Humble’s Western Horror tops August 2025 chart
The Top 5
A double-barrel dose of Western horror, an experiment gone wrong, a young adult survival thriller, and a special agent seeking revenge against a Sasquatch lead the list of July releases in Malevolent Dark’s Horror Fiction Top 25 August 2025 Edition.
To Carry a Body to Its Resting Place by C.S. Humble tops the chart. Set in the Missouri of 1845, this Western is the first in the Peregrine Estate Trilogy and Book 4 in the Amid the Vastness of All Else series. It follows a troubled gambler who returns home after receiving word from his brother that their father is deathly ill. That’s where he learns about his father’s promise regarding a debt to the mysterious Peregrine Estate. The estate calls on the gambler and his two brothers to honor their father’s promise and help prevent a bloody war between rival werewolf packs.
The Fovea Experiments by MJ Mars is No. 2. It’s about a woman who creates true crime content for her YouTube channel. When she breaks into her mother’s private investigator files, she finds evidence of multiple teen deaths during a sleep experiment in the 2000s. She discovers the sole survivor is her schoolteacher and creates a video outing him as a suspect. The video causes the trauma that the teacher experienced as a teen to resurface, because the experiment is happening again, and the people behind it are determined to see it through to the end.
The young adult thriller We Won’t All Survive by two-time Bram Stoker Award nominee Kate Alice Marshall is No. 3. It’s about a girl who was hailed as a hero for saving lives during a mall shooting, surviving a bullet to the back. A mountain of medical debt and guilt compel her to accept an invitation to compete on a billionaire TV host’s survivalist reality show. When she and the other contestants arrive at the off-grid location, they start dying and the show takes on a whole new meaning.
Sasquatch action thriller Red Eyes by Luka T. Jacobs is fourth on the chart. Book 5 in the Nicole Beretti Thriller series, Red Eyes pits a legendary Bigfoot and Special Agent Nicole Beretti against one another as Beretti embarks on a mission to bring down the creature that tore her family apart.
Rounding out the Top 5 is The Unkillable Frank Lightning by Josh Rountree. A reimagining of Frankenstein in the Wild West, The Unkillable Frank Lightning is about a grief-stricken woman who uses her physician’s skills to resurrect her husband Frank after he’s killed in a Sioux attack. But Frank lost his soul in the process and disappeared after going on a killing spree. Twenty-five years later, Frank’s wife decides to right her wrong and returns to Texas with a pair of hired killers to destroy Frank who’s reinvented himself as the Unkillable Frank Lightning of the traveling Wild West Show. But her shot at redemption may result in more bloodshed.
The Rest of the Top 10
The rest of the Top 10 features a short story collection, an eerie middle-grade novel, and a violent family survival tale alongside some zombie horror and historical vampire fiction.
At No. 6 is From Dark Places by Splatterpunk Award-nominated author Judith Sonnet. Featuring two stories never published before, From Dark Places is a 10-story collection showcasing Sonnet’s range from tales of bloody violence to ones conjuring quiet chills.
Another by three-time Bram Stoker Award winner Paul Tremblay is No. 7 on the August chart. Tremblay’s middle-grade debut, Another is about a troubled boy named Casey and his friendship with a strange kid who charms Casey’s parents during a lengthy sleepover. However, the exhausted Casey knows something is wrong, because sometimes in the dark, his new friend doesn’t look like a kid at all.
At No. 8 is Your Body Will Never Be Found by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Jeff Strand. It’s about a family of four lost in the rural woods of Georgia on their return home. When they run out of gas next to a house with an unwelcoming sign, the family will soon realize their fun weekend getaway is about to come to a violent end at the hands of the house’s depraved occupants.
Unsafe: Book 4 by Christopher Artinian is No. 9 on the August chart. This latest book in the post-apocalyptic zombie horror series continues the story of a father and son trying to survive in a world where a reanimating virus has left billions dead and the streets swarming with the infected.
Rounding out the Top 10 is Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond. Billed as a novel for fans of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Book 1 of The Blood Saga series is a reimagining of the vampire origin story set during the early days of American slavery. It blends alternate history with supernatural horror as the last surviving member of an ancient African vampire tribe meets a slave desperate for freedom. Together they lead an army of enslaved people in a blood-soaked battle for freedom and revenge.
Beyond the Top 10
Some notable entries beyond the Top 10 include The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia at No. 11. The Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Mexican Gothic delivers a multigenerational saga about three women in three different eras who encounter danger and witchcraft. “In Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s sure hands, every uncovered secret is fraught with intrigue and creeping horror,” says Tananarive Due, the Bram Stoker Award–winning author of The Reformatory.
At No. 13 is The Library at Hellebore by two-time Bram Stoker Award winner Cassandra Khaw. In this dark academia novel, a girl named Alessa is kidnapped and forced to enroll in the Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted, which is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful. However, on graduation day, the faculty embarks on a ravenous rampage, feasting on their students. Trapped in the school’s library, Alessa and her classmates must work together to survive.
At No. 17 is Bloody Bones by Garrett Boatman. It’s about a so-called traveling preacher who came to town 30 years ago and targeted children. But when he took the daughter of the local hoodoo woman, she exacted a terrible revenge on the stranger. Three decades later, a murder and a gruesome burial resurrect the stranger. Two boys, a witch, and a deputy are the only ones standing against the Dark Man and his monstrous appetite.
The Duke by Todd Nunes is No. 22. Book 3 in the Slasher Universe series, The Duke is a survival horror thriller and a blood-soaked throwback to the slashers of the 1970s. It’s about a group of teens that load into a stolen RV and head to Canada to avoid the military draft. However, in the woods of Humboldt County, they encounter The Duke, a damaged and twisted man who wears a rusted mask of metal and hunts like an animal. The Duke also featured my favorite opening line of the month: “The boy’s mother had traded things before, but never him.”
At No. 24 is the anthology Always Darker Inside edited by D.W. Hitz and Heather Ann Larson. It features nine diabolical tales about cursed objects by Jay Bower, Eric Butler, Micah Castle, two-time Splatterpunk Award nominee M Ennenbach, two-time Splatterpunk Award nominee Robert Essig, Splatterpunk Award winner Patrick C. Harrison III, Splatterpunk Award winner D.W. Hitz, Megan Stockton, and Will Suffer.
Anyway, 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.