Back to the 2020 Holiday Gift Guide
A great (and unnerving) new twist on the classic haunted house tale, Mexican Gothic is perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, T. Kingfisher’s The Twisted Ones, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. --Zach
Grady Hendrix makes horror charming. His style of writing—unrelenting humanity in the face of real terror, of both the supernatural and everyday varieties—is in top form here. He's one of a handful of authors whose new work I devour as soon as I get my hands on it. Grady Hendrix knows how to terrify you, but more importantly, he knows how to make you feel that maybe we can overcome the thing that scares us the most. --Colin
Anna Tromedlov is a temp—she spends her days sorting data, she struggles to pay her rent, and more than anything, she wants to lock down a full-time gig. Oh, and her employers are all supervillains. In this brilliant, hilarious deconstruction of the superhero genre, Walschots lays bare a system that relies on average people believing in the extraordinary without really looking. Hench is unafraid to dig deeper, and its world is one of collateral damage, biting wit, and baddies gone...good? A delicious, uproarious super(villain) story that you won't be able to put down. --Talia
Exceedingly bizarre and beautifully unsettling, Little Eyes will crawl into your thoughts and under your skin. Existing somewhere between horror, literary fiction, and sci-fi, this novel pulls readers into a paranoid, yet heartfelt, contemplation of the relationships we establish through technology—and the anonymity it provides us. --Zach
Delightfully insane and unlike anything I’ve read before, The City We Became is a love letter to NYC wrapped in multicultural re-imaginings of cosmic horror…served with a huge dose of kickass fantasy fun. --Zach
Don’t believe in Bigfoot? Devolution doesn’t care. This masterfully constructed novel will leave even the most skeptical reader (like yours truly) reeling and shocked. --Zach
Every sentence of Priory glows with wit, grace, and talent. This is an epic to lose oneself within: a story of love, loss, myth, sacrifice, power, womanhood and—perhaps above all—of dragons. --Talia
The novel that first ignited my love for science fiction is back, reprinted and just as enthralling as the first time I read it. The Invicible hurls the theory of evolution into the darkest corners of the universe, questioning our very understanding of life, and leaving readers desperate to turn the page. --Zach
Perhaps the perfect horror novel for 2020, Survivor Song is as heartbreaking as it is disturbing. Paul Tremblay has crafted a relentlessly claustrophobic thriller, whose every page bleeds dread and adrenaline-pumping unease. I cannot recommend it highly enough. --Zach
A virus wipes out almost all of the male population, leaving Cole and her son Miles on the run to find somewhere to settle down and live in peace, safe from the violence and chaos of the past. Lauren Beukes is always in top form and she absolutely delivers here. If you're okay reading about a virus—bad timing, I know—you can't go wrong with Afterland. --Colin
Master of Sorrows rips through the paces of classic epic fantasy—the wizard mentor, the training school, the quest—while maintaining originality, satisfyingly complex characterization, and the details of a fascinating new magical world. A masterful series debut that will leave you hungry for more. --Talia
Especially enjoyable if you know the gaming world and fun to learn a little if you don’t. A solid mother-son sci-fi plot with intrigue to keep you reading. --Jamie