but the timetable speeds up when her mother decides to stay in room 904. At the same time, a journalist with a particular (racist) disdain for Olivia is actively attempting to get Olivia cancelled and ruin her business as a Para PI.
The Haunting of Room 904 is a stellar follow-up to White Horse. Olivia is another of my favorite protagonists of 2025, putting up with very little shit, but working an moving with empathy and care. Wurth also touches on the very real issue of folks attempting to ruin people’s lives out of jealousy, envy, whatever misery they can’t bear on their own. Especially after last year in the horror community, this story feels incredibly prevalent. I’m glaring very intently at very specific people.
Filled with scares, grief, goth culture, Indigenous history, and Wurth’s signature wit, this is a novel you have to read and read soon. If you greatly enjoyed Bad Cree by Jessica Johns, Room 904 is in excellent conversation with it!
How to Survive This Fairytale by S.M. Hallow, Hedone Books
This novel blew me the hell away. How to Survive This Fairytale is everything a modern re-imagining of classical fairytales can and should be. Synthesizing the themes, revealing the darkness inherent in many of the fairytales we grew up on, Hallow sets the reader firmly in the framing of the tale by writing the novel in the second person. Here, we take on the exhilarating duty of making the choices provided to us throughout the narrative, but the catch is our pure heart leads us to making all the wrong decisions, leading to death.
However, it becomes clear the benevolent force speaking to us wants us to somehow survive the fairytale, as they respawn us and attempt to protect us. What quickly becomes clear is this is a novel about finding ways to contend with an heal our traumas. As fairytales have been used to teach lessons over the centuries, Hallow uses this to not only modernize the concepts, but provide the very real lessons they meant to teach us.
How to Survive This Fairytale draws on the Swan Princess and Hansel & Gretel stories, though gender-bending a bit to inject some wholesome queerness into the story. This also deals in mental health and disability as well, recalling work from writers such as Amanda Leduc and her work on disability specifically in fairytales.
S.M. Hallow has crafted something truly special with this novel, reframing a storytelling mode we’ve loved forever and presenting a kind of cozy horror fantasy that truly has so much to say. If you haven’t heard about this one yet, you must go out and read this masterpiece. Especially before Hallow drops more gold on us in 2026.
Enamoured: A Triptych by Shelley Lavigne, Hedone Books
Listen, I don’t know how Shelley Lavigne writes such great books. They just do.
Last year’s The Flesh of the Sea was one of my favorite books to sell to people because it was such a cute, amazing, gay little sea-faring jaunt, so I was excited to see what fresh horrors they had in store for me this time. Enamoured is an addictive addition to their repertoire, reaching back in history to resurrect one of the oddest beauty regimens used especially by nobility: enameling.
Queen Alexandra was likely the most infamous example, as she would use enamel to make herself appear young in paintings and every day life. It’s exactly as it sounds. You place enamel in the places you want to smooth, and then it hardens and, viola. White Supremacy perfected. Lavigne uses this bizarre practice to deliver a scathing and horrifying tale of capitalism, beauty, and how those two have become a deformed chimera that still haunts us to this day.
Following a beauty shop owner, Josephine, and her obsession with building her own beauty empire. Her obsession brings her to some strange places, as you can imagine, but when desire gets lost in the brambles of desire, the horror sets in. For those who perhaps haven’t encountered a triptych before, it’s a work of art, most often a painting or carving, divided into three portions and connected as to be folded and viewed in the same breath. In this literary tableau Lavigne has crafted for us, the story unfolds in three separate sections, with what seems like a piece from a storybook placed at the center.
Enamoured is an experimental masterpiece. Blending a veritable feast of uneasiness throughout into an unsettling examination somewhere between Ling Ling Huang’s Natural Beauty and Elle Nash’s brutal Deliver Me. Lavigne is absolutely at the heart of dark, morally gray, “moist fiction” about messy as hell queers. It seems they and Charlene Elsby have tentative plans in 2026, which sounds immensely exciting to me.
The Organization is Here to Support You by Charlene Elsby, Weirdpunk Books
Speaking of Charlene Elsby, once again the mistress of psychological horror returns with The Organization is Here to Support You. Nestled somewhere beyond the limited vision of Severance and other dystopic workplace fiction, Organization imagines a future where the boundaries between work and standard living have essentially dissolved.
Our central narrator, Clarissa Knowles, informs us about this new world with the kind of cold, removed certainty of someone who’s only ever known this form of existence. The Organization is a nebulous corporate entity that has created space for the workers to live and sleep in, so that when their shift begins, they can merely climb out of bed and start working. Horrifying, yeah? Well, maybe not to some, but they can take their brownnosing to hell with them.
