(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.)
2026 started strong for readers of cryptid horror fiction, and I think my first Cryptid Quarterly Top 20 chart proves it. The fact that I’m compiling a Top 20 instead of a Top 10 as I’ve done the past two years shows that authors of cryptid horror fiction are not slowing down.
This is the third year of Cryptid Quarterly, so I decided to double the entries. Cryptid fiction is my favorite genre of horror, and I enjoy reading it so much that compiling these charts is fun and helps me discover new authors and titles. By the way, my definition of cryptid horror fiction is kind of wide open. If there are uncommon or legendary creatures putting human lives in jeopardy, that’s scary enough for me to call it cryptid horror fiction.
Back to the chart. Many familiar names dedicated to writing cryptid fiction are on it, including Cryptid Quarterly Authors of the Year Jeffrey B Miley (2024) and Luka T. Jacobs (2025). Miley added more titles to two of my favorite series, Sasquatch Adventures and Cryptid Classics. Meanwhile, Jacobs continued her highly entertaining Nicole Beretti Thriller series.
This time around, D.A. Roberts tops the chart for the third time with Book 1 of his Hangman’s Legacy series, tying him with Jacobs for the most No. 1 titles in Cryptid Quarterly history.
The first quarter chart of 2026 features stories about Chupacabra, Dogmen, Sasquatch, the Waheela, the Yowie, and other menacing creatures on land and in the water.
On a side note, the Cryptid Quarterly rankings are subjective. Yes, they’re partly based on Amazon and Goodreads ratings and reviews, but my opinion weighs heavily in the rankings because that’s what this chart is: my opinion. However, if you like those Saturday night SyFy creature features on TV and those fast-paced action films from the 1970s and 1980s like Predator, I think you’ll enjoy many of the books on this chart no matter where they’re ranked … which is the point, right?
Of course, I don’t know about every cryptid horror fiction book released, so if you have other recommendations, drop them in the comments.
Without further ado, here are my Top 20 cryptid horror fiction releases from Jan. 1 through March 31, 2026, along with their Amazon descriptions. Clicking on the book titles takes you to their Amazon pages where they can be purchased.
#1. The Mount Dora Incident by D.A. Roberts
Publication date: March 29, 2026
Length: 558 pages
Amazon rating: 4.8
Amazon description: Book 1 in the Hangman’s Legacy series. RC Sandoval didn’t return to Clayton, New Mexico, looking for redemption. After the divorce and the war, he wanted quiet. But when his estranged father dies, RC inherits the remote high‑desert ranch he grew up on — and the secrets buried beneath it. Something is wrong on the land. Cattle won’t settle. Tracks appear where nothing should walk. Shadows move with intent. And when bodies begin turning up — torn apart in ways no predator could manage — RC realizes the past he tried to escape has teeth. As winter closes in and fear spreads through the rural community, RC must confront an ancient presence rooted deep in the desert — born of violence, frontier justice, and unfinished sins. To survive, he’ll need more than training and grit. He’ll need brotherhood, loyalty, and the kind of trust forged only in blood and war. Because in the high desert, when the darkness finally comes for you … no one survives it alone. A brutal supernatural Western thriller blending modern horror, creature suspense, law‑enforcement realism, and relentless action, The Mount Dora Incident is perfect for fans of Longmire, Dark Winds, The Only Good Indians, and character‑driven creature horror where the land remembers and demands payment in blood.
#2. Project Manticore by Robby “Jed” Raines
Publication date: January 28, 2026
Length: 340 pages
Amazon rating: 4.6
Amazon description: Book 1 in the Wild Hunt: Shadow-Hunters series. Wild Hunt’s most secretive division is activated when unexplained massacres ripple across a remote corner of the world. Led by battle-hardened veterans and bound by oaths older than nations, the Hunt is accustomed to facing the impossible. They are not prepared for what waits in the dark. As a creature born of forbidden science and ancient myth begins its rampage, the Hunt is forced into a race against time — tracking a beast that learns, adapts, and kills with terrifying efficiency. Every engagement costs blood. Every mistake brings the end closer. For Lt. Col. Jayce Constance, the mission becomes personal when his nephew Kirk Becker is drawn into the fight — awakening something buried deep in his bloodline. What begins as a battle for survival becomes a reckoning, forcing the Hunt to confront not just the monster they face, but the price of becoming what is needed to stop it. Behind the carnage, unseen hands move with purpose. The Manticore was never the end. It was only a test.
