Two of my long-time favorite authors plus a new favorite are releasing horror fiction books in October.

JOHN EVERSON

Bram Stoker Award-winning author John Everson returns with his 15th novel, The Bloodstained Doll. The book is set for release October 8 from Flame Tree Press and is billed as a modern giallo in the style of Everson’s 2022 novel Five Deaths for Seven Songbirds. The title is available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The recently unveiled book cover is gorgeous.

Here’s the plot, according to johneverson.com: “When Allyson’s mom dies unexpectedly, she thinks her world has hit rock bottom. But that’s before she goes to live with her estranged Uncle Otto in Germany. When a child’s empty casket is unearthed in the backyard during a violent storm, suddenly people close to her uncle start turning up dead. Is there a connection? As the noose tightens and murders draw closer to Berger Mansion, Allyson and her new boyfriend Andrew discover a dark truth hidden in the attic. Soon their lives are at stake if they don’t discover why each broken body is decorated with … a Bloodstained Doll.”

Everson’s novels never disappoint me. His debut Covenant won a Bram Stoker Award for First Novel in 2004, and his brutally powerful novel NightWhere received a Stoker nomination in 2012. A NightWhere sequel titled The Night Mother earned a 2024 Splatterpunk Award nomination for Best Novel.

Everson’s third novel, The 13th, is one of my Top 10 favorite horror books, and you can read my review at MalevolentDark.com, where I write, “The 13th opens with one of the most chilling prologues and finishes with one of the most shocking epilogues of any horror novel I’ve ever read. Originally released in 2009, The 13th is dripping with old-school horror as Everson seamlessly stitches dread and suspense into well-worn genre tropes, giving the tried and true a sense of the fresh and new.”

BRYAN SMITH

Two-time Splatterpunk Award-winning author Bryan Smith announced in his May 25 newsletter Depravity Lane News, “I am deep into the writing of a new book in my Depraved series, the first new one in four years. Once upon a time, I called Depraved 4 the ‘final’ book in the series, but, hey, we all know how that goes. Let’s just say that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is one of my favorite movies. Hell, the F13 franchise had TWO movies with ‘final’ in the title.”

Main character Jessica Sloan is returning, but Smith writes, “This time I’m taking her back to the backwoods roots of the first book. But that’s not all. This book will have a Halloween flavor to it. In fact, the title is A Depraved Halloween.”

A back-to-the-backwoods Depraved with a Halloween flavor? A Depraved Halloween sounds like a must-read for fans of gritty horror fiction, especially extreme horror aficionados.

The book is slated for release in October from Grindhouse Press.

Smith is an eight-time Splatterpunk Awards nominee, winning twice for Kill for Satan! and Dirty Rotten Hippies and Other Stories. His book Depraved is one of my Top 10 favorite horror novels, and you can read my review at MalevolentDark.com where I write, “No book I’ve read is better at tapping into the visceral violence of 1970s horror movie classics The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes.”

N.J GALLEGOS

N.J. Gallegos is an emergency room doctor/horror author ready to release her sophomore novel titled The Fatal Mind. The upcoming book is a medical horror thriller following a neurologist’s invention: chips that cure migraines. However, there may be murderous side effects. Gallegos describes it as “Black Mirror meets Frankenstein.”

The Fatal Mind is slated for release October 15 from Winding Road Stories.

I reviewed her first novel The Broken Heart last year, writing it was “one of the best debut novels by a horror writer in 2023. Steeped in medical thriller DNA, The Broken Heart is like a compound prescription, combining an unlikely anti-hero and no-holds-barred storytelling to create a potent concoction of dread and violence.”

You can read my full review of The Broken Heart and my Fresh Blood feature interview with Gallegos to learn more about the doctor and her fiction.