Something Elsby continues to excel at is taking concepts and pushing them to some of the furthest places they can possibly go. When Clarissa receives a suggestive email from one of the customers, instead of reporting it, she becomes utterly obsessed with the exhilaration of breaking the rules, but also because someone is showing her attention for the first time in god knows how long. What follows is the logical degradation from a world such as this, culminating in an absurd and horrific climax that only Charlene Elsby can provide us with.
Honestly, this might be one of my favorites of hers, as it feels the most real for some reason. I mean, so did Violent Faculties, but we won’t get into that right now. Much like Octavia Butler did when she was writing her science fiction, Elsby follows the logical direction of how we view and value work under late-stage capitalism. We’re not far from the world present in Organization, and where Ben Stiller’s Severance merely presents the fantasy of escape, Elsby shows us the consequences of that kind of freedom when you’ve been conditioned one way for most of your life.
Side note: I finally got to meet Charlene by chance, as we were both in New York’s The Twisted Spine at the same time. We finally got to hug and speak in person which was so pleasant and wonderful. She also introduced me as her “favorite reviewer” and I nearly broke down in the damn store.
A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper, S&S/Saga Press
WHAT?? A Hailey Piper book in this list?? Yeah, I know I’m not surprising. This was honestly one I wasn’t entirely sure I would enjoy since it’s slightly spicier than some other Hailey books, but my reverence for The King in Yellow’s legacy was far more powerful, and honestly, I enjoyed how the aesthetics of kink were used to further connect to Piper’s ultimate aim.
I did review this one earlier this year, sort of acting like a launching-off for my interview experiment with this blog haha. Hailey was of course very kind and generous, especially when it came to my weirdo questions haha.
Truly though, A Game in Yellow is not solely a book for people familiar with the source material. In many ways, that could be more exciting than knowing all about Carcosa and its horrors. Carmen and Blanca are the kind of messy, complex queers Piper writes best, and my god, to be able to read a horror book with immaculate fat rep in 2025 is a goddamn blessing, and I still cannot thank her enough for it. In a genre so often dismissive of fat bodies, there are descriptions and explorations of desire of fat bodies that are simply…perfect, beautiful, whatever word you want to assign it!
I Can Fix Her by Rae Wilde, CLASH Books
You ever wish you could travel back in time and make a different decision in a relationship? Would you be willing to destroy the fabric of time and reality to do so?
God dammit I love Rae Wilde’s work. In the world of feminine rage, she stands amongst the giants, providing us with some truly disturbing stories and storylines. Never has this been more evident than this year’s I Can Fix Her, a delirious journey into the deeply troubled relationship of Johnny and Alice. By some vast coincidence, Johnny finds herself reliving the decaying of her and Alice’s relationship, but believing if she can do or say the right thing, she can save them.
Naturally, this is not how the universe works and what begins to reveal itself is something much more sinister. If anyone remembers that Domhnall Gleeson movie from 2013, About Time? It’s a darker, more fucked up version of that, and GAYER. If you’ve ever done the hard work of sitting and thinking deeply about how much you messed up in a relationship, this one is for you.
HOWEVER, because this is a Rae Wilde book, none of these characters learn their freaking lessons. People make queer folks into a monolith and think we’re somehow better at relationships, but listen, we also grew up under imperialism and are no better at relationships than the rest of us, but Johnny…wow. I won’t spoil the rest of the novella, as the climax is truly worth the toxic gays. Wilde perfectly traces this mess to its logical nexus with all the cosmic horrors to follow it into the void.
If you just got out of a relationship and need a quick read to help you at least feel moderately better about it for a time, this is 4000% your novella. Sardonically hilarious, painful, and terrifying, Rae Wilde continues to astound with her voice.
It Bubbles Beneath the Skin by Caitlin Marceau, Hedone Books
Canadian Mistress of Horror Caitlin Marceau returned this year with an aquatic and heartbreaking tale of queer body horror. Following a night at the Pointe aux Loups Beach, Jayce’s seemingly normal life is knocked of course by a voice that seems to call from the cold depths. Not only that, she’s forming blisters filled with seawater, as well as having ropes of seaweed growing from her body as well. She and her girlfriend must figure out what the hell is going on, or Jayce may find herself becoming one with the ocean she loves so much.
In classic Marceau fashion, this emotional horror pulls at your heartstrings throughout, as you yearn for the central couple to solve this horror before their relationship is ripped away from them. Yet it’s the voice calling to her that has its own tales to tell.
Part ghost story, part body horror, It Bubbles Beneath the Skin is Caitlin at her best. With a deeply emotional core, the scares catch you right when you think they shouldn’t. With a new short story collection on the horizon, it would appear they’re not quite done with us yet!
Queen O’Nine Tails by Lindz McLeod, Hedone Books
It was definitely a Hedone year in the McMaster household, but how can you expect me to not read a sapphic pirate novella from Lindz McLeod???
