Fresh New Books, July 21, 2026 | Kiss Your $ Goodbye!

This is where I spotlight the sparkling new releases that are tempting me so you can succumb to temptation too. The focus will be on dark fiction and romance with the occasional thriller tossed in that catches my eye. 

I hope you're all enjoying the summer and able to get some reading done. I'm doing my best to start working my way through my tbr pile as well as getting to some newer book via audio. Here are 6 new horror books releasing today (or in the next few days) that I hope to read soon(ish).

 New Books This Week!

Carry Me to My Grave by Christopher Golden

From New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden comes a high concept horror novel about a man trying to protect his dead mother's body from the evil that is hunting them.

Maggie Wise will take your eyes.

When Malcolm was growing up, the local kids made up that chant about his mother, claiming she was a witch. He and his siblings did their best to ignore it. Now, Maggie is dying, and those same siblings have left Malcolm and his sister-in-law Violet to hold a vigil at her bedside.

But they’re not as alone as they think they are. A dark figure waits and watches from beneath the willow tree across the street. Hundreds of miles away, an ancient evil stirs in its burrow under a farmer’s cornfield. Across the country, other buried things begin to dream in anticipation of Maggie’s demise. On her deathbed, the old woman elicits a promise from Malcolm, her youngest child―when she dies, he and Violet must return her body to her birthplace in Shediak, Maine.

From the moment she takes her last breath, before her remains are even loaded aboard the baggage car of the Imperial Limited, there are forces trying to stop Malcolm from fulfilling that promise. Violence erupts on the train, evil preys on its passengers, and once the sun goes down, those long-buried things are coming to make Maggie Wise pay for her past. God help anyone who stands in their way.

Learn more at Goodreads

We Sent Them Down Singing by Libby Edwardson

In the small coal camp of Jubilee, West Virginia, Phinnie “Skinny” Caldwell has been plagued with nightmares of the last time she ever saw her mama alive and the man responsible for stealing her Zell Dorsey.

When Zell Dorsey returns thirteen years later, alone, Skinny is determined to find out what really happened. As she uncovers disturbing truths about her mama’s fate and Zell’s sinister plan, she turns to Happy Walker, her school bus driver and the closest thing she has to a father. However, nothing can prepare them for what they Behind Zell Dorsey’s charming veneer, is a creature both older and far more evil than any devil, and he’s hellbent on turning everyone Skinny loves into oil-slicked monsters.

This book is a testament to the resilience of grieving mothers and the tenacity of the beautiful people of Appalachia, a place where the accents sing rather than talk and the tea is always sweet.

Learn more at Goodreads.

Funerals Are For The Living by Sami Ellis

New from the author of Dead Girls Walking comes a YA horror about a girl kidnapped by a racist cult after investigating the supernatural happenings at her sister’s gravesite

A month ago, Junie Daniels was in a car crash that left her with a dead sister, fragmented memories of the accident, and a mother too checked-out to plan a funeral. The cheapest grave plot Junie can find is in the next town over. Sure, Williamsville is still proudly named after a slave master who was rumored to dabble in dark magic—but this North Carolina, after all.

When unexplained occurrences start happening at the graveyard, though, Junie and her best friend, Omari, investigate. And it’s not long before Junie and Omari are taken...

Williamsville wants both Daniels girls. But Junie will do anything to protect her sister—even if it's only her corpse.

Learn more at Goodreads.

A Fate Worse Than Drowning by Sarah L. Hawthorn

One deal with the devil makes a fool. Two? A villain...

A year ago, Elle made a deal with the devil to save her sister. Now, they live on a desolate spit of land beyond Halifax harbor. Elle, as lighthouse keeper, steers unsuspecting sailors to their destruction; those are the terms of her bargain. Liney need never know the cost. Her safety is worth every drop of blood.

But a sinner’s pact is not so simple. When the devil returns, demanding more – more shipwrecks, no survivors – Elle knows what she must do to keep Liney safe...

Another ship. Another crew killed in the devil’s name.

Then a woman washes ashore. Is she a soul to be sacrificed, or part of a darker design? As Liney and the stranger grow closer, Elle faces an impossible choice: kill, and break Liney’s heart, or forfeit her own soul.

Danger arises from all sides: the merciless sea, ruthless men on the mainland, and the infernal bargain itself…

Souls and sisterhood, fate and fire – what must be sacrificed for the devil to get his due?

Learn more at Goodreads.

The Winter Folk by Jen Julian

A woman returns to the mysterious lodge in the woods where she once worked, and to the inscrutable creature that bound her there, in this haunting Appalachian gothic horror from singular voice Jen Julian. Perfect for fans of Alix E. Harrow and T. Kingfisher.

This is the story of Moth, who earned her name working for the Winter Folk.

Every year, the Winter Folk gather at a secret lodge in the Appalachians, a place known as Deerhaven, refuge for the time-worn and weary. As a child, Moth heard warnings from her mother: They are heartless, wild creatures—and they got no concern of us. At twenty-one, Moth is a college dropout, indebted, impoverished, and desperate for better things. She falls instantly for Deerhaven’s beautiful antlered host, the mild-mannered Mr. Oslin. When he offers her a housekeeper’s contract—one wish granted for a winter of service—she signs without question.

But Deerhaven is a dangerous place. Staff must follow strict rules or else face dire consequences, and the guests can be unpredictable and savage. And yet, Moth endures, enticed by a rumor that Mr. Oslin is looking for a protégé. A singular worker who would stay with him forever and be transformed.

Decades later, Moth returns to Appalachia with her husband and teenage daughter. She can't shake the feeling that she needs to return to Deerhaven, which banished her twenty years ago. As she hunts for a way in, her haunting memories and harrowing experiences come roaring back — her friends and rivals, her growing obsession with Mr. Oslin, and her mysterious exile.

A door exists in the dark of the woods. After so long away, what has Deerhaven become?

Learn more at Goodreads.

The Flayed Man by Chloe Lauter

A complex mother-daughter relationship is taken to a new level in this fresh and propulsive novel of family curses, blood-thirsty ghouls, and budding romance set against the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas

Ellis Karsten spends nights working triage in the ER and days having the same conversation with her mom. The early onset dementia is exhausting, but the real challenge is their curse—Ellis’s family must feed daily on blood, or risk becoming mindless, skinless killing machines. When Ellis’s uncle, who supplies their blood, vanishes, she takes it upon herself to find a new source, aided by a prickly paramedic who’s equal parts unpredictable and intoxicating. But as Ellis fights to balance her bloodthirsty nature with a new relationship, her mom’s impossible demands transform into panicked warnings that a fabled monster, “The Flayed Man,” is stalking them.

As she traverses the desert in search of blood, Ellis risks her safety and her family’s secret, until it becomes clear that her mom is right: something ancient and hungry is hunting them, and it has come for her mom. Blood hunger begins to overtake Ellis, transforming her body into something ghoulish and frightening—exactly what The Flayed Man wants. In the end, she must decide who to trust, what she’s willing to sacrifice, and whether she is worthy of a life, and love, beyond her curse—or if she’s going to succumb to instinct and ravage the world.

Learn more at Goodreads.

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Anything catch your eye this week? Let me know in the comments.