Penitents, the newest publication from Ghoulish Books, is finally available wherever books are sold.

Written by Madeline Blondeau, cover art by Evangeline Gallagher, jacket design by Zach Chapman, edited by Max Booth... PENITENTS is transgressive fiction at its finest — an extreme horror novel unflinching with its subject matter. Flesh & fluids abound.

Check out the trailer below:

Listen to Madeline talk about I Spit on Your Grave on the latest episode of The Scares That Shaped Us podcast.

DIVE INTO DARKNESS FOR LESS! Ready to discover what lurks beneath the surface? The Fathoms Below by Jackie Sonnenberg is on Kindle sale for only 99c! If you’ve been looking for your next dark, unsettling read, now’s the perfect opportunity to add it to your TBR. A story both futuristic… and prehistoric.” What if humanity didn’t evolve away from the ocean…but from it? In the future, science has uncovered a shocking truth: humans evolved from merpeople. Now, thanks to radical advances in genetics and medicine, humanity has found a way to return to its origins. Beneath the waves, a new civilization is rising—one built on the dream of reclaiming the oceans and transforming the deep sea into humanity’s next frontier.  But there are some things that did not go extinct. 19-year-old Dallas Dwight is one among many to become new merfolk.  And while she is getting used to her new body, she has to get used to a new environment that is still new to civilization. While Dallas is trying to learn where exactly she fits into it, she also learns things about her new self. Her singing talent on land adapted into something else under the sea: Echolocation, an Continue Reading

When Gianna is forced to move out of her school and away from her friends because of her father's new job, it feels like the end of the world. Her pregnant stepmother is treating her like Cinderella, her brother is no help, and the new school is full of bullies.

After a particularly cruel incident, she visits the "Witching House" a burned out shell where 20 years ago a group of vigilantes dealt with the witch in a Freddy Krueger-esque manner. It is rumored that writing the witch's name in blood will call her to you. You can probably guess what happens from there.

I liked Gianna but was not a fan of any of the other characters. Her father especially grated on my nerves as the type of half assed parent you just want to smack and say wake up Continue Reading

This Saturday, October 17th, Todd will be in attendance for the 2026 Fright Writer’s Festival at 2nd & Charles in York, Pennsylvania. Details are as follows:

Saturday, October 17, 2026

12:00 PM 6:00 PM

2nd & Charles
York, Pennsylvania
(map)

Brian Keene will moderate two panels throughout the day:

• 1 PM - My Favorite Halloween Memory - Featuring Mike Lombardo, Mary SanGiovanni, Somer Canon, Wesley Southard, and Oliver Seneca.

• 4 PM - My Favorite Horror - Featuring Todd Keisling, Amanda Headlee, Stephen Kozeniewski, Mike Slater, and Dennis Robinson.

Trunk-or-Treat will follow the event from 6PM to 7PM.

Dark Reservoir is an exploration of what remains after unimaginable loss. Through award-winning horror fiction, haunting poetry, and deeply personal nonfiction, Bram Stoker Award-winning authors Nzondi and Cindy O’Quinn guide readers through three emotional descents—Ghosts of Heartbreak, Blind Fury, and Mind Rot—where trauma, grief, survival, and the supernatural converge. These are stories of ordinary people forced to endure extraordinary pain. Some are haunted by ghosts. Others by memory. All are confronted by the lingering question of what survives after tragedy. Inspired by both imagination and lived experience, Dark Reservoir is not simply a horror collection. It is a meditation on resilience, the cost of survival, and the ghosts—literal and metaphorical—that refuse to let us go. Now available on Kindle, paperback, and KU Buy directly from our website.

The post Out Today! Dark Reservoir by Nzondi & Cindy O’Quinn appeared first on Crystal Lake.

Kelly McWilliams is a mixed-race novelist whose work examines white passing, American history, and the uncanny. She is also the author of several acclaimed novels for young adults, including Mirror Girls, a Junior Library Guild Selection. American Nightmare is her adult fiction debut. She lives in Seattle with her family. You can connect with her … Continue Reading! "Interview: Kelly McWilliams on American Nightmare, Hidden Figures and Historical Horrors"

The post Interview: Kelly McWilliams on American Nightmare, Hidden Figures and Historical Horrors appeared first on Cemetery Dance Online.

