Horror, much like grief, refuses to stand still. It morphs with the times, reflecting our collective anxieties back to us in freshly monstrous forms. In 2025, the genre feels especially vital – not simply in volume, but in thematic ambition, emotional nuance, and the boldness of its form. The year’s standout titles have pushed past traditional scares to explore the tangled roots of contemporary dread – whether it be environmental ruin, cultural decay, institutional rot, fractured identity, or, threaded through it all, grief that refuses to be neatly resolved.
From a dust-choked reimagining of Frankenstein on the American frontier, to the unspooling of haunted videotapes, to slashing through the quiet corridors of a retirement home, the following novels reveal a genre alive with invention. Here, horror is not a detour from reality but rather a means of engaging with it.
What follows is a selection of the year’s most compelling horror fiction – each title chosen for the distinctiveness of its voice, its emotional clarity, its willingness to stretch the boundaries of the genre, or a truly unforgettable monster. These are the books that have carved out a space in our minds this year – and show every intention of living there, rent free, for the foreseeable future.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (March 18)
Set in 1912, this historical horror novel follows a Lutheran priest tasked with transcribing the confessions of a vampire living near the Blackfeet reservation. As the creature recounts his blood-soaked past, questions of justice, myth, and memory come to the fore.
Why we love it:
Stephen Graham Jones brings his unmistakable voice to a narrative steeped in Indigenous folklore and layered with moral complexity. So much more than a vampire story, The Buffalo Buffalo Hunter is a meditation on legacy, storytelling, and the persistent violence threaded through American history. This is an unrelenting yarn that demands both your fear and your reflection.
When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy (April 22)
When Jess, a struggling actress, discovers a five-year-old runaway outside her apartment, she unwittingly enters a nightmarish pursuit involving the boy’s violent father and the monstrous forces chasing them both. What begins as survival becomes a journey into something far stranger.
Why we love it:
Cassidy turns the dial up to eleven in this genre-blurring, mind-bending horror-thriller. With the relentless pulse of Terminator 2 and the cerebral wonder of The Lathe of Heaven, it’s as emotionally grounded as it is conceptually ambitious. Beneath the tension lies a powerful meditation on fear, reality, and the stories that shape us.
The Unkillable Frank Lightning by Josh Rountree (July 15)
In a brilliantly unsettling twist on Frankenstein, set against the parched landscapes of the Wild West, Dr Catherine Coldbridge reanimates her late husband Frank—only to find his soul missing and his violence uncontained. Now known as the Unkillable Frank Lightning, he joins a travelling sideshow, a living myth of blood and bone, while Catherine hires killers to track down the creature she created.
Why we love it:
A gothic Western, thick with blood, dust, and existential dread, Rountree’s novel crackles with both mythic grandeur and aching intimacy. Drawing comparisons to McCarthy and Shelley alike, it is a story of love warped by grief and guilt—where resurrection begets ruin, and salvation may come only at the business end of a bullet.
One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford (July 15)
After a catastrophic epidemic leaves London in ruin, scientist Kesta Shelley breaks quarantine law to protect her infected husband, Tim. As his undead transformation progresses and the government closes in, Kesta’s obsession deepens — until rumours of a hidden cure threaten to unravel everything.
Why we love it:
Radford fuses the grit of journalistic realism with the emotional depth of literary fiction in this genre-defying novel. An intimate portrait of love unravelling under impossible circumstances, it navigates scientific ethics, personal obsession, and the unbearable weight of hope. A fresh and harrowing take on post-apocalyptic horror and the zombie mythos.
Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle (August 12)
After a mysterious event kills millions in implausibly freakish ways, statistician Vera teams up with an FBI agent to investigate a casino whose success defies all probability. As they descend into the surreal heart of the disaster, they uncover something far more terrifying than mere coincidence.
Why we love it:
Tingle delivers an existential horror novel with brains, heart, and brutal stakes. Equal parts Final Destination and The X-Files, Lucky Day unfolds as a meditation on fate, chance, and the narratives we tell to impose order on chaos. Beneath its surreal, high-concept surface lies a deeply human exploration of identity, grief, and the fragile illusions of control.
Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson (September 9)
Duane Minor, a Vietnam vet and recovering alcoholic, is barely holding his life together when a vampire – responsible for the massacre of his family – steps back into his bar. With his niece Julia, he embarks on a revenge-fueled road trip through the rain-soaked, monster-filled wilds of the American Northwest.
Why we love it:
Rosson crafts a visceral, blood-drenched tale of vengeance that refuses easy catharsis. With prose as sharp as silver bullets, Coffin Moon is as much about trauma and redemption as it is about hunting monsters. It’s fierce, cinematic, and uncompromisingly human.
We Are Always Tender with Our Dead by Eric LaRocca (September 9)
Set in the snowbound isolation of Burnt Sparrow, LaRocca’s novel follows the lingering fallout of a holiday tragedy. As the community’s wounds fester, long-buried secrets claw to the surface, and grief transforms into something far more sinister.
Why we love it:
Bleak and beautiful, fearless and unflinching, this novel marries the raw intensity of splatterpunk with a scalpel-sharp dive into pain, queerness, and retribution. It’s a haunting portrait of violence’s lasting imprint — not only on the body but on memory and identity.
The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi (September 30)
When beloved residents start dying under strange circumstances, feisty octogenarian Rose DuBois suspects foul play — and she’s right. As the body count rises, Rose takes matters into her own hands, battling a killer with nothing left to lose.
Why we love it:
Both a sly genre send-up and a razor-sharp slasher in its own right, Fracassi’s latest is a surprisingly tender exploration of ageing, autonomy, and resistance. Anchored by the unforgettable Rose DuBois, Autumn Springs delivers gore with a whole lot of heart — and wit with a razor-sharp denture bite.
The October Film Haunt by Michael Wehunt (September 30)
When Jorie Stroud receives a mysterious VHS tape linked to an obscure horror film that once consumed her life, she’s pulled into a spiralling investigation of lost media, urban legend, and supernatural horror — where obsession might be the real curse.
Why we love it:
Wehunt tears down the walls between reality and nightmare in this twisted meditation on fandom, mythmaking, and the power of stories. Drawing on the unsettling tones of Ring, creepypasta, and analogue horror, The October Film Haunt is drenched in atmosphere, viscerally cerebral, and emotionally intense – guaranteed to leave you reeling.
Good Boy by Neil McRobert (October 9)
In a northern town plagued by secrets, a man digs a grave where a boy once vanished — and something old stirs in the soil. What follows is a slow-burning descent into supernatural terror, where memory, loss, and loyalty form a noose around the town’s neck.
Why we love it:
McRobert’s debut is a finely wrought supernatural horror novel, echoing the early intensity of King and the twisted playfulness of Roald Dahl at his most macabre. It also has the fireside pull of a well-told tale — think John Langan’s The Fisherman — and the melancholic grace of Raymond Briggs. Deftly dancing between dread and devotion, and threading sharp dark humour through moments of real heartache, McRobert has created a fascinating and haunting story steeped in loyalty, loss, memory, and the ghosts — literal and otherwise — that refuse to let go.
