Books
‘Japanese Gothic’ Review – Kylie Lee Baker Weaves a Singularly Beautiful Ghost Story
So much Gothic fiction is steeped in the peculiarities of time and memory, the myriad ways each of these elements can lie to us, change us, reshape us into people we don’t recognize. It’s part of what makes the Gothic tradition within horror so rich and sumptuous, because the story you think you know is often only part of a much larger tapestry, one in which disparate threads can somehow find vibrant harmony if given enough time and care.
Kylie Lee Baker, fresh off the success of her phenomenal novel Bat-Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, is concerned with precisely these kinds of things in Japanese Gothic, a time-hopping, vivid saga steeped in both Japanese history and modern true crime. The book earns its title within moments, and quickly sets out to weave a tale both unpredictable and inescapable, so rich with meaning and texture that you’ll get lost in it.
In present-day Japan, college student Lee Turner has fled his NYU campus life, running away from a crime he can’t quite explain or remember to hide out in the centuries-old home where his father has opted to spend his golden years. Rural, quiet, and hidden by sword ferns, the house seems like the perfect escape from the wider world, but Lee cannot so easily escape himself. Ever since the disappearance of his mother nearly a decade earlier, he’s been troubled by the depth and breadth of his own perception, so flooded with sensation that he drowns his senses out with near-constant sedation. But here in this old country house, something calls to him that he cannot ignore. Reality seems to strain here, not just flickering but sometimes opening up pathways to the past.
In 1877, Sen is a young woman living in the same house with her destitute family, training under her father to be among the last samurai Japan has to offer. Their way of life has been banned by the Imperial government, but Sen is determined to make her father and her ancestral traditions proud by carrying on the samurai way of life, fighting for it to the death if she has to. At least until the space behind her closet crackles with strange life, revealing a doorway to the future where a strange foreign spirit waits to converse with her, and reveal some truths she might wish she’d never heard.
Yes, this is a novel about a rogue samurai in 19th-century Japan and a present-day runaway college student connecting across time through a single haunted country home, and while that’s a phenomenal hook, it’s only the beginning of the ambitious, sprawling yet intimate narrative Baker seeks to weave here. In the first section of the novel, comprising roughly 80 pages, she is unhurried in her pursuit of the emotional truths behind this compelling scenario, patiently laying out the emotional landscapes through which both Lee and Sen move, and the darkness to which they’re privy.
Lee fixates not just on what he’s done that made him flee America, but on the eventual fate of his mother, which remains a mystery even after she’s been declared legally dead. Meanwhile, Sen lives in mortal peril of her own, remembering the losses her family has suffered amid the fall of the samurai and looking ahead, through her father’s own brutalist view of the world, at the death she must still face if she is to retain her honor.
What, then, does it mean when these two death-obsessed souls encounter one another? What happens to your own psyche when, to the person staring at you across time, you are nothing but a ghost, or worse, an evil spirit? These are the questions that consume Sen and Lee’s early relationship, but just as she did with Bat-Eater, Baker quickly proves that she’s just getting started.
To give away the directions in which this novel pushes its characters would be to spoil the achingly beautiful, emotionally devastating magic trick Baker’s able to pull off in these pages, but I will tell you that this feels like a book I could have read forever. I was lost in the magic, in the chemistry between these two souls looking for a way to reclaim their own stories even as they’re enrobed in the darkness of their own pasts. Kylie Lee Baker is, quite simply, one of the most important voices in modern horror, and with Japanese Gothic, she has reaffirmed her place as an essential storyteller in the genre. This is one of the best horror books of 2026, and should not be missed.
Japanese Gothic is now available wherever books are sold.
Books
Urban Legends, Serial Killers, and Space Epics: 10 Horror Books We Can’t Wait to Read This June
We have entered summer reading season.
Schools are emptying, beaches are filling, and it’s a great time to pack a tote full of brand-new books and get some reading done in the shade. But even if the sun is bright, your fiction can still be dark, because June is absolutely packed with great new horror releases from rising stars and genre icons.
From a Psycho retelling to a dark twist on Peter Pan lore to a new book from a Pulitzer Prize winner, these are the horror titles we can’t wait to crack open this June.
The Children by Melissa Albert – June 2
A blend of dark fantasy, Gothic family saga, and horror novel that’s received rave reviews from Stephen King and more, The Children follows the adult children of a legendary fantasy author who died when a fire consumed their home. Now, living their own creative lives, Guinevere and Ennis must revisit the secrets from the night of the fire, the darkness surrounding Ennis’s new art installation, and the truth of their family legacy in both fact and fiction. It sounds like a wonderful twisted nest of secrets and magic, and I’m eager to dive in.