American Nightmare by Kelly McWilliams  Crown (September 15, 2026)  Reviewed by Haley Newlin Kelly McWilliams has disrupted my prematurely curated list of top reads of the year. In fact, American Nightmare is in the running for the number-one spot, alongside Markus Redmond’s Blood Slaves, Tamika Thompson’s The Curse of Hester Gardens, and Del Sandeen’s These … Continue Reading! "Review: American Nightmare by Kelly McWilliams"

The post Review: American Nightmare by Kelly McWilliams appeared first on Cemetery Dance Online.

Based on a series of real-life police files regarding a stalking in small-town Texas, “Marrow” follows Jamie Foster, a formerly successful vlogger who attempts to revitalize her career by inviting her stalker onto the show—knowing he may be the serial killer responsible for murdering a string of influencers. Although Jamie’s views go up, she begins to realize more than her life is at stake when the stalker’s identity—and humanity—come into question.

I was invited to watch an early screener of Marrow, starring Jessica Dawn Willis as a popular true crime vlogger. As her viewership numbers begin to wane, she Continue Reading

Cover reveal for the dark thriller, Lord of the Dead, by Matt Starr. Cover art by Johan van Rooyen. Lord of the Dead will be out January 22nd. Sam Hayne has been killing people for decades — on the silver screen as the Nightmare Man, that is. But then, after he’s fired from the beloved film franchise, a copycat killer emerges in the small Southern community he calls home. Can Sam help save the people of Bennetteville before the town becomes the set of a real life horror movie? Find out in this thriller, an ode to the golden age of fright flicks, from the author of Prepare to Meet Thy God.

The post Cover Reveal – Lord of the Dead by Matt Starr appeared first on Crystal Lake.

Halloween is a night of costumes, candy, bonfires, and ancient traditions, but when darkness falls, some legends refuse to stay buried.

Travel to forgotten towns where impossible rituals continue beneath the harvest moon. Meet haunted children, grieving parents, vengeful scarecrows, hungry jack-o'-lanterns, escaped killers, ancient Scottish curses, restless war ghosts, and sinister spirits waiting behind familiar masks. From nostalgic trick-or-treating and eerie small-town folklore to cosmic nightmares, gothic revenge, psychological terror, and outrageous splatter horror, every story captures a different face of the year's most terrifying night.

Featuring twenty-one chilling tales from some of horror's finest voices—including Brian Hodge, Ronald Kelly, Jeff Strand, Jeffrey Thomas, William Meikle, Gord Rollo, Mark Morris, Brian Moreland, John Everson, Steve Stred, Ryan Colley, Veronica Smith and many more, The Horror Collection: Halloween Edition is packed with unforgettable frights, unsettling legends, and haunting surprises.

So carve your pumpkin, leave the porch light on... and pray that whatever comes knocking isn't looking for candy.

Continue Reading

Incarnate by Alma Katsu G.P. Putnam’s (Sept. 2026) Reviewed by Dave Simms AI – there’s no bigger concept in publishing right now, and the evils of it keep growing. Writers are having their work stolen, chewed up, and spit out something terrible. Leave it to Alma Katsu to spin a tale that absorbs the current … Continue Reading! "Review: Incarnate by Alma Katsu"

The post Review: Incarnate by Alma Katsu appeared first on Cemetery Dance Online.

The Executioner’s Realm Andrew Knighton

The Executioner’s Realm is a collection of short stories by Andrew Knighton, set in the world of the Executioner. Some of the stories feature Lena Sturm, but others follow a range of characters living in the same… More

The teaser trailer for our next Reel Splatter film — DEAD FORMAT — is now live. You can view it and read more about the film here, exclusively from Bloody Disgusting.

Hello and welcome to the latest issue of The Ghoulish Times. My name is Max Booth and this is my free spooky newsletter about all things GHOULISH.

Next week is the release of our newest publication, Madeline Blondeau’s Penitents. I’m currently packaging webstore pre-orders with the intent of mailing out either this Wednesday or Thursday. Here is what it looks like:

Evangeline Gallagher did the incredible cover art. Every time I look at it, I forget how to breathe a little.

More about the novel:

“Gory, ferocious, and awash in bodily fluids, Penitents is a debut of both shocking violence and startling emotional clarity. This is a book that touches the heart with the filthiest fingers imaginable.”
—Lindsay King-Miller, This Is My Body and The Z Word

“This book will break you down compl Continue Reading