Hildur Knútsdóttir’s psychological horror story The Night Guest uses spare language and elision to heighten the feeling of creeping dread
Knútsdóttir places the reader in close proximity to Iðunn's psyche via an unreliable first-person narration.
Working blue: In her sophomore novel, Brittany Newell probes the limits of desire and loneliness
Newell unfolds a tale that is, in places, almost unbearably sad in its portrayal of contemporary anomie.
In author and bookseller Jenny Kiefer’s debut novel, four hikers discover horror in the Kentucky wilderness
For those looking for a solid throwback to the great pulp horror novels of the ’80s, this one is a good bet.
Rise of the machines: Nnedi Okorafor’s metafictional postapocalypse is surpassingly depressing
Okorafor does not miss a single opportunity to critique the contemporary media establishment.
The dogs of war: Christopher Bollen’s latest novel is a deliriously vicious, ferociously entertaining read
Bollen has concocted a scenario that deftly upends traditional power structures.
Gone girl: Liz Moore traces the fallout from a rich teen’s disappearance at a summer camp in The God of the Woods
Structurally, Moore’s novel flits around in time and perspective.
Forever young: In youthjuice, E.K. Sathue skewers the beauty and wellness industry with a twisted satire
Sathue's novel is the fist release from the Soho Press horror imprint Hell's Hundred.
Welcome to the rat race: Fifty years on, James Herbert’s first novel retains its pulpy ability to shock and offend
The one area that literary craft does get elevated a bit beyond a pulp sensibility is in the East London setting.
Ray Russell’s The Case Against Satan bridges the gap between pulp horror and the paperback explosion of the ’70s
Russell was an executive editor at Playboy, where he published such canonical writers as Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, and Richard Matheson.
In Maeve Fly, CJ Leede rewrites American Psycho with an L.A. setting and a female narrator
Leede's great sleight of hand is in her ability to make us feel something for Maeve.