Marion by Leah Rowan – June 2
Just when you thought we’d run out of interesting ways to riff on Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Leah Rowan comes along with Marion. As the title suggests, it’s the story of the Bates Motel’s most famous victim, but this time, she doesn’t die in the shower. She takes control of the knife and the narrative in this daring retelling of a proto-slasher classic. The story we know is just the beginning, and I can’t wait to find out the end.
Headlights by CJ Leede – June 9
Through her first two novels, Maeve Fly and American Rapture, CJ Leede emerged as one of the most exciting new horror voices of the 2020s, and she’s just getting warmed up. Leede’s third novel follows an FBI agent on the brink of retirement, running from his past and from the unsolved case that haunts him most, as he’s slowly pulled back into a gruesome serial killer narrative. Victims start turning up again, wearing someone else’s skin like a cape, with no memory of how they got that way, or how they got a lone strand of unidentified hair tied around their tongue. Both a riff on The Shining and a journey into the dark Colorado night, Headlights is one of the year’s most exciting horror lit events.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo – June 9
Cynthia Pelayo‘s novels have always felt like dark fairy tales, and with her latest, she’s taking things into the realm of one of the most famous children’s stories ever. It Came From Neverland follows a version of Wendy Darling who, while working as a schoolteacher and as an aid to rehabilitate World War I soldiers, finds old fears returning when a student goes missing. It seems that an entity Wendy knows only as “Peter Pan” is back on the prowl, and unlocking her memories might be the only way to stop it. That’s right, it’s a dark Peter Pan retelling as only Pelayo can do it, and you know you want a piece of that.
The Other by Annie Neugebauer – June 9
Annie Neugebauer’s The Extra ranks as one of the most clever and frightening horror novellas in recent memory, but that was only the beginning. This June, Neugebauer returns with the next book in what’s been dubbed “The Outsiders Sequence.” This time, Neugebauer’s strange world of doppelgangers and mimics turns to a couple on a hike who run into their exact duplicates, setting off a chain of events that will test their understanding of each other in terrifying ways. Neugebauer’s one of horror’s finest rising stars right now, so if you haven’t jumped on board The Outsiders Sequence yet, pick up The Extra and get ready for The Other.
Marla by Jonathan Janz – August 18 (Editor’s update: Release has now shifted from initial June 23 publication date)
Speaking of rising stars in the horror world, we’ve got Jonathan Janz, whose work has hit another level in recent years thanks to work like Children of the Dark and Veil. Now he’s back with Marla, the story of a local woman surrounded by urban legend, and her possible connection to a string of crimes in the community of King’s Branch. Is Marla a witch, a killer, a victim, a helpless child? We’ll have to read and find out in what feels like a perfect jumping-on point for new Janz readers.
The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus – June 23
Daniel Kraus has long been a favorite among genre readers, but thanks to his recent Pulitzer Prize win for his brilliant novel Angel Down, he’s more visible than ever, and all that visibility comes as he’s about to unleash a space epic with all the hallmarks of epic sci-fi and horror alike. The Sixth Nik promises everything from a sentient spaceship to a rogue planet full of plague to a nine-year-old “cultist” with an enhanced brain. This is Kraus playing in a brand-new sandbox, and genre readers everywhere won’t want to miss that.
Slasher Summer by E.L. Chen – June 23
E.L. Chen‘s latest novel is described as a love letter to ’80s slasher films, and anyone who’s taken a dive into the meta-horror of Scream or My Heart is a Chainsaw will want to sit up and take notice. The book follows a group of friends who grew up in a town famous as the location of a slasher movie, where they frequently played the characters during midnight shows. As adults, they return to their hometown, and to the location of the slasher movie, only to find that someone’s out to get them, someone wearing a very familiar mask. This sounds like a blast, and the latest in an ever-growing strand of slasher novels reinventing the genre on the page.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay – June 30
Modern horror master Paul Tremblay‘s latest novel sounds like his most ambitious yet, and that’s really saying something. Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep follows Julia, a former pro gamer who gets an offer she can’t refuse: For a hefty payday, she must pilot a man named “Bernie” across the country for her mother’s tech company. The catch? Bernie’s in a vegetative state, and his mobility comes from the AI chip in his head. As Julia moves Bernie’s body, Bernie’s mind moves through an unfathomable nightmare world, but where are they heading, and what’s Bernie really meant to find? Every new Paul Tremblay book is an event, and this one feels particularly special.
Red X by David Demchuk – June 30
This one’s technically a reprint, but David Demchuk’s Red X is so revered among the horror community, and particularly other horror authors, that it feels worth highlighting, especially during Pride Month. Complex and metatextual, Red X is about a series of disappearances and a demonic entity plaguing the gay community of Toronto, but it’s also an autobiographical sketch of an author navigating death, survival, queer culture, horror as a means of expression, and more. In short, it’s an essential, and this new edition, complete with fresh writing by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Anthony Oliveira, is a must-have.
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