best of horror

Can't get enough of all things scary and unsettling?  Have a look at these 2022 award winners and honorees!

Bram Stoker Awards are presented annually by the Horror Writers Association for excellence in dark fantasy and horror writing.

2022 SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL

Winner:
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
This genre-defying thriller follows a father desperate to salvage what's left of his family—even if it means a descent into violence.

Runners up:
The Fervor by Alma Katsu
The acclaimed author of the celebrated literary horror novels The Hunger and The Deep turns her psychological and supernatural eye on the horrors of the Japanese American internment camps in World War II.

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste
For fans of Mexican Gothic comes a novel inspired by the untold stories of forgotten women in classic literature—from Lucy Westenra, a victim of Stoker's Dracula, and Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester's attic-bound wife in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre—as they band together to combat the toxic men bent on destroying their lives, set against the backdrop of the Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury, 1967.

Daphne by Josh Malerman
Horror has a new name: Daphne. A brutal, enigmatic woman stalks a high school basketball team in a reimagining of the slasher genre by the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box.

Sundial by Catriona Ward
Sharp as a snakebite, Sundial is a gripping novel about the secrets we bury from the ones we love most, from Catriona Ward, the author of The LastHouse on Needless Street.

2022 SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A FIRST NOVEL

Winner:
Beulah by Christi Nogle (not available in the JCLC)
Beulah is the story of Georgie, an eighteen-year-old with a talent (or affliction) for seeing ghosts. Georgie and her family have had a hard time since her father died, but she and her mother Gina and sisters Tommy and Stevie are making a new start in the small town of Beulah. Georgie experiences a variety of disturbances but she is able to maintain, in her own laconic way, until she notices that her little sister Stevie also has the gift. Stevie is in danger from a malevolent ghost, and Georgie tries to help, but soon Georgie is the one in danger.

Runners up:
Jackal by Erin Adams
A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white rust belt town. But she's not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches...

Black Tide by K.C. Jones
It was just another day at the beach. And then the world ended. Mike and Beth didn't know each other before the night of the meteor shower. After a drunken and desperate one-night stand, the two strangers awake to discover a surprise astronomical event has left widespread destruction in its wake. But the cosmic lightshow was only part of something much bigger, and far more terrifying.

All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes
Something deadly and mysterious stalks the members of an isolated polar expedition in this haunting and spellbinding historical horror novel, perfect for fans of Dan Simmons’s The Terror and Alma Katsu’s The Hunger.

The Ignyte Awards began in 2020 alongside the inaugural FIYAHCON, a virtual convention centering the contributions and experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) in Speculative Fiction.

BEST NOVEL: ADULT

Winner:
A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark
Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer. So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case.

Runners up:
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
A reluctant medium discovers the ties that bind can unleash a dangerous power in this compelling Malaysian-set contemporary fantasy.

The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards are fan-based and presented annually to honor the best in classic horror and science fiction/fantasy.

BEST FILM OF 2022

Everything Everywhere All At Once
A hilarious and big-hearted sci-fi action adventure about an exhausted Chinese American woman (Michelle Yeoh) who is swept up in an insane adventure across the multiverse.

BOOK OF THE YEAR

Masters of Make-Up Effects: A Century of Practical Magic by Howard Berger
Dive into the fascinating world of movie make-up effects with this stunning illustrated oral history of the art form.

The Saturn Awards are presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films and honor the best in those categories in film, television, and home entertainment.

BEST SCIENCE FICTION FILM

Nope
A man and his sister discover something sinister in the skies above their California horse ranch, while the owner of a nearby theme park tries to profit from the mysterious, otherworldly phenomenon.

BEST THRILLER FILM

Nightmare Alley
When charismatic but down-on-his-luck Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) endears himself to clairvoyant Zeena (Toni Collette) and her has-been mentalist husband Pete (David Strathairn) at a traveling carnival, he crafts a golden ticket to success, using this newly acquired knowledge to grift the wealthy elite of 1940s New York society.

Locus Awards are an annual set of literary awards voted on by readers of the science fiction and fantasy magazine Locus. 

BEST HORROR NOVEL

Winner:
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this chilling novel.

Runners up:
Revelator by Daryl Gregory
The dark, gripping tale of a 1930s family in the remote hills of the Smoky Mountains, their secret religion, and the daughter who turns her back on their mysterious god - from the acclaimed author of Spoonbenders. 

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?

Billy Summers by Stephen King
Part war story and part love letter to small-town America and the people who live there, this spectacular thriller of luck, fate, and love will grip readers with its electrifying narrative, as a complex antihero with one last shot at redemption must avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man.

Later by Stephen King
LATER is Stephen King at his finest, a terrifying and touching story of innocence lost and the trials that test our sense of right and wrong. With echoes of King’s classic novel It, LATER is a powerful, haunting, unforgettable exploration of what it takes to stand up to evil in all the faces it wears.

Moon Lake by Joe R. Lansdale 
The gripping and unexpected tale of a lost town and the dark secrets that lie beneath the glittering waters of an East Texas lake.

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals, but entire nations. It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

Set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England, Caitlin Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon. This Crimson Peak-inspired story assembles, then upends, every expectation set in place by Shirley Jackson and Rebecca, and will leave readers shaken, desperate to begin again as soon as they are finished.

The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
 A family returns to their hometown—and to the dark past that haunts them still—in this masterpiece of literary horror by the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers.

