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.
October 1
October 6
Find Me Where It Ends
By Cassandra Khaw
A woman wakes up to find the black hound of Death at her front door. For the women of her family, death always comes in the form of a black dog. Her Death’s arrival must be a sign, permission to finally let go. To rest. Because while mortality is inevitable, living is a choice. But a good death comes at a price.
The Haints Know Your Name: A Southern Horror Collection
By Margeaux West
Eleven tales rooted in Black Southern culture and steeped in Louisiana folklore, superstition, and history. From rural bayou towns to the city streets of New Orleans, the living encounter vengeful haints, dangerous bargains, human monsters, and forces older than anyone wants to remember.
What Feeds Below
By Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
When Jade is lost in the Void, overrun with vicious monsters and carnivorous plants, Petra must plunge deeper than she’s ever dared to save her friend. But she doesn’t know the truth of the Void . . . or what really waits for her in its depths.
October 8
Stitch Witches
US | UK (Out on Oct 9; eBook only)
By Krissie K. Williams
Thirty years after the Salem Witch Trials, a series of sinister deaths plagues Promise Land, Massachusetts, once a safe haven for Puritans. As the town embarks upon another witch hunt to find the murderer, Orphelia and Settie, a woman enslaved by her family, become intertwined in a mystery to stop the deaths, mania, and fear gripping their town.
October 13
It Looks Like You In The Dark
By Mathilda Zeller
A fast-paced, grab-you-by-the-throat story about love, loyalty, and all the fearsome monsters that emerge when we turn our backs on the land and each other.
The Forest Bleeds: A Novel
By Rachel Kitch
A speculative horror-romance that combines the magical dark academia of The Atlas Six and the unsettling atmosphere of Mexican Gothic.
Laplace’s Witch
By Keigo Higashino
Translated by Stephen Paul
An unexplained tragedy. A handsome stranger. A house of ghosts and memories. In this fresh take on the Gothic tale, a young Nigerian woman returns to the family mansion where her brother died—only to find the past ready to consume her.
My Roommate Is Trying To Kill Me
By Maya-Gawonii Shabazz-Saleh
Hakeem Morales is mostly working nights at a Los Angeles horror bar, The Last Cue; trying not to spiral about his stalled life; and wondering whether his new roommate is trying to kill him. Nothing improves a possible murder situation like developing a crush on the man you’re pretty sure is planning it.
October 20
Needlemouth
By K-Ming Chang
Three cousins are forced to complete an impossible and violent task set by a vengeful demon.
A Lake With No Bottom
By HD Hunter
When Sidney Cromwell moves to rural Forsyth County, all he wants is to fit in at his new high school. But when Sidney nearly drowns in Lake Lanier, an allegedly haunted lake that is the site of numerous inexplicable freak accidents and deaths, he becomes a social pariah as he starts to suffer terrifying visions from the past and hauntings by apparitions calling him to Lanier.
Sinner Man Hand: And Other Folk Horrors
By Tracy Cross
A collection of African American horrors about monsters, magic, and demonic entities that begins with the first slave ships and spans centuries.
Hanging And Burning
By Walter Mosley
A dying gangster’s plea sends Joe King Oliver on a quest for a missing woman across America’s coasts—unraveling a dark and violent family history along the way.
A Place Where Nothing Grows
By Davin Roberts
Pre-order link coming soon. Follow Davin Roberts on Threads for updates.
“Possession, transformation, existentialism, and unapologetic Blackness abound in A PLACE WHERE NOTHING GROWS AND OTHER ANAMOLIES, Robert’s electric debut short story collection. These characters feel real. They are our friends, our neighbors, our family, the verisimilitude of their voices holding us tight throughout these stories of desperate ghosts, decaying bodies, and cosmic isolation. This collection shouldn’t be missed.” – Briana N Cox, author of INDIGENT: A LITERARY HORROR NOVEL
October 27
ICYMI – previous new releases
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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