MALEVOLENT DARK HORROR FICTION TOP 25 for NOVEMBER 2023
Check out the October Edition
1. Becoming the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar
Stephen King says all you need to know on the cover: “A worthy and frightening sequel to Chizmar’s Chasing the Boogeyman. Terrific storytelling. You won’t be disappointed.”
2. Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele
Maurice Broaddus, Tananarive Due, and N.K. Jemisin are among the authors contributing 19 short stories of Black horror curated by the writer/director of Get Out, Us, and Nope.
3. A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
The first-ever novel authorized to return to the world of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House by the winner of three Shirley Jackson Awards herself.
4. The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey
The first book in the Carrion City Duology fuses Khaw’s cosmic horror and Kadrey’s gritty fantasy “into a full-throttle thrill ride straight into New York’s magical underbelly.”
5. Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling
A researcher’s investigation into a sinking city is complicated when she encounters her doppelgänger in a novel by the Bram Stoker Award nominated author of The Luminous Dead.
6. The Night House by Jo Nesbo
When a classmate goes missing, an orphaned 14-year-old boy investigates the strange circumstances of his disappearance.
7. Edenville by Sam Rebelein
A struggling author accepts a writer-in-residence position at a college in Edenville, a town with a dark and disturbing history, in the debut novel by Rebelein.
8. The Witch’s Lens by Luanne G. Smith
A witch is recruited to fight supernatural forces on the front lines of World War I in Book 1 of The Order of the Seven Stars.
9. Phantom by Helen Power
After selling her left hand for $1 million, an artist enrolls in a drug trial for phantom limb pain and develops a psychic connection to the missing limb, which Chicago’s Phantom Strangler is using to kill.
10. Creepy Court: A Monster Mall Anthology
Flashback to the 1980s in this limited edition monster romance collection of 14 stories published by Darklight Press.
11. No Way Out by Santana Knox
A horrific romance Halloween novella about “one dangerously lusty night in a small Ohio town that will never be forgotten.”
12. Midnight Showing by Megan Shepherd
Book 2 of the Malice Compendium and the sequel to Malice House continues the otherworldly adventures of aspiring artist Haven Marbury.
13. Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt
Her life upended after a workplace bombing, a woman meets the mysterious Vanya whose secrets hide a sinister and depraved conspiracy.
14. They Stalk the Night by Brian Moreland
During a winter storm, a retired police chief leads a group of men against a ravenous beast that’s preying upon the people of a remote town while a young mother and her children trapped in their isolated home try to survive the night.
15. The Pale House Devil by Richard Kadrey
Two detectives — one dead, one living — are hired by a wealthy landowner to track and kill a demon haunting a mansion in remote northern California.
16. Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
A college student in Dublin falls for a woman with a troubled past who believes her family’s tragic history is connected to a children’s show that everyone in Ireland watched in their youth, but no one remembers it quite the same way.
17. Red River Seven by A.J. Ryan
Seven strangers, who cannot remember their names but have guns, wake up on a boat and journey through mist-shrouded waters not knowing who’s directing them or what’s screaming beyond the mist.
18. A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper
When a summer night storm crashes into town with a mind-bending monster in tow, a woman must dodge the residents enslaved by its otherworldly powers and find her best friend who may be the target of the storm and its monster. By the Bram Stoker Award winning author of Queen of Teeth.
19. Haunt: Raven Ridge Hallow Book 1 by K.L. Taylor-Lane
A dark horror romance with extreme gore, Book 1 of Raven Ridge Hallow introduces Billy Blackwell and Penelope Hart, two orphans separated as children, who promise to reconnect one day.
20. Silent Key by Laurel Hightower
After her husband dies, a detective learns how little she knew him, prompting an investigation into a decades-old mystery involving an obsessed killer, her husband’s mistress, and a series of deadly hauntings. By the Bram Stoker Award nominated author of Below.
21. That Night in the Woods by Kristopher Triana
A group of people who share a dark secret gather 20 years later to honor a childhood friend’s death and to face their traumatic pasts. By the two-time Splatterpunk Award winning author of Full Brutal and The Night Stockers (with Ryan Harding).
22. The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood edited by Kayleigh Dobbs, Stephen Kozeniewski, and Wile E. Young
An anthology set in the Perfectly Fine Universe, featuring fifteen ghostly tales by Candace Nola, Brian Keene, Jeff Strand, Bev Vincent, and many more.
23. House of Haunts edited by Heather Daughrity
23 rooms, 23 ghosts, 23 stories, featuring two-time Bram Stoker Award winner Mercedes M. Yardley, Splatterpunk Award winner Ronald Kelly, and many more, plus a foreword by Bird Box author Josh Malerman
24. Literally Dead: Tales of Holiday Hauntings edited by Gaby Triana with John Palisano
Nineteen wintertime ghost stories, featuring Ramsey Campbell, V. Castro, Lisa Morton, John Palisano, Clay McLeod Chapman, Jonathan Janz, Hailey Piper, and many more.
25. Deathrealm: Spirits edited by Stephen Mark Rainey
The first anthology of new Deathrealm stories since the original magazine ceased publication in 1997, this collection specializes in ghostly stories that explore supernatural themes with a prevailing sense of personal dread and features Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Massie, Brian Keene, Eric LaRocca, and many more.
THE NEXT 10
The next 10 releases just outside the chart: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due; My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon; Deliver Me by Elle Nash; White Trash and Recycled Nightmares by Rebecca Rowland; Christmas and Other Horrors: An Anthology of Solstice Horror edited by Ellen Datlow; The October Society: Season Three by Christopher Robertson; Soul Tormentor: Soul Collector Series Book 4 by Ron Ripley and Nick Efstathiou; Feeders by Caleb Stephens; Curse of the Cob Man by Robert P. Ottone; and If I Die Before I Wake: Tales of Halloween Horror: The Better Off Dead Series Vol. 8 edited R.E. Sargent and Steven Pajak.
HOW THE CHART WORKS
The MalevolentDark.com Horror Fiction Top 25 is compiled by senior contributor Lionel Ray Green and only includes releases from the previous month (i.e., November chart is for October releases). His chart is independent and subjective but partly based on a personally developed point system using a combination of factors, including media buzz, reviews, and ratings. The Top 25 is released monthly to rank original works and does not include anniversary, author’s preferred, definitive editions, or re-releases. Authors, editors, and publishers with upcoming releases in November 2023 can email the titles of their works to ensure consideration for the Top 25 to lionelraygreen@gmail.com.