(Editor’s note: Since 2024, Cryptid Quarterly is a feature where I highlight cryptid horror fiction from each quarter of the year, using Amazon Kindle release dates.)
Luka T. Jacobs takes the top two spots on the Cryptid Quarterly VIII chart with a holiday cryptid thriller and Book 6 of her Nicole Beretti Thriller series.
Sasquatch Christmas Massacre tops the chart. It’s about a secretive island in Montana that’s home to Sasquatch. When humans unknowingly trespass on the island, they unleash a Sasquatch attack on Christmas Eve. Jacobs also wrote Wildman, the No. 2 entry on the chart. Wildman sends Special Agents Nicole Beretti and Noah Jacobi on their first overseas adventure to investigate disappearances attributed to a Yowie in Queensland, Australia.
The rest of the Top 10 includes a pair of authors familiar to Cryptid Quarterly readers: Jeffery B Miley and Michael Cole. Both have two titles each in the Top 10.
Miley’s Sasquatch Adventures 57: Sasquatch Hunter 2 reaches No. 3 and features the return of Rudy Moretti who’s sent on a mission to the Great Smoky Mountains. Miley’s Cryptid Classics #9: The Great Lakes’ Wendigo: The Hunger is No. 9 on the chart. Miley, by the way, was the 2024 Cryptid Quarterly Author of the Year and is the only writer to have at least one title in the Top 10 on all eight Cryptid Quarterly charts.
Cole’s sixth book in his G.O.R.E. Sector series titled Rampage hits No. 7 on the chart as the team finds itself battling a murderous mutant inside a research facility. Cole’s other book on the chart is Bigfoot’s Curse, which lands at No. 10. It follows a hitman who flees north to start a new life but encounters an enraged Bigfoot along the way.
The remaining titles in the Top 10 include Genoskwa 5: Blood Mountain by Heath Stallcup and Operation Fenland by William Meikle. A couple of authors are making their debuts on the Cryptid Quarterly Top 10: Hunter Shea and David Buzan. Shea swoops in at No. 5 with Shadow of the Mothman, while Buzan follows at No. 6 with Book 2 in his Winterhawk Saga titled In the Wrath of Legends.
So, without further ado, here’s my Top 10 cryptid horror fiction releases from October 1 through December 31, 2025, along with their Amazon descriptions. There’s also a list of honorable mentions worth checking out. Clicking on the book titles takes you to their Amazon pages where they can be purchased.
#1. Sasquatch Creek Massacre by Luka T. Jacobs
Publication date: December 12, 2025
Length: 176 pages
Amazon rating: 4.7
Amazon description: On Christmas Eve in a remote Montana town, a long-forgotten warning siren tears through the snowbound darkness. For decades, Grimlock Island has been off-limits, its old bridge fenced off and marked with signs that winter storms finally rip away. When an unsuspecting couple camps along the island’s quiet shoreline, they cross a boundary that should never have been touched. Their presence encroaches on sacred territory, and the Sasquatch that have guarded the island for decades surge toward the mainland with brutal force. What follows is chaos. Homes are attacked. Families are dragged into the night. People are jolted from sleep and forced to fight for their lives as the monstrous horde tears through the snow-covered streets. With only one sheriff, a single deputy, and a handful of terrified locals to stand against the onslaught, the town must pull together however they can if they hope to see dawn. Among them are a haunted sheriff pushing past old scars, a grizzled veteran with a weaponized truck, and a scattering of survivors who refuse to die quietly. This Christmas, they aren’t hoping for peace or presents. They are praying to stay alive.
#2. Wildman by Luka T. Jacobs
Publication date: October 12, 2025
Length: 161 pages
Amazon rating: 4.6
Amazon description: Book 6 in the Nicole Beretti Thriller series, Wildman sends Special Agents Nicole Beretti and Noah Jacobi on their toughest cases yet as they go overseas for the first time to Echo Creek, a quiet Queensland town with a reputation that keeps to the shadows. For generations, locals have whispered about the Wildman, the Yowie said to stalk the scrub and watch the roads at dusk. Now the whispers come with screams. People are vanishing. Homes are hit after dark. Sightings multiply, and fear runs rampant. Some are skeptical the creature even exists, dismissing it as bush gossip and panic, but when seasoned hunters, bush trackers, and the local police fail to stop the attacks or bring back a body, the Australian Federal Police call in Beretti and Jacobi. Working with the AFP, the agents step into a town bracing for nightfall. Something from the bush is stalking Echo Creek, cunning and relentless. It follows the gullies and selects victims unlucky enough to cross its path, day or night. Cut off by distance, with a community on edge and a landscape that swallows evidence, they race to read the signs, anticipate the next strike, and stop the killing so Echo Creek can see dawn without counting the missing.