As a major fan of last year’s Sunbathers, this was an exciting part of the Dark Sails series I was looking to immerse myself in the darkness. I always question myself when I read Hedone’s more…racy catalogue, as I’m about as vanilla as they come, but when the roster includes talent such as this, I can put aside my sex aversion to enjoy these fantastic spicy horrors.
Pirate captain Valentina Mallozi kidnaps a civilian by the name of Gloria Vane in hopes to ransom her for fortunes. However, Gloria is no helpless victim. She’s actually a gifted pickpocket and spy, so being on one of the most infamous pirate ships in the land puts her in a bit of a troublesome place. The only way perhaps to find her way out of this danger is to woo Mallozi, however, this pirate captain is not easy to woo, as past traumas have hardened her heart—as well as the queen of nine tails whip she uses for…punishment.
When a demonic presence finds its way among the crew, Gloria’s plans are threatened as the crew and Valentina become increasingly paranoid and violent. Can Gloria save all of them and nurture the unexpected love she holds for the pirate queen? Or will their souls suffer at the hands of a malevolent entity?
Queen O’Nine Tails is a fast-paced, flirty, sexy, and spooky adventure on the high seas, boasting as much witty banter as it does dread. McLeod has a firm grasp on the storytelling conventions of literature’s past, using these pieces to offer something unique and familiar. Spice up your horror reading with this pulse-pounding novel.
The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice by Margaret Killjoy, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness
When I began to get hardcore back into reading in 2018 and 2019, Margaret Killjoy and Neon Yang were two of the biggest authors to put me on this crazy book journey I’ve found myself on. So when I saw Nino Cipri posting about a new Danielle Cain novella I hadn’t heard about coming out, I messaged them immediately to learn more. Thankfully Nino is a sweetheart and was kind enough to send me their physical ARC of The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice, the (for me) long-awaited return Killjoy’s brilliant novella series.
Unlike the first two entries in this series, Immortal Choir acts almost as a brief short story collection, as the group of anarchists, still reeling from the events of The Barrow Will Send What it May, sit around a campfire and trade stories about their fallen comrades, hoping to keep away a seemingly supernatural bull searching for them nearby. What follows are fantastic stories that straddle fantasy and horror, with some of the most disturbing set-pieces of the year.
Despite the darkness of the stories, there is a hope to the novella as a whole, grieving the characters and the struggle of the fight against oppression, but maintaining the lessons that each memory of their friends reveals. It’s classic Killjoy but in her ever-evolving voice. Even though we’ve been away from this world for several years, it felt so comfortable to slot back into Danielle Cain’s hellish world. If you ever enjoyed this series, I can’t recommend this entry enough. It feels somehow vital to where we are now.
Another Fine Mess by Lindy Ryan, Minotaur Books
Lindy Ryan brings us back into the Evans home with this heart-wrenching sequel to the breakout Bless Your Heart. Following the events of the first book, the remaining Evans women are unmoored. Luna is still trying to reckon with the fact of her identity as part strigoi, and Lenore is grieving big time. Not only that, but the new sheriff of their town is having to keep the town safe from the realities of the last book’s massacre. There’s much that Luna must keep secret to herself, straining her relationships, but much of that gets shuffled to the back when a new threat raises its furry head to the moon and howls.
Ryan sets her sights on redefining werewolf stories in this entry, leading to a heartbreaking climax. This is definitely a slightly more somber affair than its predecessor. There absolutely are still plenty of laughs and witty humor, but there is the grief and uncertainty hanging above the heads of everyone involved. This does provide a slightly more action packed story, steadily setting up the emotional beats before sucker punching us towards the end. The mystery of what this new threat may be trickles out slowly, teasing us before revealing the devastating truth.
Sequels are hard. Really hard. But Lindy proves she’s undaunted by the challenge in this follow-up and it SHOWS. Some may view this entry as slower or perhaps a bit more meandering than the first, but stick with it, because when the other shoe drops, this book goes hard. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for Dollface, her 2026 stand-alone horror that I’m super excited to read and review.
Scarewaves: Beyond the Grave by Trevor Henderson, Scholastic Press
Y’all, I had been waiting for Trevor Henderson to start writing books ever since he won back ownership to Sirenhead. His illustrations have fascinated and disturbed me for YEARS, so I was excited to see how much work he was getting throughout the indie horror sphere.
I was surprised when his fiction debut was a middle grade novel, though I likely shouldn’t have been. Scarewaves is an unnerving and fun little book, with just as many horrifying illustrations from the maestro himself. While it wasn’t one of my favorites from 2023, I was excited to read Beyond the Grave, because I had fallen in love with this group of misfits and their world of Beacon Point. When I say Beyond the Grave surpasses all expectations, I mean it.
This sequel takes place only months after the initial adventure, and our group of teens is fractured, recovering from the horrors they witnessed. When the spirit of the enigmatic Alan Graves visits them to provide a warning of something much worse coming to their little town, coupled with a concerning amount of disappearances, it becomes clear to Mary, Byron, Luke, and Rebecca that they must act before this new terror takes over their town.
