From uncanny doubles and cursed country cottages to billionaire bunkers and hungry supernatural creatures, 2027 is shaping up to be a pretty grim year for horror fans – and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
The next 12 months promise everything from psychological nightmares and gothic hauntings to splatterpunk excess and some wonderfully twisted takes on modern life, with established genre favourites joined by a crop of intriguing new voices.
Whether you prefer your horror a slow-burning exercise in dread or an all-out bloodbath, there’s something here to suit every appetite. These are the books we’re most looking forward to getting our hands on in 2027.
A New Kind of Clean by Iain Reid & Ellie Foumbi
(Available on Jan 5, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Missy Djalo is a struggling actress who’s spent years chasing her big break, with little to show for it beyond a dwindling bank balance and a complicated relationship with her past. So when she’s invited to audition for a mysterious company called Air Free, she jumps at the chance. But the beautiful house where the audition takes place, and the charismatic couple who live there, are not quite what they seem. Before long, Missy finds herself caught up in something increasingly strange, and the part she’s being asked to play could cost her somewhat more than she bargained for.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: A collaboration between two masters of the uncanny is always worth getting excited about, especially when the result sounds as strange and hard to pin down as this. Told in spare, hypnotic prose, A New Kind of Clean is described as a surreal, minimalist fable about memory, alienation, ambition and reality. We love the sound of its sinisterly off-kilter premise and the fact that it seems to be playing by an entirely different set of horror rules – as is often the case with both writers involved.
PRE-ORDER A NEW KIND OF CLEAN →Shebang! by Kathe Koja
(Available on Jan 5, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: In a near-future settlement on the edge of nowhere, Ailey Esper makes a living as an archer, drifter and loner, piecing together the story of a doomed animal activist. But with the settlement’s annual Fête approaching, a mysterious stranger arrives with money, sinister plans and a particular interest in Ailey. When a brutal kidnapping throws everything into chaos, she must enlist the help of an unlikely bunch of allies – including a badass herbalist, a historian with a power saw and a goatkeeper – for a rather dangerous rescue mission involving midnight fires and some very bad intentions.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: Kathe Koja promises an intriguing premise with Shebang!, not least its vision of a near-future community where animal activism, folklore and violence collide. We’re particularly interested in the idea of a story that considers our relationship with animals, and what it means to recognise something of ourselves in them. Dubbed a modern fable about love and revenge, it sounds like a strange, thoughtful addition to the horror landscape, and one that more than likely has more on its mind than simply scaring its readers.
PRE-ORDER SHEBANG! →The Indecipherables by Anne Hellman
(Available on Jan 19, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Identical twins Ava and Brin hit the Pacific Coast Highway on a road trip in memory of their late mother, hoping to patch things up after a year-long rift. But strange things start happening almost immediately. Strangers insist they’ve met the sisters before, while a mechanic produces a photograph of them driving a car they’ve never seen. Before long, Ava and Brin realise they’re being followed by another pair of twins who look exactly like them. As the encounters turn increasingly sinister, the sisters begin to question not only who’s following them, but how well they really know each other.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: The doppelgänger has long been fertile ground for psychological horror, but Hellman’s premise gives the familiar device an intriguing new dimension and the book’s Hitchcock comparisons suggest a more psychologically twisted ride than your average supernatural thriller. We’re intrigued by the combination of sisterly tensions, unreliable memories and creeping paranoia, and Paul Tremblay’s endorsement that “The Indecipherables is a delirious doubles-twist on the doppelgänger tale that will leave you questioning the identities of those closest to you” only adds to the appeal.
PRE-ORDER THE INDECIPHERABLES →Your Best Chance of Survival by Mike Bockoven
(Available on Feb 2, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: The world is falling apart. Climate collapse, water riots and general societal breakdown have made life on the surface pretty unpleasant. Luckily, the ultra-rich have an escape plan: Guadiam, a luxury underground bunker complete with fine dining, cutting-edge technology and an army of staff to keep things running smoothly. There is, naturally, a catch. Once you’ve signed the contract and moved in, you’re not going anywhere. And with insurrection, murder, cannibalism and a few other minor teething problems on the menu, life underground soon starts to lose its appeal.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: The world may be going to hell, but at least the super-rich can enjoy a nice slap-up meal while it happens. Mike Bockoven takes the billionaire bunker fantasy and gives it a visceral twist, as Guadiam’s pampered residents discover that escaping the apocalypse doesn’t necessarily mean escaping each other. There’s plenty of dark comedy in the set-up, particularly when the list of potential problems includes cannibalism, public executions and unwilling dismemberment. We’ve read an early copy of this and it’s every bit as unhinged as it sounds.
PRE-ORDER YOUR BEST CHANCE AT SURVIVAL →How to Disappear Completely by Liz Kerin
(Available on Feb 9, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: When Hazel was 13, her sister Kira became convinced she’d received a message from another world after a strange paranormal encounter. Then she disappeared. Twenty years later, a podcast called The Satellites leads Hazel to a group of people who experienced the same thing. Teaming up with its mysterious host, Silas, she sets out to uncover the truth, but when members of the group start turning up dead and her own memories begin to unravel, the search takes a dangerous turn.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: A missing sister, a strange podcast and a group of people who all claim to have encountered something they can’t explain. Liz Kerin has a good mystery on her hands, with Hazel’s increasingly disturbing déjà vu and the deaths piling up adding to the intrigue. The cross-country investigation and the relationship with podcast host Silas should bring plenty of complications, too. We’re hoping for a clever, unsettling thriller that keeps its supernatural secrets close to its chest to keep us on our terror toes.
PRE-ORDER HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY →If You Think You’re Lonely Now by Gus Moreno
(Available on Feb 16, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Gabe and Espo think they’ve finally escaped the 9-to-5 grind when they buy a long-abandoned apartment building in Chicago, planning to renovate it and rent out the spare flats. But between strange noises, unsettling goings-on behind the walls and a mysterious presence lurking upstairs, their new venture is already proving troublesome. Things get even messier when family members arrive with problems of their own, bringing baggage in the form of addiction, divorce and grief. And it seems the building has a nasty habit of feeding on exactly that sort of thing.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: We’ve been impatiently waiting for Gus Moreno’s follow-up to cult favourite This Thing Between Us, so we’re so excited to have him back. Based on the plot, it sounds like Moreno clearly has plenty to say about the baggage we inherit from our families, but we’re equally keen to see just how nasty things get when the walls start talking. Fellow author Paul Tremblay says it gave him nightmares. We’re more than willing to take our chances.
PRE-ORDER IF YOU THINK YOU’RE LONELY NOW →She’s All The Rage by Leigh Radford
(Available on Feb 25, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Ilona Darke has spent her life feeling invisible, until she discovers Le Fays, a mysterious SoHo atelier, and a second-hand suit that seems to transform her into a bolder, more confident version of herself. But as the suit’s influence grows, Ilona begins experiencing lost time, unexplained bruises, and something very strange happening beneath her skin. Could her dream makeover be turning into a nightmare?
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: Leigh Radford absolutely gasted our flabbers with last year’s delectable debut, One Yellow Eye, and we’re excited to see what wickedly inventive horror she has up her impeccably tailored sleeve next. Described as The Devil Wears Prada meets The Exorcist, this sounds set to be a deliciously dark take on ambition, reinvention, and the pressure to become the very best version of yourself. Consider us dressed and obsessed.
PRE-ORDER SHE’S ALL THE RAGE →Ears by Stephen Graham Jones
(Available on Mar 9, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Disgraced former teacher Mr. Morning Gun makes a living looking after vacant houses until they’re sold, but his latest assignment at the Messner House is anything but straightforward. After a deadly confrontation, he’s saved by the ghost of a missing little girl in lavender footie pyjamas, who seems determined to stop her family home from being sold. But as Morning Gun digs deeper into the house’s secrets, he discovers that this haunting comes with a much darker price—and that he may have more to do with it than he realises.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: Stephen Graham Jones is always worth paying attention to, and we’re particularly intrigued by the sound of this one. A ghost girl in lavender footie pyjamas who’ll resort to murder rather than let her family home be sold? It’s a wonderfully odd premise, and we’re intrigued to see where Jones takes it. At just 128 pages, Ears will make for a relatively quick read, but we’re expecting Jones to pack plenty of unsettling weirdness into those pages.
PRE-ORDER EARS →The Filthiest Corner of the House by Ro Hollinrake
(Available on Mar 9, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Mal is sitting in a prison cell after burning down her family home, Delfling Hole. But she insists there was a very good reason: the house was haunted. Determined to convince her girlfriend Des, Mal begins recounting the cottage’s 300-year history, piecing together a grim collection of letters, articles and accounts of seances gone wrong, possessed women and some particularly unfortunate children and nannies. The more they uncover, the harder it becomes to dismiss Mal’s claims. But is Delfling Hole really cursed, or is something else going on?
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: Possessed women, botched seances, badly behaved children and a cursed cottage with 300 years of history. This one has all the ingredients for a properly creepy bit of gothic horror. The found-footage format adds an interesting twist, with letters and newspaper clippings piecing together the family’s gruesome past. Comparisons to Andrew Michael Hurley and Catriona Ward are encouraging, too, while the idea of one working-class family being haunted by the same house for generations gives this a particularly intriguing hook.
PRE-ORDER THE FILTHIEST CORNER OF THE HOUSE →We Don’t Call Them Cages by Luke Dumas
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Something is going badly wrong at ZOO USA. Animals are escaping, others are turning up dead, and communications executive Ashlee Beauchamp is struggling to keep the resulting PR disaster under control. But she suspects someone on the inside is behind it all. As visitors flock to the zoo for its annual Zoo Day, disgruntled zookeeper Brandon McCabe and his colleagues are preparing a rather more violent protest against the institution they believe has wronged them. With revenge on the agenda and the animals caught in the middle, it’s going to be a very long day at the zoo.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: We’ve been seriously impressed by Luke Dumas this year, with Nothing Tastes As Good currently battling it out for a place among our favourite books of 2026. So there’s already plenty of goodwill for his next outing, and the prospect of a zoo full of irate animals, disgruntled keepers and unsuspecting visitors sounds like an especially entertaining recipe for disaster.
PRE-ORDER WE DON’T CALL THEM CAGES →Brute by Eric LaRocca
(Available on Mar 23, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Ephraim Mayerling is a wedding planner with a rather unusual hobby: when he’s not organising other people’s big days, he’s dreaming up executions. So when Nicholas and Sebastian come to him to plan their wedding, keeping his rather darker interests to himself proves trickier than expected. And with a mysterious stranger seemingly popping up wherever he goes, Ephraim’s carefully ordered world starts to unravel.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: Being pitched as The Shining meets The Truman Show with a tech-horror twist, is quite the calling card. Throw in a queer wedding planner, a first gay marriage, some seriously dodgy skeletons in the closet and a splatterpunk approach to proceedings, and you’ve got all of our interest. We’re expecting wedding bells, bad decisions and considerably more blood and guts than your average big day.
PRE-ORDER BRUTE →Hell to Pay by Kylie Lee Baker
(Available on Mar 30, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Leni, Emerson and Jasper are three New York roommates with problems. Not the usual sort, admittedly. Leni has three reflections in the mirror, one of which appears to have murderous intentions; Emerson keeps finding severed fingers in his water bottles; and Jasper is being followed by a blood-loving shadow figure. So far, so inconvenient. But when an intestine-eating demon named Sychar leaves its mark on their apartment wall, things get considerably more complicated. The message is simple enough: provide a human sacrifice within seven days or suffer a gruesome death. Unfortunately, killing someone to appease a demon is an expensive business, particularly when the rent is due.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: A haunted New York apartment is one thing, but an intestine-eating demon demanding a human sacrifice within seven days? That’s a whole new level of nightmare roommate. Kylie Lee Baker’s premise sounds like a gloriously gory mix of supernatural horror and dark comedy, with comparisons to Grady Hendrix and Stephen King making it all the more intriguing. We’re particularly sold on the three flatmates having to find the time, money and, presumably, somewhere to hide a body while trying to stay alive. There’s something excitingly absurd about having to fit demon-slaying around the usual headaches of New York life. Just when you thought sharing a flat couldn’t get any worse…
PRE-ORDER HELL TO PAY →Hive Mind by Allison Gunn
(Available on Apr 27, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Hollywood manager Jacob Peyton is on trial for the murder of his wife, Bee Torrance, a notorious scream queen whose gruesome artwork and increasingly outrageous antics were live-streamed to her devoted online following, the Hive. The pair vanished into the Appalachian Mountains a week before Bee was found brutally murdered in an abandoned cabin. All the evidence points to Jacob, but he claims to have no memory of the killing, insisting that hooded figures and demonic forces were behind it. Now, two journalists are digging into Bee’s murky past to get to the truth – but the further they go, the stranger things get.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: A Hollywood scream queen with a taste for the macabre, an online fanbase hungry for increasingly gruesome entertainment and a murder in the middle of the Appalachian wilderness. There’s certainly no shortage of strange goings-on here. Gillian Flynn and Marcus Kliewer early comparisons are really promising, as is the prospect of a story that mixes showbiz scandal with the idea of a murder investigation in which the accused blames demons. Whether Jacob is telling the truth is another matter entirely.
PRE-ORDER HIVE MIND →Kill Me With Fire by Chris Panatier
(Available on Apr 27, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Alice is a solitary accountant with one friend, while Jennet is a rather more unpredictable sort. They have little in common until a foraging trip leaves them both afflicted by a dormant curse, triggering rapid ageing and an alarming appetite for infants. As the two women go their separate ways, Alice tries to keep the witch growing inside her under control, while Jennet takes a rather less restrained approach. But their paths keep crossing, and things are getting increasingly difficult to contain.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: Witchcraft, female friendship and an alarming appetite for babies make for an unusual premise. Chris Panatier looks set to give familiar horror territory a gruesome new spin, contrasting Alice’s attempts to retain her humanity with Jennet’s willingness to embrace her transformation. The promise of visceral horror is appealing enough, but it’s Panatier’s brilliant character work in previous novels that really raises expectations. We’re keen to see what he makes of these two very different women.
PRE-ORDER KILL ME WITH FIRE →Hunger by Joe Hill
(Available on Jun 15, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Boston, 1776: the city is besieged, supplies are dwindling, and a ravenous supernatural creature is preying on the desperate inhabitants, tempting them with lavish feasts in exchange for their souls. When British Captain Amos Crowe is ordered to hunt down the fiend, he must venture behind enemy lines in search of a mysterious witch who may hold the key to stopping it. But with rebels, ghosts, and horrors both human and supernatural closing in, survival will come at a terrible price.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: That alone makes his next novel a must-read, and Hunger sounds like another wonderfully twisted affair, bringing together a besieged city, a murderous ghost with an appetite for souls and a fight for survival in 1776 Boston. Consider us ravenous for many more Hill yarns to come.
PRE-ORDER HUNGER →Rainbow Capital by Chuck Tingle
(Available on Aug 10, 2027)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Struggling LA actress Scotty is watching her credit card debt soar while her acting career goes absolutely nowhere. So when she’s offered a lucrative job at Rainbow Capital, a queer-focused investment startup in Santa Monica, she doesn’t ask too many questions. But beneath the glossy offices and charismatic founder Carter Nettle lurks something decidedly sinister. As strange hallucinations of crimson sea creatures begin invading her mind, Scotty realises that getting ahead in the corporate world might come at a considerably higher price than she’d bargained for.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: Chuck Tingle taking a swing at startup culture, corporate greed and the cult of ambition? Where does this buckaroo need to sign up? We’ve got so many questions about a queer investment firm that’s apparently in the business of messing with people’s heads, not to mention those mysterious crimson sea creatures. Tingle has a real knack for taking an idea and just running with it in gloriously unexpected directions, and we’re ecstatic to see what kind of corporate hellscape he’s dreamed up for readers with Rainbow Capital.
PRE-ORDER RAINBOW CAPITAL →
