The End of the World As We Know It tops the Horror Fiction Top 25 – September Edition
The Top 5
An epic anthology inspired by Stephen King’s The Stand leads the list of August releases and tops Malevolent Dark’s Horror Fiction Top 25 – September 2025 Edition.
The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand officially hit the shelves August 19 and then instantly hit No. 3 on The New York Times Best Sellers list for September 7, debuted at No. 16 on USA Today’s Best-selling Booklist for August 27, and reached No. 1 in multiple categories on Amazon. The 800-page anthology published by Gallery Books is edited by two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning authors Christopher Golden and Brian Keene and features an introduction by the man himself — Stephen King. With 34 stories taking place before, during, and after events in The Stand, The End of the World As We Know It features some of the top speculative fiction authors around, including Maurice Broaddus, Richard Chizmar, Tananarive Due, Gabino Iglesias, Jonathan Janz, Sarah Langan, Joe R. Lansdale, Tim Lebbon, Josh Malerman, Ronald Malfi, Cynthia Pelayo, Hailey Piper, David J. Schow, Bryan Smith, Paul Tremblay, Catriona Ward, Chuck Wendig, Wrath James White, and Rio Youers.
At No. 2 is Aron Beauregard’s Playground: Child of Divorce. This one’s the prequel to Beauregard’s 2022 extreme horror novel Playground, which won the Splatterpunk Award for Best Novel. The prequel also includes 18 interior illustrations. It’s about the twisted desire of a wealthy woman named Geraldine who can’t have children of her own, so she creates a prototype of a playground filled with barbaric backyard games. When children mysteriously go missing, they find themselves thrust into Geraldine’s nightmare world.
Lucky Day by Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Chuck Tingle hits No. 3 on the chart. It’s about a Low-Probability Event that killed eight million people in a single day in bizarre ways. The day of freak accidents cost Vera, a former statistics and probability professor, everything. However, when a special agent shows up on Vera’s doorstep, she learns that he needs her help in investigating a suspicious and statistically impossibly lucky casino that could be connected to the deaths of millions.
At No. 4 is Cvlt by Splatterpunk Award-nominated author Duncan Ralston. Book 3 in The Lonely Motel series, Cvlt is billed as “a a cult deprogrammer named Michael who meets a member of the secretive Children of Dinah cult named Gloria. Michael plans to break down Gloria’s defenses and bring her back to her birth mother, but Gloria proposes a counteroffer. If she can prove to him three genuine miracles, he must set her free. The Lonely Motel, though, has other plans for them because no miracle comes without a price.
Rounding out the Top 5 is Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day by Emma E. Murray. It’s about a woman named Birdie who lost everything when her son died. While trying to rebuild her life, Birdie has to evade her abusive partner while also worrying about a home-invading serial killer in her community. Eric LaRocca, the three-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, says, “You could use certain buzzwords like ‘brutal’ and ‘shocking’ to describe Emma E. Murray’s novel. … However, those words would immediately fail to capture the unflinching cruelty and viciousness layered within the pages of this brilliant and deeply unpleasant novel centered around abuse, trauma, and decay. Despite this richly textured nastiness, there’s also a distinct beauty, an attraction toward the grotesque and the undesirable woven throughout this masterful work. Emma E. Murray is one of the most original and fearless writers of new transgressive fiction.”
The Rest of the Top 10
At No. 6 on the chart is Slaughterhouse Moan by Splatterpunk Award-winning author Daniel J. Volpe. This novel’s about what happens on the darkly secretive Winslow Farm when a man takes a farmhand job there to avoid jail time and four teenagers on a senior trip find themselves stuck in an old hunting cabin on the property. Hint: There’s something lurking in the woods, and it’s way worse than the screams coming from the slaughterhouse.
Dark Spirits: The Crone by Lee Mountford haunts the No. 7 spot. Book 2 in the Dark Spirits series, The Crone is about a paranormal investigator who’s approached by a shadowy group and drawn into a chilling search for an entity whose power defies reason.
At No. 8 is The Shroud by Iain Rob Wright. This 80-page thriller is about a relaxing hike that becomes a waking nightmare for a disgraced barrister when a strange fog arrives, leaving him lost in the middle of nowhere. When he stumbles across a pub over the next hill, he hopes someone will be able help to help him get back to civilization. But will they?
For fans of slow-burn psychological horror and cult thrillers with gothic atmosphere, there’s the novel at No. 9 titled Let Her Be Silent by April Boulware. Book Two in the House of Prey series, Let Her Be Silent continues the story that began in The House’s Daughter about a girl struggling to escape a cult and uncover its darkest secrets.
Rounding out the Top 10 is The Feeding by Anthony Ryan. This postapocalytic novel is about a world transformed into a graveyard by the feeders, creatures who rose from the shadows 15 years ago. Human survivors in a fortified settlement rely on an elite cadre of Crossers to navigate the feeder-infested wasteland between settlements in order to trade for vital supplies. But the ranks of the Crossers grow thinner with every crossing. Meanwhile, Layla spends her days scavenging the ruins for valuable scrap and her nights helping her adoptive family eke out a living. But with her father slowly dying, Layla resolves to join the Crossers and retrieve the medicine that can save him.