Melding folklore, alien lore, and the sense of wonder I used to experience from The Bailey School Kids and other middle grade horror, Beyond the Grave cemented my love for this series. I truly hope Trevor gets to keep this train a’running because Scarewaves may be one of the most exciting middle-grade horrors we have right now. It helps that this entry is also scary as hell. Perhaps even scarier than the first book!
Absolute Batman, Vol. 1: The Zoo by Scott Snyder, DC Comics
Listen, I know, I know…Why the hell does Violet McMaster, one of the ultimate complicated Batman haters, have a current Batman series on her end-of-year list???
Hear me out.
As I stated, I’ve had a complex relationship with Batman for most of my life. I’ve always been drawn to his villains, the tone of his stories, and of course, the films that were coming out throughout my childhood as well. But I also have always felt frustrated by the character, recalling the meme about how he’s just a rich kid beating up mentally ill people. This is particularly why I love when writers approach the character from different or critical angles.
I know many would disagree with me on this, because the overall legacy of DC’s New 52 disaster led many to look back on Scott Snyder’s take on Batman throughout the 2010’s, but I really loved New 52 Batman. I’m incredibly biased, as I was a huge fan of Scott Snyder’s stories from when I first read Wytches back in the day. Even his standalone gaslight-horror Batman book, The Black Mirror, was exciting for me as it seemed to lean into the more horror aspects of the caped crusader again. The Court of Owls was really cool. The suggestion of the Joker being an eldritch entity was super fun. I even enjoyed some of the Batman Who Laughs stuff, despite its issues.
Then I began hearing about the Absolute universe. Even though I roll my eyes every time Marvel or DC reboots universes or keeps focusing on the same old characters, there was something about this new universe that intrigued me. Absolute Batman is no one. He comes from nothing, is best friends with many of the characters that we know of as villains in previous universes—hell, even his mom is alive!! He did lose his father, however, after he wins his school’s science fair creating what would later become his bat-cape, granting him and his friends a trip to Gotham Zoo, chaperoned by his teacher father, Thomas. When a shooter attacks the zoo, Thomas locks the children away to keep them safe, and losing his life trying to take the shooter down.
This is kind of the thing that pushes Bruce to become Batman, as he disappears for years to study all manner of economics, fighting styles, and much more, returning to Gotham to take down the corrupt forces keeping the city in degradation so as to turn a profit. The main conceit of this universe is that Darkseid has changed the universe in a way that has erased heroes and place villains as the social elite. Despite his attempting to keep the heroes from discovering themselves, our classic heroes still rise from nothing.
What I love about this series is it actually feels like a reset. Bruce is truly on his own, at least until MI6 agent Alfred Pennyworth comes back to Gotham and decides to help Bruce. Arkham Asylum has become ARK-M, a facility practicing bizarre experiments on people. You can kind of see where this is going. Our biggest villain is Bane in this universe, who does his best to break Batman down, as this universes Joker sees him as the perfect candidate for their fucked up program.
It’s an exhilarating start to a series, and the issues that have released since have only upped the ante more and more. Snyder is once again taking us into some of the most horrific corners of superhero culture, and it’s really really good.
Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 2: The Paper by Jonathan Hickman, Marvel Comics
Similar to Absolute Batman, I’m always a sucker for a good Spider-Man story. I don’t talk about it much anymore, but Spider-Man was always my favorite superhero. Someday I’ll likely write about how much his stories impacted my childhood and adolescence, but for now we’ll take a look at this cool new series.
It’s been sort of hard to follow Spider-Man comics for the past several decades. Obviously there’s like twelve different series going on at once, so that makes it hard, but I also haven’t much enjoyed a lot of the writers who have helmed the various ships. When I heard they were revamping the Ultimate universe, I was confused. Back at the end of the 00’s, it seemed as though they closed that door after Peter came back, kicked ass with Miles, and then fucked off with Mary Jane into the sunset.
However, apparently this Ultimate universe is kind of pulling a DC and resetting everything, making it so Peter Parker never got bit by the radioactive spider. Now, he’s a bearded 30-something, married to MJ, has two wonderful kids, Uncle Ben is still alive and FRIENDS WITH J. JONAH JAMESON??? It’s pretty neat.
When a variant of Iron Man one day appears before Peter and tells him of how the universe has been altered, he provides peter the radioactive spider as a means of setting the universe right. Enter Ultimate Spider-Man! This second volume follows our uncertain hero as he continues his alliance with Harry Osborn, as a semi-heroic Green Goblin. Uncle Ben and Jameson are working on exposing the corruption under Kingpin, who is now Mayor of New York. It’s an exciting new dawn for Spider-Man, and volume 2 continues the adventure, even introducing this universes Black Cat!
