weat five books Consider the shortlist for the annual Bram Stoker Awards an excellent source of horror novel recommendations. Each year, members of the Horror Writers Association – an international group of writers and publishing professionals – nominate new work for consideration in many different literary forms, from screenplays and anthologies to short stories and even poetry. Here, we’ll focus on the 2026 shortlist of best new novels, but we suggest horror fans take the time to read the full list of available nominees and category winners. Here.
Winners of the Bram Stoker Award 2026 for Outstanding Achievement in Fiction:
buffalo hunter hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
The book has had huge success in a very short time – and this new award follows the Nebula Award and the Locus Award. The audiobook has also won two other awards. buffalo hunter hunter is a high-concept historical horror novel that unfolds in three related strands: a modern academic’s research for a book project, the diaries of a Lutheran minister on the American frontier, and the confessions of a Blackfoot man with a dark secret. When fantasy novelist Katherine Arden recently recommended it to us, she said: “It’s bloody, it’s fantastical, it’s vengeful… It’s very complex, and very moving. It’s a book that I think needs to be read.” But be careful—it’s also very violent. buffalo hunter hunter Included in Barack Obama’s annual summer reading list new York Times List of notable books of the year. Unforgettable.
And the four books that were shortlisted:
witchcraft for wayward girls by grady hendricks
We’re big fans of Grady Hendrix here five books; We interviewed him last year about the best vampire books following the publication of his last novel, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Killing Vampires. This new novel, a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic, is set at a home for young unwed mothers in 1970s Florida. The residents are kept under tight control, but when a librarian shares a book about witchcraft, the girls find a way to gain power. “Hendrix’s genius as a horror writer is his ability to develop complex, human-scale emotional arcs,” declared new York Times. “At times frightening, anxiety-inducing, infuriating, beautiful and tragic, witchcraft for wayward girls This is absolutely appalling for our imperfect age.”
king sorrow by Joe Hill
Envision the establishment of an elite liberal arts college of secret historyAdd in the summoning of a sinister supernatural entity with a thirst for blood sacrifice, and you have something like the concept of king sorrowThe new book from bestselling American horror author Joe Hill – who, coincidentally, is also Stephen King’s son. This is the door to a book with lots of plot – expect blackmail, murder, betrayal and… dragons. It sits somewhere between the genres of horror and fantasy, yet addresses the real concerns of contemporary America. If you like a big book that can keep you entertained for over 900 pages, this is the one for you.
seductive By Silvia Morena-Garcia
“At that time, when I was a young woman, there were still witches,” begins this richly imagined novel that blends the historical history of witchcraft in Massachusetts with the folklore of the author’s Mexican heritage. In three parallel stories, a Mexican cattle rancher goes missing at the turn of the 20th century; A beautiful young woman disappears from a college campus in the 1930s, and another mysteriously disappears from the same institution in the 1990s. “I discovered that both Mexican folklore and the New England background could speak to each other in interesting ways,” Morena-Garcia. Explained in an interview. “The roles of witches in society certainly change and differ depending on the time and place we’re talking about.” Expect a slow-burn folk horror that spans the best part of a century and a continent.
girl in the creek By Wendy Ann Wagner
Award-winning author Wendy N. In Wagner’s new ‘eco-horror’, Erin, a freelance writer, travels to a picturesque town in the Pacific Northwest to investigate the years-old disappearance of her brother. She soon discovers that Brian is one of many missing persons – and appears to be hiding in the vast and ecologically bizarre forest beyond the edge of the North Clearing. Expect mystery, body horror, and strange fungi reminiscent of Jeff VanderMeer Destruction. An interesting new addition to the rapidly growing (and amusingly named) sub-genre’sporor‘—also known as the ‘spore core’—and it involves some fun experiments in perspective.
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