#3. The Killing Fields Of The Chupacabra by Luka T. Jacobs
Publication date: January 30, 2026
Length: 186 pages
Amazon rating: 4.6
Amazon description: Book 8 in the Nicole Beretti Thriller series. FBI Special Agent Nicole Beretti and her partner Noah Jacobi are on a case that breaks from everything they have faced before. In the dead of night, bodies are found drained and broken, abandoned in an open field and inside a quiet trailer park. There are no footprints. No tracks. No obvious sign of how the predator arrived or where it went. This is not a creature drawn to livestock or easy prey. It’s focused on hunting humans. As panic spreads and the death toll rises, Beretti and Jacobi are joined by a new team member whose expertise may be their only advantage against a killer that refuses to be seen. Together, they race to uncover the truth behind a predator that uses the land itself as cover, striking without warning and vanishing before anyone can react. The deeper they dig, the clearer it becomes. This is not an animal acting on hunger alone. It is a hunter exploiting the one place humans never think to look. And by the time they realize how close it has been all along, it may already be too late.
#4. The Grizzly Claws Inn by John Lee Schneider
Publication date: March 31, 2025
Length: 196 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: A monster has come to the northern town of Bear Creek. Samson is an Alaskan Grizzly. He stands nearly 12 feet tall and weighs over a ton. But when he was only a cub, his mother killed and devoured two young campers – a horrific attack that has become local legend. Raised by a man-eater, Samson is now grown. Five people are already dead. Local authorities are desperate. But Samson avoids traps and won’t take bait. Because humans are his chosen prey. Experts say he won’t stop. But no one knows where he might strike next – only that he will. In the woods, no one can hear you scream.
#5. Subterranean by Jeffrey B Miley
Publication date: January 6, 2026
Length: 187 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: Book 58 in Miley’s Sasquatch Adventures series. There is something below our feet living and lurking in the dark. A major earthquake event in the Cherokee National Forest brings the world below into contact with the human population on the surface. It is discovered that the Cherokee legend of the Moon Eyed People was never a legend but the truth. Hundreds of years ago, a reclusive tribe of blond haired and blue-eyed hominids roamed the forest. They shunned contact and lived in caves, only venturing out at night. Additional descriptions from rare sightings suggest that maybe they weren’t human at all. Flat noses, blond fur covered bodies and wrinkled skin were observed from a distance. Eventually the cave dwellers disappeared. The legend suggests they went underground. Openings caused by the earthquake event have brought them out of hiding. People are dying and disappearing. The beleaguered rangers and wardens of the area are doing their best to discover the truth. But no one anticipated that their latest danger would come from below the very forest itself. No one is sure how to handle an enemy that is subterranean.
#6. Terror On Mount St. Helens by Russell James
Publication date: January 8, 2026
Length: 182 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: Book 9 of The Grant Coleman Adventures. Paleontologist Grant Coleman is on vacation at a lakeside resort near Mount St. Helens, Washington. All he wants to do is relax. But while he’s floating in an inner tube on the lake, the dam fails. He and others are swept away in the ensuing flood. He awakens on the riverbank somewhere downstream in the heart of a national forest on the slopes of Mount St. Helens. He meets Ridley Montrose, a back-to-nature woman living off the land, as well as a group of fraternity brothers dumped from a party boat on the lake. They huddle by the river, awaiting rescue. But that is no place to rest. The waters around Mount St. Helens harbor deadly fish. Murderous beasts, thought extinct for thousands of years, hunt the forest. Seismic activity shakes the earth. Death stalks the group at every turn. Countless numbers have died on these slopes over the decades, and it will be a miracle if Grant and his party survive the terrors on Mount St. Helens.
#7. Don’t Go Outside At Night: Living Among Dogmen: Year One by Luka T. Jacobs
Publication date: March 16, 2026
Length: 184 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: Book 1 of The Sycamore Run Estate series follows Tess Kearney and her 18-yea-old son Justin. After her divorce, Tess leaves the city behind, looking for a quieter life on the edge of southwestern Ohio’s wooded corridor. Sycamore Run Estates feels like a reset. A small estate of just eight homes set outside town, with large lots overlooking open fields and surrounding farms, all backing onto deep woodland. Open space. Fewer people. Room to breathe. Justin finds a landscaping job within weeks. He starts making friends and spends more time out, enjoying the openness of the area and the distance from crowded streets. Tess adapts to a slower pace, getting used to working remotely and a more relaxed lifestyle. But something has lived in the woods behind Sycamore Run Estate long before the houses were built. And it notices the newcomers. The other two books in the series, Don’t Go Outside At Night: Living Among Dogmen: Year Two and Don’t Go Outside At Night: Living Among Dogmen: The Final Year, are also available.
#8. Yowie by K.T. Tomb
Publication date: February 2, 2026
Length: 160 pages
Amazon rating: 4.6
Amazon description: Book 24 in Tomb’s Creatures series. A honeymoon in Australia’s Kosciuszko National Park becomes a nightmare. Marcus, a man with a shady past, planned the trip as a cover to plunder ancient artifacts tied to local Indigenous folklore. Lacey believes they came for solitude, but when Marcus steps away from the fire, she vanishes. No tracks. No struggle. Only signs that something vast and ancient has passed through the camp. Desperate, Marcus turns to Ben Makarios, the man who survived the Yowie once before. For Ben, this hunt is personal, the creature stole his first wife and nearly his sanity. Ben and his team Lux, Dustin, and François return to the high country, tracking a predator that knows the land, remembers its enemies, and guards secrets buried deep in the wilderness.
#9. Snake Island by Lucas Pederson
Publication date: February 9, 2026
Length: 150 pages
Amazon rating: 4.6
Amazon description: Book 5 in the Cryptid Force Six series. The elite team known as Cryptid Force Six follows a distress call to Snake Island off the coast of Brazil after the mini jet crash of their financier Kirby Ross. The island is notorious for being extremely dangerous and off limits to tourists. Cujo and the team sneak by Brazilian authorities to arrive on the island. They find a few survivors of the crash, but Ross is missing. The island is crawling with venomous snakes, but something massive is stalking the island. Something that only visits once every hundred years, and it hates intruders.
#10. Northwestern North America’s Waheela by Jeffrey B Miley
Publication date: March 25, 2026
Length: 142 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: Book 12 in Miley’s Cryptid Classics series. The Athabaskan people believe in a creature called the Waheela. It is a giant wolf that is believed to be a human cursed for unnatural acts both spiritual and physical. They are damned to protect the native forests. The wolf is known for its ferocity and acts of vengeance against any and all that destroy the land. One particular trait that identifies its kill is the taking the heads of its victims. When the activities of a lumber company raise the ire of the Waheela, the rangers assigned to the area must do their best to protect lumbermen. The Waheela lives to save the forest from the humans that are tasked with taking its lumber in the name of progress and capitalism. Ranger Jackson ‘JJ’ Jagger and his handful of rangers are caught in the middle of the conflict. People are dying and they must do all they can to stop the Waheela from bringing the lumbermen’s progress to a halt. JJ risks everything towards that end, but sometimes success is only temporary.
#11. Sasquatch Shadow by K.T. Tomb
Publication date: January 14, 2026
Length: 147 pages
Amazon rating: 4.6
Amazon description: Book 23 in Tomb’s Creatures series. A child vanishes in the depths of the Washington wilderness — and the forest offers no answers. Seven-year-old Lily Miller disappears from her family’s campsite near the Sauk River without a sound. No footprints. No struggle. No trace she was ever there. Days of searching turn up nothing but empty ground and growing fear. Lux Makarios has seen this before. Years earlier, she barely survived an encounter in these same mountains with a predator that moves silently, thinks strategically, and leaves nothing behind. The signs surrounding Lily’s disappearance are unmistakable. This wasn’t an accident. Something took her — and it knows the forest far better than anyone searching it. Drawn back into terrain scarred by memory and violence, Lux reunites with her team and pushes deep into a wilderness where help cannot reach them and mistakes are fatal. Time is slipping away. The forest is watching. And whatever is hunting there has already chosen its prey. Some creatures are myths.
This one is not.
#12. Tooth and Claw by Michael Cole
Publication date: January 2, 2026
Length: 254 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: From the crushing pincers of the red deep-sea crab to the serrated jaws of the great white shark, the ocean’s deadliest predators have always ruled their own domains. Until now. When a billion-dollar experiment goes catastrophically wrong, something massive, armored, and impossibly hungry rises from the depths — and it isn’t alone. Mutated by an experimental growth hormone, a colossal crab and a super-charged shark begin feeding just off the beaches of High Point, Florida, turning a sunny vacation paradise into a killing ground. Swimmers vanish. Boats disappear. Blood stains the tide. YouTube star Gwen Kingston stumbles onto the truth while filming offshore: a crashed aircraft, a secret cargo, and a corporate cover-up soaked in lies. What she uncovers points to an unstoppable nightmare stalking the shallows — two monsters engineered beyond nature, now driven by pure instinct. As the body count explodes and authorities fail, Gwen and her crew gamble on the unthinkable. If the monsters won’t stop …
they’ll make them fight.
#13. The Appalachians’ Rawhead by Jeffrey B Miley
Publication date: January 30, 2026
Length: 135 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: Book 11 in Miley’s Cryptid Classics series. The Appalachian Mountains come with a set of rules for survival. Violating any of these rules is dangerous. Especially if you are in western Virginia where the people believe in a creature known as Rawhead. It is a Celtic boogeyman. But is it real? Marilyn Brightbill is a county nurse assigned to reach out to the hill people of Pine Mountain. Her driver and bodyguard is Tim Grogan. She needs the bodyguard because people, especially women sent to help the hill people, tend to disappear. The people of the hills have been called feral. They are a unique breed with a great mistrust of the government and a penchant for moonshine. And most believe in the monster Rawhead. Marilyn and Tim must navigate the dangerous, uneducated and sensitive inbred population of the hills to keep them and their children healthy. Neither of them believe in Rawhead, but they slowly pick up on clues that give them reason to rethink their disbelief. People’s lives depend on it.
#14. Meat Eaters by Michael Cole
Publication date: March 15, 2026
Length: 285 pages
Amazon rating: 4.3
Amazon description: When rancher William Boone finds the mutilated remains of his neighbor’s steer, he assumes it’s the work of hungry coyotes. When a second carcass turns up, he knows something isn’t right. When the bodies start appearing, he realizes the nightmare has already begun. Escaped from a secret facility, a pack of savage prehistoric predators has been unleashed into the farmlands of Eastland County. Their biology drives them with a terrifying need to feed — each creature must consume three times its body weight every twenty-four hours or die. Now the ranchlands have become their hunting ground. With cheetah-like speed and scalpel-sharp teeth, the predators tear through livestock, pets, and anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. Horses, cattle, pigs … even humans. In Eastland County, the food chain has been rewritten. And at the top are the Meat Eaters.
#15. Terribly Real by Jeffrey B Miley
Publication date: March 5, 2026
Length: 128 pages
Amazon rating: 4.5
Amazon description: Book 59 in the Sasquatch Adventures series. Something is terribly wrong in the Allegheny National Forest. An incident in the forest incites anger in one particular forest creature. The anger builds to an uncontrollable rage. Unable to curb its growing anger, the beast lashes out and kills two young people. Not sated by that one killing, it strikes again and again. The rangers are understaffed and ill-prepared for the monster that has lost control. Some are not convinced of its existence and believe that they have a bear problem. That explanation is quickly found to be false. But the truth is hard to swallow. Washington steps in and admits the existence of the Sasquatch. The powers that be send in a Sasquatch Exterminator. The man who shows up is not what they expect. Gunner Taylor begins to help them, but the cost is great.
#16. Dreadnought: Fear The Deep by Michael Cole
Publication date: February 4, 2026
Length: 337 pages
Amazon rating: 4.3
Amazon description: Saw Ridge has always been a quiet town. A safe haven for tranquility. Until now. Nature’s wrath is about to be unleashed, not through high winds or crashing waves, but a carnivorous force intent on bloodshed. Former Sheriff Dakota McCullough has retired and is living out his days on the shores of Saw Ridge. Beloved by the town, his presence casts a giant shadow over his successor and son, Glenn McCullough. Their relationship is tested when strange occurrences plague the community. Mariners report a severe drop in fish populations; an entire pod of killer whales washes ashore, their flesh stripped from the bones; and a vacant fishing vessel is found adrift with strange markings on the hull. When Glenn and Dakota investigate the matter, they learn the horrifying truth. Someone has been dumping toxic waste into the water and has inadvertently awakened a carnivorous beast from the depths. Long thought to be extinct, it is hellbent on killing. The largest, deadliest predator in the sea, it dreads naught.
#17. Croc Attack 2 by Brian Gatto
Publication date: March 9, 2026
Length: 146 pages
Amazon rating: 4.0
Amazon description: Two reptilian threats had been eliminated. The town of Graceville, Florida was finally pulling itself together when a new but expected threat returned. After a string of brutal attacks leave everyone helpless, a familiar face returns to the everglades to attempt to put an end to the horror that lies in the murky water and within himself.
Everyone had been hurt. Some physically, most mentally. The crocodiles caused damage beyond death. Now that there are more horrors that lie in wait, some wonder if they can finally put an end to it all or if everyone is doomed to the jaws of the beast. This time, the threat is greater. Not only is there a mysterious new clutch of eggs but a two-headed crocodilian that will stop at nothing to satiate its hunger. Worst yet, it keeps growing.
#18. Dogman by K.T. Tomb
Publication date: February 20, 2026
Length: 154 pages
Amazon rating: 4.2
Amazon description: Book 25 in Tomb’s Creatures series. Dr. Chelsea Buckley, anthropology professor at Colgate University and a leading authority on cryptozoology and folklore, receives a late-night call from Pete Callahan, a shaken Catskills park ranger. Campers are reporting sightings of a towering, bipedal canine with burning red eyes, a creature long whispered about in local legend as the Dogman. Most dismiss it as hysteria. Chelsea does not. Certain there is something deliberate behind the fear, she gathers her trusted team: her husband, Francois; tactical specialist Lux Makarios and her husband, Ben; and Dustin “Cowboy” McCord and his wife, Ash. What begins as a search for a creature of legend quickly turns into something far more personal. In the dead of night, Ash disappears. Stranded in the vast and unforgiving wilderness, the team realizes they are no longer the hunters. They are the hunted. Someone, or something, has anticipated their every move. As they press deeper into the Catskills, land sacred to the Lenape and steeped in ancient stories, the line between myth and calculated manipulation begins to vanish. As they race to find Ash, a chilling truth emerges. This was never a random sighting. It was a lure. And the trap was built for them.
#19. Titanoboa by Eric S. Brown
Publication date: March 2, 2026
Length: 108 pages
Amazon rating: 4.0
Amazon description: A meteoroid carrying strange, radioactive alien properties crashes into the deep jungles of South America. Its potential is staggering — a discovery that could end the global energy crisis overnight. Only a select few know it exists. A covert team is assembled and sent to retrieve the object before the rest of the world learns the truth. But the jungle is no empty wasteland. It is ancient. Watching. And far more dangerous than they anticipated. What begins as a mission to secure limitless power quickly spirals into a brutal fight for survival, as nature bares its fangs and something far older than humanity awakens in the dark.
#20. The Jackal’s Gate by Edward J. McFadden III
Publication date: February 6, 2026
Length: 198 pages
Amazon rating: 3.8
Amazon description: Some secrets were meant to stay buried. Deep beneath Khafre’s Valley Temple, hidden within a long-lost catacomb, an ancient gateway to the Triassic lies dormant. Malone comes from a family of explorers, but he never believed the legends that whispered of what lay buried beneath the sands of Giza until his daughter vanished into them. To rescue her, he must unlock the gate’s secrets and follow her into a savage era of volcanic skies, primeval jungles, and apex predators, where his only hope is to survive long enough to find her. But something else is watching. Waiting. And it controls the Jackal’s Gate.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Bigfoot Bacterium by Stu Croskell
Bloodsuckers by Michael Cole
Ceratosaurus by Michael Cole
Colossal by Michael Cole
Megalodon: The Attack On The American Gulf by Ethan Richards
Razor Claw by Sam M. Phillips
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