In a year where I read A LOT of comics when I was struggling to read books, this and Absolute Batman were such breaths of fresh air after yeeeears of superhero fatigue. I remain immensely critical of the genre and the characters, but hey, I’m having a good time too.
The Horizon Experiment, edited by Pornsak Pichetshote and feat. Tanarive Due, Sabir Pirzada, Vita Ayala, Terry Dodson, and more, Image Comics
Thanks to Hoopla, I stumbled upon this gem as I was looking at the new comics section, saw many of my faves, and clicked borrow. This fascinating anthology takes many of the genres seen as “not for POC characters” and creating stories that center their characters and experiences. From a Chinese James Bond to Muslim exorcists, this is a truly exciting “experiment,” as it compiles a series of fantastic stories, as a means of hopefully getting them out into a publishing world increasingly trying to push them out.
Conceived by comics superstar Pornsak Pichetshote, he provides an email that you can contact to let them know which stories you greatly enjoyed and would love to see turned into a series. It’s an ingenious idea, especially for someone with perhaps a little more name-recognition in the game. I haven’t gotten to see if any of the stories have gotten optioned or not, but I imagine you can still read it and write in on your faves!
Of all the comics I’ve been talking about in this list, I implore you to check this one out and help keep comics as diverse as their stories are.
Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang, Dutton
Natural Beauty was one of the first audiobooks I listened to when I was granted access to Penguin Random Audio through Lahaska, and I’ll never forget some of the images in that book. One of my favorite critical looks at the beauty industry and the white supremacy under the tide of all of it, Ling Ling Huang’s authorial voice is reminiscent of the speculative fiction made famous by The Twilight Zone, and Immaculate Conception is further proof.
While not as obviously terrifying as Natural Beauty, the concept of this novel is just as scary, if not more in some ways. Enka is an artist that struggles with her own feelings of inadequacy, as well as a sense that she can’t come up with anything she would consider “good.” When she meets Mathilde, a particularly gifted artist, she puts all of her friendship eggs into Mathilde’s basket as a means of keeping herself close to greatness. When her friend’s mental health begins to deteriorate due to the increased fame, Enka is desperate for a way to keep Mathilde close, while also caring for her in likely the most unhealthy way possible.
When Enka learns of a new technology called SCAFFOLD, purported to enhance empathy and allow the user to link directly with another person’s mind, Enka sees her chance of keeping her in Mathilde’s life forever, but at what cost? Even her way of getting Mathilde to agree is suspect, especially when she begins to use her friend’s own inspiration for her own, while Mathilde rots away slowly.
Much like in her debut, Huang never entirely views Enka as a villain, instead illustrating for viewers why something like SCAFFOLD is not only incredibly helpful and exciting, but also deceptively dangerous. Though Enka’s intentions may seem virtuous to her own self, we witness the destruction of Mathilde’s mind and body as these intentions play out. It proves for a conflicted reading, since the humanity that created SCAFFOLD is more an enemy than the technology itself.
A deeply unsettling form of technological speculation, Immaculate Conception is a firecracker of a follow-up to work that’s already excellent. If this is your first time hearing of Ling Ling Huang, go buy copies of these books immediately. You’ll thank me later.
Puppet’s Banquet by Valkyrie Loughcrewe, Tenebrous Press
There were many presses I didn’t get to focus on this year, but the one that hurt my heart the most was Tenebrous Press. These guys released some of my favorite books of the last few years, and this whole not being able to read thing really broke me.
Yet, the one Tenebrous title I did get to read this year was the newest nightmare from Valkyrie Loughcrewe, whose Crom Cruach altered my goddang brain chemistry. Needless to say, I’m pretty sure Puppet’s Banquet did some of the same.
Deemed a “diseased Gothic,” this novella is precipitated by a couple, Celia and Martin, who are brutally attacked on their trip through the Irish countryside. While Martin’s body disappears, Celia finds herself with a violent schism in her mind between “reality” and some kind of surreal maelstrom of horror and chaos.
But then Martin’s body is found.
Where is the strange part, and he’s not alone. In a hospital wing for abnormal diseases, Martin’s body is spliced together with an unknown women, and somehow worse, they’re VERY pregnant.
What follows is an evisceration of medical abuse, the systemic disease of colonialism as a whole, and the limits our own perceptions can go. Much like Loughcrewe’s other work, this is not an easy read but there is much to find that’s vital in its sublime, albeit disturbing concept. This one is definitely for all my extreme horror heads out there, but boy is it worth the fucked-up ride.
The Poorly Made and Other Things & Galloway’s Gospel by Sam Rebelein, William Morrow Books
Man, Sam Rebelein sure is a troubled guy, huh?? I kid, but I will never cease to be amazed at how such a teddy bear of a guy could conceive of some of the stuff that happens in these two books. Because holy shit.