National Book Award finalists

The 25 Finalists for the 2023 National Book Awards for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature were announced with the New York Times. The five Finalists in each category were selected by a distinguished panel of judges, and were advanced from the Longlists announced in September with The New Yorker. 

The Winners will be announced live on Wednesday, November 15 at the invitation-only 74th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner, featuring special guest Oprah Winfrey, at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. The National Book Foundation will broadcast the Ceremony for readers everywhere on YouTube, Facebook, and the Foundation’s website at nationalbook.org/awards. 

FINALISTS FOR FICTION:

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal

This Other Eden by Paul Harding

The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen

Blackouts by Justin Torres

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s dystopian novel Chain-Gang All-Stars simulates a private for-profit prison system where prisoners compete for freedom in live-broadcast gladiator-inspired death matches. Aaliyah Bilal’s debut short story collection, Temple Folk, examines the diversity of the Black Muslim experience in America. Paul Harding’s novel This Other Eden traces the legacy of a mixed-race fishing community living on a secluded island off the coast of Maine from 1792 to the early 20th century. In Hanna Pylväinen’s The End of Drum-Time, a Lutheran minister’s daughter falls in love with a native Sámi reindeer herder and joins the herders on their annual migration to the sea in 1850s Scandinavia. Justin Torres’s Blackouts considers the multigenerational gaps in personal and collective queer histories.

FINALISTS FOR NONFICTION:

The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk

Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza

Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir by Raja Shehadeh

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant

Historian Ned Blackhawk’s The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History recontextualizes five centuries of US, Native, and non-native histories to argue that Indigenous peoples have played—and continue to play—an essential role in the development of American democracy. In Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice, Cristina Rivera Garza travels to Mexico City to recover her sister’s unresolved case file nearly 30 years after her murder, simultaneously honoring her sister’s life and examining how violence against women affects everyone. Across 248 notes, Christina Sharpe’s Ordinary Notes investigates the legacy of white supremacy and slavery, and presents a kaleidoscopic narrative that celebrates the Black American experience. In We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, attorney and activist Raja Shehadeh explores his complicated relationship with his father—a lawyer and Palestinian human rights activist who was assassinated in 1985— alongside histories of oppression. In Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, journalist John Vaillant studies the May 2016 wildfire that devastated a small city in central Canada to make the case that the catastrophic Fort McMurray fire was a foreboding window into what the future holds.

FINALISTS FOR POETRY: 

How to Communicate by John Lee Clark

from unincorporated territory [åmot] by Craig Santos Perez

suddenly we by Evie Shockley

Tripas by Brandon Som

From From by Monica Youn

John Lee Clark’s How to Communicate considers the small joys and pains of life, and the endless possibilities of language through poems influenced by the Braille slate and translated from American Sign Language and Protactile, a language used by DeafBlind people that’s rooted in touch. Craig Santos Perez observes and asserts storytelling as an act of resistance—a written form of “åmot,” the Chamoru word for “medicine”—in from unincorporated territory [åmot], the fifth installment in his series dedicated to his homeland of Guåhan (Guam). Evie Shockley plays with visuals, sounds, and poetic form to pay homage to Black feminist visionaries, both living and departed, of a collective “we” in suddenly we. Tripas celebrates Brandon Som’s upbringing in a multicultural, multigenerational home, traversing languages, cultures, and borders to connect his family’s histories. Through poetry and personal essays, Monica Youn’s From From confronts American racism and anti-Asian violence, and reflects back the question of “where are you from from” onto its readers.

FINALISTS FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE:

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop
Translated from the French by Sam Taylor

The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel
Translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato

Abyss by Pilar Quintana
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman

On a Woman's Madness by Astrid Roemer
Translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott

Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur, the ten stories in Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny dive headfirst into the surreal to tackle the very real horrors of big tech, capitalism, and the patriarchy. Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop and translated from the French by Sam Taylor, contemplates the brutality of French colonial occupation and the consequences of obsession, love, and betrayal in 18th-century West Africa. In his seventies, a man is finally able to read a letter from his childhood lover in The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel, a debut novel translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato that explores queerness, violence, and the transformative power of the written word. Abyss by Pilar Quintana and translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman, follows an 8-year-old narrator as she makes sense of the world by observing the adults around her, perceiving the complexities of family life at once as real and fantastical. In Astrid Roemer’s On A Woman’s Madness, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott, a queer Black woman escapes her abusive husband in search of a new, freer life beyond society’s expectations.

FINALISTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE:

Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow

Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy

Big by Vashti Harrison

The Lost Year: A Survival Story of theUkrainian Famine by Katherine Marsh

A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat

In Gather, Kenneth M. Cadow’s debut novel, a teenager fights to maintain his family’s home, find a job, and care for his mother as she recovers from her opioid addiction—all the while adopting Gather, a stray dog. Huda F Cares?, a graphic novel written and illustrated by Huda Fahmy, follows a visibly Muslim family on their road trip to Disney World, and tells a story of self-acceptance, faith, and the joys and embarrassments of sisterhood. Big, a picture book written and illustrated by Vashti Harrison, is the story of a little girl with a big heart and big dreams who learns that “big” doesn’t always have a positive connotation and offers readers of all ages an important reminder that words matter. The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh follows a 13 year-old who uncovers a family secret tracing back to Holodomor, a government-imposed famine that led to the death of millions of Ukrainians. Dan Santat captures the awkward middle school experience in A First Time for Everything, a graphic memoir inspired by the author’s class trip, and a series of life-changing firsts, in Europe.

https://www.nationalbook.org/2023-national-book-awards-finalists-announced/