Curated by Nailah King
A recurring column spotlighting the best horror, thriller, crime, and dark fiction by BIPOC authors.
Note: Book blurbs sourced from publishers/online listings.
August 4
The Hardest Ones to Fool
By Christina Li
A young adult thriller about a teen scammer who won’t let boys, friends, or even murder get in her way.
Note: UK release is on August 18.
Plant Lady
By Minyoung Kang
Translated by Shanna Tan.
The cult Korean psychological horror tale of revenge, reinvention, and what it takes to grow back.
Majestic Hills
By Dawn Turner
A Black couple leaves their downtown Chicago condo for a new suburban subdivision, only to find themselves at the center of a maelstrom.
Note: UK Release is on Sept 10.
Ghost in the Night
By Tiffany D. Jackson
A middle-grade murder mystery set in America’s Most Haunted City.
August 11
Dreamland
By Olivie Blake
A Gothic mystery where the glitz of Los Angeles collides with the dark shadows of the Hollywood elite.
Note: UK Release is on Aug 13.
A Plagued Sea
By Bo-Young Kim
Translated by Sophie Bowman
A Lovecraftian nightmare of infection, transformation, and abomination.
Note: UK Release is on Aug 11.
August 18
The Minimalist
By Kailee Pedersen
A gruesome and unsettling psychological drama is a darkly lucid portrait of a classical composer’s descent into madness.
Tapeworm
A Vampire Novel
By A. P. Thayer
A debut horror novel, where a group of friends must confront questions of identity, aging, and desire during a vampire infestation in an isolated Californian desert.
Note: UK Release is on Sept 8.
These Walls Remember
By Del Sandeen
When two estranged sisters inherit a home possessed by the horrors of its dark past, they must work together to survive.
The Sleeping Sisters
By Jennifer Givhan
A threatened mother and a relentless detective collide when a series of murders awaken something long buried in the New Mexican desert.
Note: UK Release is on Sept 3.
Back for Blood: Never Whistle At Night Part II
Edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
The bestselling Indigenous dark fiction anthology returns with a new selection of even more daring and sinister stories. From monsters to mutilation, Never Whistle at Night is back for revenge.
Slow Burn
By Amal Singh
When Rishi Tripathi, a failed actor, falls through a mirror in an inverted Mumbai, he invites fame as he has never seen before. In this inverted city, he’s a superstar and a critically acclaimed darling. But he soon realizes that success bears a heavy cost. The cruel actions of his doppelganger catch up to him, and he’s forced to find an entity called the Maker of Mirrors to return to his actual city.
POP!
By Angel Luis Colón
A chaotic journey into a hyper-stylized Brooklyn crime world, POP! is a fable for the overworked and overambitious.
Secret Dinner
By Raphael Montes
Translated by Zoë Perry
When a joke addition to the menu makes them all the money they need in one night, Dante is faced with a question he never thought he would be: how much money is enough to stop cooking human flesh?
Note: UK Release is on August 20
Thank you Ashley (@coffeeandcuentos) for also getting this one on my radar!
August 25
The Twelfth House
By Robert de la Chevotiere
The vengeful spirit of an unborn child draws her father from the Bight of Biafra onto a slave ship bound for the harshly colonized Caribbean island of Dominica in this lush historical novel infused with magical realism and rooted in West African mythology.
Blood Rising
By Markus Redmond
In the sequel to Blood Slaves, a vengeful vampire tribe formed of formerly enslaved Africans wages war across the Southern colonies in the ultimate battle of blood and betrayal.
The Sunken, the Adored
By Donyae Coles
A chilling Lovecraftian horror story where a recently freed slave from America making a new life for herself in 1800 Venice finds the mysterious plague that killed her former master may have followed her to Italy . . . and now stalks the canals.
The Seekers of Deer Creek
By Thao Thai
A story of two estranged sisters on a quest to find a painting by a forgotten Vietnamese artist that holds the truth of their family’s fractured past.
Note: UK Release is on August 4.
August 26
Brain-Dead Girls
By Felix I.D. Dimaro
When a tech billionaire mogul becomes obsessed with downloading his AI companion into the perfect living human body…… even if that means eliminating the soul already in it.
ICYMI – Releases from July
Out now
Have an upcoming release you’d like spotlighted?
BIPOC Indie and self-published writers are welcome!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting a Black woman creator!
Nailah King is a horror and crime writer and the host of Talk Your Lit Podcast, a show featuring dark fiction by BIPOC authors for the ghouls next door. She writes grim stories about haunted Black women pushed to the brink. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Feels Zine, GUTS Magazine, The Humber Literary Review, Transition Magazine, This Magazine and Carousel Magazine, and DEAD PRETTY. Nailah’s short story, “The Dead Last List” was one of the winning entries of Night Terror Magazine’s 2024 Horror for the Holidays short story competition. When she’s not writing or at the mic, she’s being bullied by her cats in Scotland.
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