The Poorly Made and Other Things holds one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever read—like, actually scared me in a big way. Furthering the lore he began in Edenville, Poorly Made explores other areas in this diseased fictional upstate New York. Being a Sam Rebelein fan is fun because you read a book, say “great, I love this, I’d like to know more,” and then when you learn more, you wish you didn’t, and that’s somehow even better.
If I remember correctly, there is a story that sets up the other entry in this section—Galloway’s Gospel. Set within the world, but functioning outside of Edenville, Galloway opens up an entirely new can of “oh, hell no” worms by focusing on a young girl, Rachel Galloway, whose picked out of the crowd by one of her classmates when he sees something revolutionary in a make believe world of drawings Rachel creates out of boredom. What she doesn’t expect to happen is for this world to be yanked out of her hands and turned into a religion. Suddenly, the sleepy, if troubled town of Burnskidde becomes unrecognizable as the seemingly benevolent creatures she created become far more malevolent, and the religion only grows more and more.
Twenty years later, Renfield County Guard Rachel Durwood receives a cryptic message from her colleague, warning her there is something truly evil happening in Burnskidde, originally believed to be a ghost town after it was cut off from the rest of Renfield. The message only reads “CULTWATCH,” which usually means there’s a dangerous cult about to do some bad shit, but Durwood can’t understand how this lost community could cause any serious damage.
When she visits Burnskidde herself, she finds a quiet community, albeit very odd, and led by a mysterious figure who seems to control the entire town with his iron fist. Rachel knows there’s some weird stuff going on, but she has to figure out what her colleague was trying to get out of Burnskidde, and she’s very quickly running out of time.
Where Edensville’s scope was expansive, but still felt fairly contained, Galloway’s Gospel displays just how EPIC and fleshed out Rebelein has made this world. Bringing to mind the huge horror epics of the past 20 years, Sam has built a series that stands on four, strong, massive legs, and I hope we get to see some other cool adventures in this positively wild world.
Two of the best horror releases of this year, I adored both of these books.
Pam Kowolski is a Monster! by Sarah Langan, Raw Dog Screaming Press
Speaking of the best horror releases of this year, Sarah Langan’s newest novella through Raw Dog Screaming Press is right up there too.
Janet Chow’s life hasn’t been the way she hoped it would be. Even though she hoped to be a well-known journalist, she’s been relegated to freelance work every once and a while. The person she resents the most for her life is Pam Kowolski, a girl who used to be her friend and then turned on her, humiliating Janet in front of their whole class.
Since high school, Pam has gone on to become a well-known medium. When she begins boasting about a new connection to the spirit world that will upend everything we know about our current reality, Janet sees her chance to prove that Pam Kowolski is a fraud. However, the closer she gets to Pam, and her own past as a whole, the more she realizes things aren’t necessarily the way she remembered them.
This fast, sleek novella shows Langan at her best, melding our real-life connections and relationships with the surreally cosmic world of horror. What appears as a straightforward story about the ways we harm one another and perhaps, the misremembering of that harm, to something that will have you questioning whether your reality is what you even think it is. This is truly a deliriously great time.
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito, Liveright
Perhaps my favorite surprise of this year, when I started up the audiobook for Virginia Feito’s Victorian Psycho, I did not expect how hard I was going to laugh reading this book.
Following Winifred Notty as she joins on as a governess for the Pounds family, a rather affluent family in London. What this family doesn’t realize, however, is Winnie seeks a form of vengeance against the families patriarch, Mr. Pounds. For Mr. Pounds is her father, but she was given up as a baby.
Honestly, I thought this set up was enough. Sounds like a great social satire. But then the rest of the novel plays out and guys…this book is so fucking funny. Not only did I laugh so hard all the way throughout, it also holds one of my favorite endings of 2025, because the way this book ends is ingenious and I really had so much damn fun experiencing this story as a whole. It is not quite what you think it is, and like CJ Leede’s Maeve Fly, I think this book blows American Psycho out of the water.
And I stand by that.
Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang, Tordotcom
Neon Yang writing a queer, Asian-inspired take on The Mandalorian? I mean, you had me at Neon Yang, but of course, I absolutely need that in my life.
Yeva is a renowned dragon slayer who was sold into the empire when she was young. To keep herself away from the judging eyes of her colleagues, she’s decided to keep her helmet on at all times. When she’s sent to the city of Quanbao on a “diplomatic” mission, she’s the closest to home she’s ever been, but still steals herself away from those around her, as the city is deeply mistrustful of the empire. Partially, this is due to the fact that Quanbao still pays worship to and reveres dragons.
The queen, Lady Sookhee, is very welcoming to Yeva, but it becomes clear she harbors a secret about her extreme sickness. As she spends more and more time away from the empire, she slowly reconnects back to the life she once knew, even fostering a growing love for the queen, but when it becomes clear there seems to be a dragon still living among this small hamlet, our dragon slayer must decide if she will stand by her duty or embrace the healing life she’s found in Quanbao.