#3. Sasquatch Adventures 57: Sasquatch Hunter 2 by Jeffrey B Miley
Publication date: November 19, 2025
Length: 196 pages
Amazon rating: 4.7
Amazon description: In Sasquatch Hunter, we met Rudy Moretti on a personal mission of vengeance. The former sniper/assassin’s brother was abducted by a Sasquatch in Oregon. Along the way he meets a group of old men who prove to be helpful. Noticed by the director of a clandestine program under the auspices of Homeland Security, he is offered a job as a Sasquatch Hunter to chase down the beasts that become troublesome man killers and, in some cases, man eaters. Sasquatch Hunter 2 finds a more experienced Rudy two and a half years later being sent to the Great Smoky Mountains to go after, not one but three, Sasquatches who have killed tourists and rangers alike. The variety that he finds are bigger and more ruthless than any he has faced before. And the mist for which the mountains have become so famous proves to be a formidable obstacle. He engages in the fight of his life that no one ever anticipated. He finds help in unexpected places, but is it enough to find him returning safely to his friends and the woman who waits for him to come home safely?
#4. Genoskwa 5: Blood Mountain by Heath Stallcup
Publication date: October 31, 2025
Length: 307 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: What began as a simple trek into the mountains has exploded into a brutal war between humankind and the Genoskwa — ancient guardians of the forest who will stop at nothing to protect their land. Three young survivors, driven by grief and rage, slip back into the snow-covered wilderness to exact their revenge. But as a deadly polar vortex traps everyone in its icy grip, humans and Sasquatch alike find themselves facing extinction. While the military tightens its hold and the Genoskwa retreat underground, unexpected alliances begin to form in the frozen dark. Yet with vengeance burning hot on both sides, peace may come too late. Because when sacred lands are violated and blood debt runs deep, forgiveness is just another casualty.
#5. Shadow of the Mothman by Hunter Shea
Publication date: December 15, 2025
Length: 271 pages
Amazon rating: 4.4
Amazon description: In 1967, the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, was terrorized by a winged creature stalking the night skies, along with a host of other bizarre and frightening paranormal phenomena. It all came to an end with the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge on a cold December evening. Ken Orsulak survived the Silver Bridge disaster, only to awaken from his coma sixteen years later. A man out of time and confined to a wheelchair now, he’s taken back to his childhood home of Remington, Massachusetts. By day, the bucolic farming town is just as it was when he left in 1967. By night, shrieks, strange shadows and unexplainable lights send ripples of fear throughout its residents. Something sinister has descended on the town. Has the terror of Point Pleasant come for Ken? The creature has a name – Mothman. The high strangeness surrounding the monster defies explanation. Ken and the town fight for answers, then find themselves fighting for their lives. Enter John Keel, the stalwart reporter who made the mysterious cryptid infamous. Has he arrived just in time, or is he too late to save Remington from the unknowable intentions of the Mothman? Remington is coming apart at the seams. Will anyone be left standing when, and if, the Mothman’s reign of terror ends?
#6. In the Wrath of Legends by David Buzan
Publication date: December 18, 2025
Length: 265 pages
Amazon rating: 4.4
Amazon description: Book 2 in The Winterhawk Saga features Chenoa Winterhawk, a battle-hardened member of Oregon’s elite U.S. Army Indian Scouts who are sworn to protect travelers across treacherous mountain terrain and dark forests whispering of ancient terrors. As the daughter of legendary Civil War hero Chief Jolon Winterhawk, Chenoa is also a warrior bound by duty, struggling with injustices brought upon the Nez Perce amidst the broken promises that have forced another relocation of her tribe. While escorting a military leader who carries a mining map of an underground river hidden deep inside the Blue Mountains, Chenoa is ambushed by a rogue Army unit in a deadly dirigible assault. Their sadistic leader is a traitor from her past, driven by revenge to destroy her family’s legacy. The diabolical plan is to destroy the mine and unleash the underground river, bringing a destructive flood onto sacred tribal lands to avenge personal betrayals. Engaging ruthless military forces throughout unforgiving mountain wilderness and abandoned mines, Winterhawk wages the fiercest battle of her life. But she soon discovers that a much darker terror is also stalking her — monstrous creatures of myth that were once faced by her father in an epic battle to the death. And now, it’s her turn.
