#horrorreads

✨📚 February Book Releases Are NOT Playing 📚✨

@gizmodo just dropped its list of 69 new sci-fi, fantasy & horror books coming this month. Swipe to see new speculative titles from Black and Indigenous authors we are particularly excited about.

🖤 Books to have on your radar: 🚀 The Daughter Who Remains — @nnediokorafor 🏥 The Hospital at the End of the World — @justinckey 🧠 The Body — @bcmorrow 🕵🏾‍♀️ The Johnson Four — @christinahammondsreed 🩸 Dead First — @comptonwrites 👑 Cleopatra: A Novel — @saaraelarifi 🎭 Night of the Mannequins — @stephengrahamjones 🌒 The Secret World of Maggie Grey — @authorgranger

These stories imagine what’s possible—and what’s coming.✨

📚 Shop these titles and more at www.sistahscifi.com or bookshop.org/shop/SistahScifi.

🩸 BETA READERS WANTED FOR SANGUIJUELA! 🩸

Greetings, my Acolytes! We are on the hunt for awesome Beta Readers for the upcoming Gothic Horror novel, "SANGUIJUELA."

Get ready to dive into a truly dark and unsettling story – think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Dracula and The Dunwich Horror. It's a deep dive into monstrous family secrets and psychological trauma, perfect for a Halloween 2025 release!

WARNING: This novel contains graphic themes of violence and sexual assault. Please be mindful if you're sensitive to these topics.

We need your honest, raw feedback on everything: did it scare you? Did it make sense? Did the characters grab you? Your thoughts will help polish this terrifying tale to perfection.

Key Dates:

Apply by: June 23, 2025

Feedback Due: August 11, 2025

Think you're brave enough to beta read "SANGUIJUELA"? Hit up the application form below! 🔗 https://forms.gle/DumeSn9huwPciaLq6

Here's a snippet of what's to come! Enjoy the introduction to "Workaholic," which can be ordered from Something Or Other Publishing @ https://soopllc.com/product/Workaholic/

My father was a workaholic. The old man had slaved his days away in the coal mines—proud to be doing his part to fuel Appalachia, but a stranger at the dinner table where my mother always kept a plate ready. They taught me as a child that hard, dedicated work was the path of righteousness, something to aspire to. Be devoted to your employers, and they’ll be loyal to you. Earn your keep and they will reward you. In the end, all I earned was an empty pill bottle and this lousy pickaxe.

The blade was dull when I pulled it from the dark closet, stained with years of rust from neglect. A physical symbol of my labor’s burden, the tool dragged after me, scraping against the rough tile floor of the office where I used to work. Admittedly, I was no longer sure whether the wake of red flakes left behind was corrosion or blood. Despite the bright, shining lights and the bitter silence, I could no longer distinguish between what was real and what wasn’t. My former coworkers cowered under their desks while I shuffled. Quiet, as they had been when they all saw me drowning, and praying to the God that forsook us when I passed. One of the faceless screamed when the tip of the ax crashed through the wall of her cubicle. Removing it decapitated the kitschy kitten poster that bolstered everyone to “hang in there.”

Four girls enter Greystone Manor. The house has other plans.

Pre-Reading Thoughts

A 1920s manor house, a mysterious inheritance competition, and a building that may or may not be alive? That’s already an excellent setup for gothic horror. I’m expecting secrets, creeping dread, and the kind of unsettling atmosphere where you start to suspect the house itself might be watching.

Post-Reading

As I thought… This is a deeply atmospheric horror story, full of creeping tension and unsettling details - flickering lights, shifting walls, and things lurking just out of sight in the darkness. Greystone Manor itself feels like a character, constantly watching and subtly warping reality around the girls trapped inside. The 1921 setting adds another layer of tension, particularly as the story acknowledges the racism and social pressures of the time.