This novella is classic Neon Yang. Plenty of queer yearning, anti-colonial sentiment, and poetic descriptions drive home this story of found family, duty, and trauma in truly astounding ways. The perfect kind of adventurous fantasy to delight any reader, this is yet another gem in their wide repertoire.
Water Guest: Poems by Caroline M. Mar, University of Wisconsin Press
One of my first events at Big Blue Marble was hosting a group of positively astounding poets and writers to celebrate Caroline M. Mar’s release of her poetry collection, Water Guest. Exploring Lake Tahoe and the history of the Chinese laborers who built the transcontinental railroad, Mar delves into themes of identity, belonging, and the power of place in this utterly breathtaking piece of history.
My personal favorite is a section where Mar uses speculative imagination to imagine what her grandfather’s experience as a laborer may have been like, while also synthesizing her own queerness through this tether to the past. It’s brilliant and moving and everyone who loves poetry should go read it now. Or yesterday. Or tomorrow.
To Love a Fierceness So Bright: Poems by Chelsea Fanning, Nymeria Publishing
Another super fun event we had this year was around Halloween, where NJ poet Chelsea Fanning came to celebrate the release of her debut collection, To Love a Fierceness So Bright. We did spells and intentions and all kinds of witchy shit.
The collection itself uses the phases of the Triple Goddesses of The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone, with the poems reflecting these points in life to provide commentary for finding your own strength and denying a world set on making you as small as possible. Some of the poems are funny, even spooky, but they always present care and understanding. If you’re a fan of darker, witch-themed poetry, then I cannot recommend this collection enough. It’s fantastic.
Deeper: A Collection of Offerings by saffy, AYA Art Collective
This is one that I would consider one of my absolute favorites from this year. saffy contacted me earlier this year about hosting an event at BBM and between the hell that has been this year for me and other hectic happenings, I’m hoping I can finally bring this true talent to our store. Because Deeper is one of those works that transcends poetry, introducing theory, somatic healing, and so much more.
For fans of the work of writers such as Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M. Jacqui Alexander, and even Octavia E. Butler, these are offerings that will fill you with love, understanding, and hope to fight this hellish future we’re trying to foist ourselves into.
Hover: Poems by Liza Flum, Omnidawn
A tender collection of poems exploring parenthood, polyamory, and above all else, love, Hover is a beautiful series of poems. Detailing Flum’s experience with miscarriage and what it means to build family within poly and ethically non-monogamous relationships, but also the sometimes messiness and jealousy that stems from a new opening of a relationship. The poems are lyrical but have the modern sensibility that lends a form of accessibility to them. There’s also a huge focus on birds, so if you’re a birder AND a poet, these are great to spend your time with.
Spider-Man: Reign 2 by Kaare Andrews, Marvel Comics
I never expected this book to show up on this list. Mainly because I didn’t even know a sequel to Spider-Man: Reign was even being written, but ALSO because I really didn’t like the first one.
Reign has been discussed to death at this point, standing up there among the most controversial Spider-Man stories, as while I wasn’t as mad at this one as I was One More Day, I just couldn’t get into this utterly hopeless, nihilistic version of Spider-Man, which, I know is kind of surprising for me. Who knows, maybe now that I’ve read the sequel, if I return to the first one I may like it more now. But who knows.
So when I found out there was now a sequel almost 20 years later, I figured, eh, why not. What’s the worst that could happen? And…I honestly liked it a lot.
Spider-Man: Reign 2 picks up right where the last installment left off, with old man Spider-Man indisposed and in the merciless grips of Wilson Fisk, who has essentially turned New York into a shadow of its former self. But the Kingpin of Crime has a devious plan up his sleeve, to commit genocide of the vagrants that have gunked up the good streets of his New York. When a new Black Cat breaks Peter out of his induced slumber, the two team up to save the city from Kingpin’s plans.
I don’t know guys, maybe it was the hopeful energy of this one, but I really liked this installment. I don’t know what happened to or for Kaare Andrews in the time betweem releases but all I can say is I’M GLAD because it made for a superior (hehe) Spider-Man story.
Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky, Pantheon
One of my biggest regrets from this year was not going to see Mattie Lubchansky while they were on tour for this one. Especially since they were at Partner & Sons here in Philly. If only so I could tell them how much Boys Weekend and this newest adventure mean to me.
Lubchansky is most likely best known for their humorous, albeit real, comics about modern day America, as well as our probable future. In Simplicity, we follow a timid academic named Lucius who is sent to the annexed areas of the new New York, which essentially just turns out to be the Catskills. Lucius is most interested in exploring a community that nestled itself out that way many years ago, led by a charismatic hippie. Hoping to learn more about this bizarre religion, he goes to live among them, though facing mistrust from just about everyone in it. When things obviously start getting weird, Lucius will learn more about what it means to be connected with the nature as opposed to massive, corporate entities that seek to keep others out.
