3 Books for Horror Fans

by MK French

This summer has been slim on horror releases, and if you can't wait for pumpkin spice season and all things dark and scary, then I have 3 books for you today. Two of which you can get today, and the third you will want to pre-order.

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Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, Kim Newman, et al., edited by Stephen Jones

July 2026; Titan Books; 978-1835417416
ebook, print (368 pages); horror anthology

This volume includes an early draft of Lovecraft's novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It served as inspiration for new contributors to write about Innsmouth and those who worship Dagon, and is a testament to how hard Stephen Jones had worked to find a publisher for the first collection. His introduction explains the trouble the first collection had gone through in order to get published and win its awards, which shows just how much he and the authors had believed in the project.

We open with the altered pages of discarded draft Lovecraft had written, then move into the first inspired story, "The Quest For Y'ha-Nthlei" by John Glasby. It branches off the original novella by telling the story of the federal agents who stormed Innsmouth. It fleshes out the throwaway lines at the end of the original story, showing us how it happened and whether the military saw. We proceed to WWII-era Berkeley, when the military had contractors for special bombs, then off to an old mill outside of London. They start off slowly, with no obvious tie to the Old Ones until partway through. We know more about the mythos than the characters do, so we anticipate bad things happening long before they do.

Some of the stories veer a little further away from mentioning the mythos directly. You have to know the relationship with actress Janice Matsh, changing form as an adult, the chanting and the missing people. The accompanying art shows creatures with sharp fins or claws, teeth like needles or serrated blades. We're back at Innsmouth for Caitlín R. Kiernan's entry, before crossing the Atlantic again. These stories either directly reference Innsmouth or have the classic "Innsmouth look" to them. It's either a decrepit, fading place, or one eager to usher in a new age for Dagon. I find the beginning and ending stories a little stronger than the middle ones, but as a whole it's a collection that brings the mythos to life.

Buy Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth at Amazon

The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson

August 2026; Hogarth; 979-8217154166
audio, ebook, print (304 pages); horror

Carwyn and his wife Rhian are sheep farmers in the remote Welsh mountains, a profession that is harder to preserve. When Carwyn finds a strange stone head in a disused corner of the farm, it's clearly an ancient artifact that he becomes obsessed with unearthing. He neglects the farm, the sheep fall sick, and Rhian becomes more and more isolated. Carwyn is convinced that uncovering the site and determining its original purpose will be the key to solving everything, but hidden there is a power greater and more terrible than he could have imagined.

We get a chance to see Carwyn and Rhian's everyday life before he stumbles across the artifact and feels compelled to dig it out. The farm is small, just the two of them, with his dog and the sheep at some distance from other towns and people. Together for forty years, the couple knows the way the seasons affect the farm, the animals, and each other. This year too many things have changed: incredible heat, illness, people going missing, and their financial situation growing tighter. Rhian insists that something is off about the place and the digging, while Carwyn insists he's helping and the site will be important for all Welsh. His behavior deteriorates over time, scaring Rhian.

Chapter epigraphs increase the sense of dread in the book, that there is something missing that Carwyn and Rhian don't know about. Their formal education is limited, after all, and plenty had occurred in the deep countryside generations ago that was never really discussed. The story proceeds slowly, with flashes back to their childhoods and the stories told by grandparents about old traditions. The final quarter picks up in creepiness and potential horror, though it's mostly off-page and left to the reader's imagination. The evil is not really explained, and we're left with some questions at the end. 

Buy The Hill in the Dark Grove at Amazon

The Minimalist by Kailee Pedersen

August 2026; St. Martin's Press; 978-1250328274
audio, ebook, print (272 pages); horror

Mia Voss is the greatest student of famed minimalist composer Ryder Wakefield, and inherits everything when he unexpectedly dies. He left behind an unfinished composition, and Mia plans to try finishing it. At the same time, she is haunted by memories of a tragic romance with Ryder's late son Oliver, an Asian American adoptee like her. She faces this, as well as Ryder's hidden identities, her guilt over Oliver's suicide, leaving her girlfriend behind, and the growing hold the composition has over her.

Mia's voice is very academic here, clinical and detached from the start, using sophisticated vocabulary and no dialogue tags for conversation. She says the Chinese orphanage called her hard to love, and there's no emotion whatsoever as it's recounted. She has no identification with her ethnic heritage and only considers her artistic heritage as Ryder's student. Her girlfriend wanting commitment is inconvenient, and she "pondered the repetitive dilemma of my continued existence." She just as casually mentions self-harm, and she pulls out a molar because she feels she must suffer for her art. As she stays in Ryder's home to complete his final work, she thinks on the past and what it means for the music she creates. She recounts erratic behavior with the same academic detachment. 

The life adopted children can be emotionally complicated, but they don't react the same way. Mia thought of her biological parents as dead, and Oliver wanted to track down his biological mother. Mia endured microaggressions and sexual harassment for being a woman or Asian, and she absorbed it into her need to be perfect. Minimalism refers to the repetition of notes in music. We can see the repetition in how her life in music correlates in some ways with Ryder's or even her adoptive mother's. The detachment makes more and more sense, as how even Mia explains her life as making herself small. It's incredibly sad, and the repetition of guilt, loneliness, and pain lingers.

Buy The Minimalist at Amazon

Born and raised in New York City, M.K. French started writing stories when very young, dreaming of different worlds and places to visit. She always had an interest in folklore, fairy tales, and the macabre, which has definitely influenced her work. She currently lives in the Midwest with her husband, three young children, and a golden retriever. 

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