Ally Wilkes, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of All the White Spaces, grew up in a succession of isolated--possibly haunted--country houses and boarding schools. After studying law at Oxford, she went on to spend eleven years as a criminal barrister. Ally now lives in Greenwich, London, with an anatomical human skeleton and far too many books about Polar exploration. You can follow Ally on Twitter @UnheimlichManvr.
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (2025) Clay McLeod Chapman "Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is a pedal-to-the-metal, body horror mash-up of The Purge, Pontypool, and Malcolm Devlin's And Then I Woke Up. Chapman has an absolute gift for the unforgettably, mind-saturatingly horrific, and I shall be sending him my therapy bill."
Marginal (2024) Tom Carlisle "Blight is a spellbinding debut and an utterly modern-feeling folk horror, full of moral complexity and righteous anger: what profit is there in my blood?"
It Will Only Hurt for a Moment (2024) Delilah S Dawson "No one does female rage quite like Delilah S. Dawson. It Will Only Hurt for a Moment is both a deft examination of creativity and a bone-chilling take on the asylum novel. It's an absolute must-read."
Coup De Grace (2024) Sofia Ajram "Bleak, unrelenting, and surprising at every turn, the torturous inner maze of depression becomes literal in Sofia Ajram's nightmarish vision of an endlessly expanding House of Leaves."
Cold Snap (2024) Lindy Ryan "Lindy Ryan takes old tropes and makes them fresh in this creepy and bizarre little book about grief."
Horror Movie (2024) Paul Tremblay "You may think you see some of the wheels turning inside Tremblay's bleak story about art, atrocities, and the callousness of teens, but as with A Head Full of Ghosts, you're only scratching the surface of his dark vision. The Thin Kid will haunt you."
Spitting Gold (2024) Carmella Lowkis "Carmella Lowkis's confident debut twirls the reader into high society (and low) in a 19th century Paris deliciously recognizable in its modernity. Boasting a twisty plot, seances, sly humor, ghosts, a long con, and lesbians, the heart of the book is the affecting and frustrating relationship between two sisters. I devoured it."
Ghost Station (2024) S A Barnes "Fans of exploration horror will go wild for this creepy, pacey, and captivating novel... Ghost Station will infect you."
A Botanical Daughter (2024) Noah Medlock "Deliciously arch and bursting with eccentricity, A Botanical Daughter starts its uncanny life as a cosy-yet-macabre look at found family. Soon, however, it grows, steadily and with skill, into a vegetal monstrosity, forcing us to look - not without a shiver - at the horrifying 'other' and the boundaries of personhood. An extraordinary debut."
The Briar Book of the Dead (2024) A G Slatter "Dark, witchy, and downright delicious, The Briar Book of The Dead is the perfect read for shorter days and longer nights."
This Wretched Valley (2024) Jenny Kiefer "This Wretched Valley is a reality-warping, body-horror, don't-go-into-the-woods nightmare which grips from its very first sentence. Kiefer deftly weaves something Dyatlov Pass - shaped from her characters' hubris and pain, leading them to a ghastly and inevitable end sure to delight fans of The Troop or Blair Witch. A truly unforgettable debut."
Brainwyrms (2023) Alison Rumfitt "Brainwyrms cements Rumfitt's reputation as horror's rising star of the dark, disgusting, and subversive. She writes with compassion and lyricism about the most fucked-up subjects, making her readers complicit in the vile and uncanny."
Unquiet (2023) E Saxey "Unquiet is a sly, enigmatic incantation of a book, full of mysteries and half-truths. E. Saxey creates something unique, both Gothic and quietly folk-horror-inflected, in their tale of grief, loss, unquiet spirits and outsiders."
Burn the Negative (2023) Josh Winning "Burn the Negative treads the line deliciously between supernatural and psychological horror, and Winning's story whips along at breakneck pace towards a shocking payoff."
Grave Expectations (2023) Alice Bell "This book positively lit up my weekends with its cosy, affectionate, funny, awkward brand of ghostly crime-solving. Perfect for fans of BBC's Ghosts, Alice Bell has a keen eye for characterisation and the ridiculous, creating a story that will both send chills down your spine and wrap you up in a hug."
The Other Lives of Miss Emily White (2023) A J Elwood "The Other Lives of Miss Emily White is a gothic treat: class, femininity and the hothouse atmosphere of a Victorian boarding school make the perfect backdrop for a story of obsession and hysteria. Elwood's way with words is absolutely enchanting, and I didn't want this book to end, but when it did... !"
Freeze (2023) Kate Simants "A reality TV show set in formidable Arctic conditions offers a fresh and enticing setting. The book's expert pacing will keep readers guessing right up to the end."
The House of Whispers (2023) Anna Mazzola "Gothic, immersive and very, very scary . . . Set in 1939 Rome against the rise of fascism, injecting a powerful sense of dread."
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes (2022) Eric LaRocca "Eric LaRocca is, without doubt, one of the most exciting contemporary voices in queer horror. Pulling absolutely zero punches, his stories will leave you disturbed, and the viral sensation THGWSWLS is no exception: a visceral tale of obsession and depravity which holds a mirror up to our very darkest impulses. Paired in this edition with two fresh tales of grief and self-destruction, it might be the perfect "introduction" to LaRocca's brand of messy, dark horror... but reader beware: an encounter with these pages will leave you indelibly marked."
The Butcher (2022) Laura Kat Young "Readers will be swept away by the fresh take on dystopia found in this intelligent, immersive horror novel drawing on both The Lottery and The Hunger Games. In a poverty-ridden mountain town ruled by unfeeling overlords and their monstrous code of punishment and retribution, Lady Mae will - one day - take on her mother's role as the Butcher, delivering bloody eye-for-an-eye 'justice' to a resentful population. Her coming-of-age is brutal, and Laura Kat Young is unafraid to ask tough and necessary questions about corporal punishment, shared guilt, mob mentality, and who is served when the disadvantaged are pitted against each other."
Never the Wind (2022) Francesco Dimitri "Never the Wind is a tender and magical take on all the potential - and horrors - of adolescence. Dimitri's writing is full of wonder at the natural world, beautifully mediated through Luca's heart-rending personal circumstances, and a narrative voice full of pathos and wisdom. An utterly fresh take on the coming-of-age tale, with something deliciously awful and folkloric - in the darkest possible way - about the story's triumphant climax."
Glitterati (2022) Oliver K Langmead "Glitterati promises to be your new obsession... a world of fashion, backstabbing, baubles, and ice cream, in which compulsive, light-as-air storytelling hints and teases at the seriously dark dystopia behind it all. I absolutely loved this book."
Black Tide (2022) KC Jones "Black Tide is cinematic, fast-paced, pedal-to-the-metal storytelling: I found myself gasping!"