This one is far more fantastical than it is horror, but boy do those horror roots still stick in there. There’s a cheeky satire at the heart of this story, where Boys Weekend was maybe more overt, this one can be a bit more subtle. Well, for most of it, that is…
Another success for an outstanding storyteller and illustrator.
Mirror Translation by Meghan Lamb, Blamage Books
Literary horror, though sometimes a silly genre marker to me, remains one of my favorite transformations of the wider horror umbrella, as it opens doors to some truly incredible, cerebral, transformative places. Meghan Lamb is a writer within this space who understands how invisible the boundaries of storytelling are, and this is more evident than ever in her lit-horror collection of interconnected stories contending with class, the ways bigotry and ignorance can mirror, disorient, and build upon one another, as well as the hubris and boorishness of Americans when we travel to areas we refuse to understand.
Similar in tone to the short fiction of Charlene Elsby, Amelia Gray, and Kristina Ten, these stories perfectly encapsulate the schism between the artifice of how we’re told to view foreign destinations and their “realities,” as the speculative tends to complicate how we view reality. There is no easy way out for many of these characters, and their descent into the surreal is every bit their own doing, as opposed to typical narratives painting the locals as the aberrations. It allows for some tantalizing schadenfreude, as well as unnerving goosebumps, setting the stage for more incisive and cleverly creepy works from Lamb in the future.
Easy to finish in one or two sittings, this unique piece of literary horror is bound to enchant as much as it scares.
The Sundowner’s Dance by Todd Kiesling, Shortwave Media
Todd Kiesling is another contemporary author whose ability to bring the feeling of late 90’s/early 00’s horror epics to our modern moments. Devil’s Creek positively blew me away when I listened to the audio several year ago. I think the narrator was the same voice actor who performed on John Langan’s The Fisherman, and that remains one of my all-time favorite horror audiobooks.
I knew going into Kiesling’s The Sundowner’s Dance that it would likely mess me up big time, given its plot. Jerry Campbell has finally decided to leave the home he made with his wife who recently passed. When he’s invited to a seemingly unique retirement community, it seems as though this is the change in direction his grief needed. But the residents of Fairview Acres have some pretty unorthodox rules and activities, seeming to have long, loud parties at night. This definitely doesn’t feel like what Jerry signed up for…
Amidst the bizarre happenings, he seems to find comfort in Katherine, a resident who Jerry’s told suffers from sundowner’s disease, though she seems to have cryptic warnings for out protagonist. And what’s with the giant rock in the middle of town, surrounded by a little fountain? Having experienced several instances of Alzheimer’s and dementia, this story hit me hard, especially toward the end. Kiesling built a truly heart-wrenching and hopeful tale about aging and resilience, while the pacing moves like the best of horror thrillers, it’s the characterization that makes The Sundowner’s Dance shine the brightest. I absolutely cried as I finished this one up, reveling in the tenderness Todd is always expertly providing amongst the sheer terror.
It’s January 1st. I’m staring into the glowing white screen of my computer, having finally finished this massive, daunting list, and all I can say is thank you. For reading, for following, for subscribing. This year massively sucked, with misfortune upon misfortune falling upon my house, but, there was plenty of light as well. And there were plenty of books that weren’t from this year that I greatly enjoyed, but fall outside of the 2025 release window. I will likely list them below.
It’s difficult to say what 2026 will bring, though I hope it marks a trending of positive upward mobility, as opposed to the opposite. I do know that I need to heal my relationship to my identity as a book reviewer. It can be hard to get wrapped up in the grind of everything, especially as an impoverished disabled person, but I remain honored and privileged to have access to early copies of books, finished copies of books, etc. People were very kind to me this year in helping me get ahold of the books I really love from this year.
I thank everyone who has extended kindness, support, and friendship throughout the course of this year. Y’all know who you are and I cherish you. I also want to thank those who have personally reached out to tell me how much you enjoy the blog. Most days I consider giving this whole charade up, so these messages mean THE WORLD to me. To the authors who continue to cheer me on, hopefully soon there will be more Violet original stories, books, what-have-you. The novel and essay projects are still in the chambers and I’m hoping to work more concertedly on those in 2026.
That’s about it from me. I’m so freaking tired from working on this. I love y’all so much. Please take care of one another as we continue to oppose neo-fascism.
<3 Violet
What a helluva round up, Violet! I loved this so much and already added a bunch to my TBR list for 2026. I'm also selfishly and deliriously happy to see so many books that I loved as well on this list. Fun fact about Rekt -- I took horror classes from Alex! He is a GEM as an author and as an instructor. I learned so much from him!
Here's to hoping 2026 is a better year overall, but another fantastic year of reading. I'm excited to continue following your reading journey!