A stylistically bold and innovative, cinematic horror novel about greed and paranoia, set amongst the grit and mud of the trenches in WW1.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire.

This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell. Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.

Angel Down – Daniel Kraus – 9781835415382

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A skull’s grin is eternal…

The year is 1635. Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest.

War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying man: the gilded skull of a saint. It is said that if you reunite the saint’s skull with her body, a wish will be granted.

Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside.

But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic’s power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing truth: the magic they seek comes at a cost. At the journey’s end, they’ll face an impossible choice. One that could tear apart everything they know…or bind them to each other forever.

As beautiful and tender as it is dark and terrifying, Bone of My Bone showcases one of queer horror’s most exciting writers in her most chilling tale yet.

Tropes : Folk Horror Fantasy /Dark Fairytale / Sapphic Love / Historical Fiction / Supernatural Books.

A sapphic folk horror tour de force.

Bone of My Bone – Johanna van Veen – 9781464275517

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Sofia is losing her grip. She planned to be the perfect mother, and nothing like her own, who raised her to fear the end of the world was approaching. When Sofia’s husband leaves for an extended work trip and she is left with their three-week old daughter, it’s not long before loneliness and anxiety manifest into something else.

Sofia descends into paranoia, and sleep-deprived madness. She is from a long line of women, all the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter. Her bloodline dates back to 1700s colonised Jamaica.

Is that where the source of her haunting lies? Who is this shadow that stalks her in the night? And the face that appears beside her own in the mirror?There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do, Sofia realises, to protect her new baby girl from these threats. Even bloody violence. A maternal gothic story of the fourth trimester, of heritage and class, of the things our mothers pass along to us, and the types of mothers people set out to be versus the ones they actually become.

Bloodfire Baby – Eirinie Carson – 9781835986684

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Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low. There has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished.

The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates. They offer succor in return for adoration. Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin.

The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors. And exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters… or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.

The Starving Saints – Caitlin Starling – 9780063418820

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A scientist desperately searches for a cure to a zombie virus while also hiding a monumental secret – her undead husband. First paperback print run to include yellow sprayed edges!Kesta’s husband, Tim, was the last person to be bitten in a zombie pandemic. The country is now in a period of respite, the government seemingly having rounded up and disposed of all the infected.

But Kesta has a secret . . .

Tim may have been bitten, but he’s not quite dead yet. In fact, he’s tied to a bed in her spare room. And she’s made him a promise: find a cure, bring him back.

A scientist by day, Kesta juggles intensive work under the microscope alongside Tim’s care, slipping him stolen drugs to keep him docile while knowing she is hiding the only zombie left. But Kesta is running out of drugs – and time. Can she save her husband before he is discovered? Or worse . . . will they trigger another outbreak

One Yellow Eye – Leigh Radford – 9781035048298

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1953. Mei has endeavoured to bury her ‘gift’ of speaking to ghosts while fighting to survive as a refugee in post-war, post-revolution Hong Kong. But then former silent film star Holly Zhang invites Mei to a series of séances at the infamous Maidenhair House and the startling summons revives Mei’s link to the man who destroyed her life.

Over the course of six nights, mediums will be eliminated one by one as they vie for a staggering reward, but the only prize Mei wants is revenge. Years later, the events have faded into urban legend, dismissed as mass delusion. But Mei knows the truth lies buried in the mansion’s dark past and if the ghosts she has carried are finally to be laid to rest, she must uncover what really happened at Maidenhair House.

The Hong Kong Widow – Kristen Loesch – 9780749032890

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Hyper-competent start up CFO Ellie is 46-year-old and like most women, is already juggling too much. Daughter’s not talking to her, husband’s not listening to her, and she’s got a promotion coming up at work.

It’s an inconvenient time to be beset by mid-life symptoms: coarse hair in new places, hot flushes, insomnia, losing time . . .

finding bloodstains on all her clothing, howling at the moon. Her doctor diagnoses perimenopause. But it’s another 28-day cycle that’s taking hold.

One involving fur, and teeth, and a not insignificant amount of rage. Suddenly the troubles in her life – hot flushes, thankless family, spiralling to-do list, oblivious husband, the w*nker promoted above her at work – seem almost . . . bite-size. A deeply gratifying, highly addictive and provocative read.

Femme Feral – Sam Beckbessinger – 9781526687876

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Single mother Elodie’s life has become a fairy tale. She’s met Bren, equal parts golden-retriever devoted and sinfully handsome. He’s whisked her and her autistic son, Jude, to the crumbling family house he’s renovating.

She has a new husband, a new house, and a new baby on the way. Everything is perfect. Then Jude claims he can hear voices in the walls.

He says their renovations are “hurting” the house. Even Elodie can’t ignore it–something strange is going on. The question is, is it with the house, or with her son?Then the one secret Elodie has been hiding is revealed, and no one is safe anymore.

You Did Nothing Wrong – C. G. Drews – 9781250369994 (Hardback)

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1865. Coal lies beneath Scratch MossHall and Lord Henry Brody is determined to get to it. But something else lurks below, something dark and evil.

1905. Reverend George Ackman has never known such godless people as those of ScratchMoss. But if not God, what do they believe in?

1945. Arthur works for the Coal Commission, visiting privately-owned pits ahead of their nationalisation. On his visit to ScratchMoss, he finds only misery and death.

1985. The miners have lost. Thatcher reigns supreme. And in the shattered community of ScratchMoss, rumours resurface about Red Clogs, a terrible presence in the land below.

2025. Divorced, fifty-something writer Joe returns to his hometown of ScratchMoss for the funeral of his father. Soon the memories of Joe’s teenage years, and the horror that blighted the community, come flooding back

Scratch Moss – David Barnett – 9781835983195

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His father could find what was lost. His father knew when someone was going to die. His father had talked to him about the dead who rode in on the wind.

The dead travel fast. Gaspar is six years old when the Order first come for him. For years, they have exploited his father’s ability to commune with the dead and the demonic, presiding over macabre rituals where the unwanted and the disappeared are tortured and executed, sacrificed to the Darkness.

Now they want a successor. Nothing will stop the Order, nothing is beyond them. Surrounded by horrors, can Gaspar break free?

Our Share of Night – Mariana Enriquez – 9781783788224

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