#7. Rampage by Michael Cole
Publication date: December 16, 2025
Length: 149 pages
Amazon rating: 4.4
Amazon description: Book 6 of the G.O.R.E. Sector series, Rampage finds G.O.R.E. Sector being forced by the government to relinquish custody of the X41 meteorite recovered on the island of Zil Nesans to a facility in Arizona. Utilizing special equipment invented by none other than Dr. Howard Tate, Raptor Pack inspects the interior of the facility, suspicious of the intentions of those running it. As the evening goes on, the scientists on site begin their experiments at the behest of a powerful senator. The results are catastrophic. What was intended to be a miracle of medical science has become a killing spree. A former Marine, crippled in the Iraq War, mutates into a humanoid monstrosity. Complete with the intellect of a human but the murderous mind of a mutant, he goes on a rampage throughout the facility. As the body count rises, G.O.R.E. Sector must act fast to stop the soldier-turned-brute before his killing spree spreads to a populated area.
#8. Operation Fenland by William Meikle
Publication date: November 13, 2025
Length: 138 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: Book 19 in the S-Squad series features a new commanding officer for the S-Squad, but the job hasn’t changed. S-Squad members are sent to East Anglia in the middle of the worst storm in a generation. They think they’re doing a favor for an old friend, but instead they find themselves being stalked in the fenland. Something haunts the sodden streets and fields of the flooded village of Titmarsh — something out of legend. Black Shuck is on the prowl.
#9. Cryptid Classics #9: The Great Lakes’ Wendigo: The Hunger by Jeffrey B Miley
Publication date: October 14, 2025
Length: 131 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: Book 9 of the Cryptid Classics series is set in the Great Lakes region of the United States where the evil spirits are unique. They do not target good and decent people but instead visit their misery upon selfish and greedy human beings. They literally hunger for those types of people and are never satisfied. They possess these humans and commit horrible acts of cannibalism and yet are never sated. They are always hungry and appear to starve even when they eat their victims until their bellies are full. These creatures have a long history and yet very few have borne witness to their evil and macabre appetites. The incidents are infrequent and what drives the attacks is unknown. In the Chippewa National Forest, the incidents are becoming more frequent. Something has changed. Two rangers, Rick Smothers and Vanessa Van Allen, are the ones who keep discovering the horrible scenes of violated flesh and death. And soon they are drawn into a world of spiritualism that they cannot escape. The question soon becomes: “What is the most dangerous animal in the forest — man or the Wendigo?”
#10. Bigfoot’s Curse by Michael Cole
Publication date: October 7, 2025
Length: 153 pages
Amazon rating: 4.3
Amazon description: After terminating a notorious drug lord, hitman Trenton Loar flees north through Wiregrass Forest with a band of collaborators, all seeking to get away clean and start a new life. But the route to salvation proved deadlier than any of them expected. From the darkness of night, they hear a horrible roar. In the glow of their campfire, a horrible shape emerges. In the blink of an eye, Trenton Loar learns that his struggle for freedom has become a fight for his life. Enraged from years of imprisonment by a mysterious organization desperate to exploit the secrets of its long life, Bigfoot stalks the grounds of Wiregrass Forest, slaughtering every living thing in its path. Joining forces with a vacationing couple, Trenton navigates the forest. In doing so, he learns the truth of Bigfoot’s existence and the deadly secret carried within its blood.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Bigfoot’s Shadow in the Pines by Tommy Marcum
Croc Attack by Brian Gatto
Cryptid Classics #10: Louisiana’s Loup-Garou by Jeffrey B Miley
From A Black Door by Benjamin Allocco
Frozen Metal by Eric S. Brown
Hunted by the Cumberland County Bigfoot by Keith Luethke
Path of the Dogman by C.E. Osborn
Sasquatch Adventures 56: The Joker and The Enforcer by Jeffrey B Miley
Whispers of Cedar Lake: Untamed Fury by Tony Fain
LIONEL RAY GREEN 
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