It surprised me by… …how complex the unfolding mystery becomes. At times the narrative can feel a little confusing, as the girls struggle to understand what the house is doing and why they were invited there in the first place. But the explanations do arrive, and when they do everything clicks into place in a really satisfying way. It’s absolutely worth sticking with the story through those moments of uncertainty, because the ending pulls the threads together beautifully.

Music Pairing

🎵 Featured Song: “Control” – Halsey 🎶 Vibe Album: If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power – Halsey 🎧 Artist Recommendation: Florence + The Machine (for dramatic, gothic intensity)

Vibe Check

Colour Palette: Midnight black, tarnished silver, oil-lamp gold Soundtrack: Echoing footsteps and distant whispers Season: Late autumn storms Mood: Uneasy, suspenseful, haunting Scent: Dusty velvet, candle smoke, and damp stone

Tarot Pull

The Tower – Sudden revelations, collapsing illusions, and truths that cannot be ignored. The Tower reflects the chaos and terror inside Greystone Manor, where the girls are forced to confront secrets - both their own and the house’s - whether they’re ready or not.

For Fans Of

Book: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Terrifying Reads for Brave Book Lovers

“Not for the faint of heart…”

Dare yourself this weekend 👀

Download chilling Horror reads that will keep you up all night.

🌕 Trauma, terror, and a terrifying island legacy in this chilling cult-horror survival thriller.

Pre-Reading Thoughts

I've read enough Darcy Coates to know that atmosphere is her superpower — whether it’s a haunted house or a forest that breathes wrong, she always delivers the creeping dread. So the idea of her writing a book about cult trauma and social media excess on a cursed island? I basically ran to read this, flashlight and emotional preparedness in hand.

Post-Reading

As I thought...

The atmosphere is thick — you can practically feel the humid air, the uneasy quiet, and the way the shadows press in. Prosperity Island feels like it’s watching you. The cult backstory is handled with surprising sensitivity, but Coates never lets you get comfortable. Even the moments of calm feel like the eye of a storm.

It surprised me by...

…how fast it went from unsettling to utterly gripping. Around the halfway point I had that exact moment: “Nope, I’m not sleeping until I know how this ends.” I needed answers — not just about the disappearances, but about the main character herself, and whether she was going to be able to break free from the story she’s been living in for twenty years.

The themes hit hard: legacy, memory, and whether we’re doomed to repeat the past just because it’s carved into our bones. But don’t worry — there are also blood sacrifices and possibly sentient islands.

🎵 MUSIC PAIRING

🎵 Featured Song: “Bury a Friend” – Billie Eilish

Dark, twitchy, and crawling under your skin. That strange whispery menace perfectly mirrors the vibe on the island and inside the protagonist’s head.

🎶 Vibe Album: The Turning: Official Soundtrack – Various Artists

Moody, modern gothic, with a constant undercurrent of dread. It hits the same eerie nerves as this book — especially tracks like “The Brume” and “Mother.”

🎧 Artist Recommendation: Chelsea Wolfe

If Prosperity Island had a house band, it’d be her. Haunting, atmospheric, and always one breath away from a scream.

🎨 VIBE CHECK

A colour palette: Slashed crimson, decaying gold, seaweed green

A soundtrack: A mix of wave sounds and distant screaming

A season: Summer — but the wrong kind. Muggy, haunted, untrustworthy.

A mood: “I should leave, but I can’t.”

A scent: Salt, mildew, old blood, and sunscreen that no longer feels comforting

🃏 TAROT PULL

The 6 of Cups – from the Dark Wood Tarot

This version of the card is shadowy, with ghost white lilies and a crow peeking from behind trees — an image of nostalgia that’s turned just a little bit rotten. That’s exactly what this book plays with: childhood memories, trauma, and the illusion that the past is safely behind us.

The 6 of Cups is often about memory, but in the Dark Wood it warns us that memory can be a trap. And on Prosperity Island, what’s buried never stays buried for long.

For fans of:

📚 The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

📚 My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones