Get Scared This Spring: This Season’s Most Anticipated Horror Books
It’s 2022, and horror is no longer just for Halloween, y’all. In fact, horror is more popular than ever, and you know what that means. It means more great horror novels are going to get published to scared the living daylights out of you. All. Year. Long.
This year has already been a great year for horror. The early part of this year brought us unforgettably creepy horror books like Sundial by Catriona Ward, Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow, Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin, and Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes, just to name a few.
But does that mean the best horror of 2022 is already behind us? Of course not.
We’ve got a fantastic year of horror ahead of us, featuring some debut fiction, some anticipated sequels, ghosts, vampires, haunted houses, nightmares, demons, and much, much more that will keep you up at night.
This spring alone, there are dozens of great works of horror hitting shelves everywhere. So even though the weather is getting warmer and then sun will be out longer, we’ve got plenty of books to keep the shadows and the scares chasing us.
Here are the most anticipated horror books coming this spring season (March 21 through June 20) to thrill you and chill you.
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda (April 12)
This the story of Lydia, a 23-year-old woman who is on her own for the first time after living with a controlling mother for her whole life. She’s dying to learn more about the world, to taste the food from her father’s Japanese background — sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside…But there’s one problem. Lydia can’t eat any of those things. All her body can digest is blood. And as Lydia tries to find a place for herself in the world, she’ll have to reconcile the part of her that is a monster with the part of her that longs to be human.
And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin (April 12)
And Then I Woke Up is set in a world ravaged by plague, a world where monsters roam the streets. Or do they? This disease affects how reality is perceived, and nothing about the world is certain anymore. Spence is one of the people who has been “cured,” and now he’s living at a rehabilitation facility. But he still can’t be sure of what’s real and what isn’t. And when a new inmate tasks him with helping her find her way back to her old crew, how will he know if he’s doing the right thing? Or if he’s just making things worse?
Passersthrough by Peter Rock (April 19)
Helen was 11 years old when she went camping with her father Benjamin and disappeared in the wilderness of Mount Rainier National Park. She was gone for almost a week. Now, 25 years later, Helen has reconnected with her father in an attempt to make sense of what happened during the days she was gone. Their search for answers will send Benjamin on a journey to a murder house, and a lake “that could only be found by getting lost, that was never in the same place twice.”
The Fervor by Alma Katsu (April 26)
Inspired by the Japanese yokai and the jorogumo spider demon, The Fervor is a supernatural story about Japanese internment camps during WWII. Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, have been taken from their home in Seattle and sent to an internment camp in the Midwest. The mother and daughter desperately want to return home and back to their normal lives, but a strange illness is spreading among those interned. It appears as if something sinister and demonic is threatening them, and they must stop the spread of this demonic disease before it’s too late.
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas (May 3)
This gothic horror/suspense novel is set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence. Beatriz has accepted a proposal from the strikingly handsome and wealthy Don Rodolfo Solórzano. But her new home in Hacienda San Isidro is not the place of luxury and comfort she’d anticipated it being. And after she’s left alone in the house while her new husband tends to work at the capital, Beatriz starts seeing visions and hearing voices in her head. Is the house haunted by the spirits of Rodolfo’s past? And what really happened to his first wife?
Black Tide by K.C. Jones (May 10)
K.C. Jones’s Black Tide is a sci-fi horror novel that’s described as Cujo meets The Quiet Place. After a drunken one-night stand, Mike and Beth awake the next day to discover a shocking astronomical event has caused widespread destruction. Little do they know that this was only the beginning. Stranded on the empty Oregon coast, their emergency calls unanswered and screams echoing all around them, these two strangers must trust in each other in order to survive an apocalyptic nightmare.
Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel (May 17)
After escaping a cult, Maeve is trying to build a normal life for herself. The same cult took her cousin Andrea from her, and Andrea was the only friend Maeve has ever known. Decades later, Andrea reappears, and she’s started a mysterious start-up business that has made her extremely wealthy. When Maeve’s life starts to fall apart in New York, she moves in with Andrea. But the more she gets wrapped up in Andrea’s life, the more Maeve finds herself being pulled into the lifestyles and ideals that were pushed upon her in the cult she’d thought she’d escaped.
The Legacy of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson (May 17)
The Legacy of Molly Southbourne brings Tade Thompson’s Molly Southbourne trilogy to a bloody end. When Molly bleeds, deadly copies are made, born to destroy their creator. Molly and her sisters once built a home together, hoping they could escape their murderous past. But there are secrets hidden in Molly Southbourne’s blood — secrets some are looking to get back. And they’re willing to do whatever it takes to get them.
From Below by Darcy Coates (June 7)
There’s something especially horrifying about exploring the mysteries of the ocean. In From Below, Cove and her dive team explore the wreckage of the SS Arcadia, which disappeared 60 years ago under mysterious circumstances. Now, the Arcadia has finally been discovered over three hundred miles from its intended course. Cove’s team seeks answers for what happened to the ship, but they are not prepared for what dark and sinister forces await them.
Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino (June 14)
Not Good for Maidens is a queer retelling of “The Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti. Lou never believed in superstitions or magic. But that’s before her teenage aunt Neela is kidnapped and taken to the Goblin Market. Lou has only heard stories of the Goblin Market as a place full of dark temptation for any human who wanders there. In order to save Neela, Lou knows she will have to learn spells and tricks to keep her safe as she navigates the market. And she only has three days to do it before the market takes Neela forever.
Hungry for even more horror? Check back every season, because we’ll be delivering our most anticipated horror novels for you all year round. In the meantime, be sure to sign up for our horror newsletter The Fright Stuff. Or check out these recommendations for Horror Novels set underground. Have a scary spring!