Anthologies and Collections
For readers who like short stories, September’s 2025 list includes three collections and two anthologies.
At No. 15, the highest ranked collection is The Shuddering Breath Before Oblivion by Taylor Grant. Twice nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, Grant delivers ten unique and macabre tales in what’s billed as his final collection of short stories. Lisa Morton, a six-time Bram Stoker Award winner, says, “I’ve always admired Taylor Grant’s extraordinary gifts for lifting up life’s most mundane rocks — bureaucracy, crushing jobs, middle-class striving, fragile egos — and shining a light on the things slithering through the darkness beneath. His fiction can be wryly amusing or even reassuring, but it’s always disturbing, and The Shuddering Breath Before Oblivion should be a welcome addition to any collection of great horror.”
Underwater Typewriter & Other Tales by James G. Carlson drifts ashore at No. 20. The Splatterpunk Award winner weaves six tales ranging from one story about a retiring author who ends up living the dark fiction he creates to another story about a grieving mother who embraces a supernatural solution to her suffering.
At No. 21 is Dark Web Horror Stories: 30 Tales of Terror to Keep You Up at Night by Matthew Doggett. His collection features grotesque horror stories about people who venture onto the dark web — some who log on for seemingly innocent reasons and others who cruise the unindexed digital pages to satisfy dark thirsts.
Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories edited by Michael W. Phillips Jr. is No. 23 on the chart. Red Line includes twenty new stories by authors from the Chicago area who take you on a bloodcurdling tour of the city. It features tales by Jotham Austin II, Bendi Barrett, Tina Jenkins Bell, Priya Chand, TJ Cimfel, R.L. Gehringer, Christopher Hawkins, Sandra Jackson-Opoku, Aleco Julius, Nick Medina, Jen Mierisch, Sahar Mustafah, Cynthia Pelayo, K.A. Roy, K. Saab, C.J. Subko, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., and Lauren Emily Whalen.
At No. 24 is Tales from the Lark Side edited by Lindsey Goddard. It’s an anthology of twenty-two dark comedy stories ranging from cynical satire to the all-out chuckles of campy horror. Authors contributing to the book include Judith Sonnet, Kayleigh Dobbs, Nelson W. Pyles, Rebecca Cuthbert, Ashley Lister, Mark Mackey, Greg Bennett, Devin M. Anderson, Michael Errol Swaim, Tommy B. Smith, Dawn Colclasure, Jyl Glenn, Mike Rusetsky, D.L. Winchester, Ann O’Mara Heyward, N.M. Brown, Kimberly I. Moore, Rie Sheridan Rose, Megan Guilliams, Sarah Kelderman, Kasey Hill, and Lindsey Goddard.
Beyond the Top 10
Here are five novels beyond the Top 10 that I thought were worth an extra mention.
Arriving for delivery at No. 12 is The Envelope by John Durgin. It’s about a quaint New Hampshire town with a strange and deadly annual tradition. Every year, a mysterious red envelope arrives, and every year, someone dies.
Remember the 1983 slasher film Sleepaway Camp? Now, there’s a reimagined novelization of the cult classic by B R Flynn based on the original screenplay by Robert Hiltzik. It lands at No. 13 on the September chart.
This Is How a Villain Is Made by Amanda Headlee is No. 14. It’s about a woman who flees her father’s cruelty to a new town where she lands work as a caretaker in the home of a respected local leader. The job seems like a stroke of luck, but the house holds dark secrets, and she must confront the shadows within and around her to escape. Somer Canon, the Splatterpunk Award-nominated author of Killer Chronicles, says, “Amanda Headlee is one of the most insightful writers of her generation. This Is How a Villain Is Made is direct, brutal, and a masterclass in tension-filled storytelling. This book shows us that though we fear the villain, we should loathe the circumstances that made them.”
At No. 17 is the horror Western novel The Saga of Dead-Eye: Book Four titled Golem, Ghouls, & Grisly Gargantuans by Splatterpunk Award-winning author Ronald Kelly. It follows the ongoing adventures of zombie gunfighter Dead-Eye and Louisiana mojo man Job as they continue their pursuit of the renegade vampire Jules Holland, the Unholy Three, and the dark enchantress Evangeline.
Finally, for fans of cryptid fiction, there’s a novel at No. 18 titled Cryptid Classics #8: The Bryan, Texas Gargoyle by Jeffrey B Miley. Inspired by actual alleged sightings of strange flying creatures in Texas, Miley’s story follows a pair of police detectives investigating a spate of mysterious murders. With the help of a Justice of the Peace and a forensic pathologist, the group creates a plan that hopefully ends the tragic killings. The big question: How do you capture something that isn’t supposed to exist?
That wraps up my report on this month’s chart. Without further ado, here’s the Top 25. As always, clicking on the book titles takes you to their Amazon pages where they can be purchased.