We’re right on the cusp of Summer Reading season, but you don’t have to wait for the beach to assemble a truly impressive stack of must-read horror books. This May, we’ve got everything from the first short fiction collection by one of the genre’s best rising stars to several promising debuts to the latest from one of the genre’s finest body horror practitioners.

The 10 books below cover everything from vampires to mysterious islands to retellings of classic stories and everything in between, so get ready to update your TBR pile.

These are the horror books we’re most looking forward to this May. 

I Know A Place by Nat Cassidy (May 5)

Nat Cassidy has spent the last half-decade carving out a reputation as one of horror’s most reliable frightening authors, delivering novels like Mary, Nestlings, and the haunting When The Wolf Comes Home. Now, readers will get the chance to savor Cassidy’s shorter works in one thrilling collection endorsed by no less a horror luminary than Stephen King. That’s right, Stephen King took time out of his writing life to deliver the introduction for this one. That should tell you all you need to know about this collection. 

Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey (May 12)

A woman named Celia, desperate for the life she’s always wanted, receives an invitation to a strange, exclusive island where the world is simply different, where suffering isn’t a part of daily existence. Kindred Cove could change everything, but Celia must be ready to make sacrifices. It’s a wonderful setup, the publisher draws comparisons to Ari Aster and Shirley Jackson from its pages, and best of all, Make Me Better comes courtesy of Sarah Gailey. Through books like The Echo Wife, Just Like Home, and Spread Me, Gailey has proven to be one of the best horror stylists working today, crafting stories that burrow under your skin. Make Me Better promises to be no different.

Muntu by Eugen Bacon (May 12)

Eugen Bacon is one of the most exciting and acclaimed voices in speculative fiction of the past five years, bringing a diverse range of influences and interests to razor-sharp stories. Muntu, her latest, is the story of a Sydney police officer who investigates a string of seemingly unrelated murders, and finds a dark creature – the title spirit of legend – waiting behind the crime scenes. Horror driven by legendary creatures is always a favorite of mine. Plus, this one comes from indie publisher Bad Hand Books, a press I’ve come to trust for can’t-miss horror.

Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou (May 12)

What if Lady Macbeth’s story didn’t end with her final scenes in Shakespeare’s Scottish play? What if, instead of drowning in her own guilt and madness, she sought the help of the same three witches who doomed her husband in the first place, and found her way to another realm entirely? That’s the initial hook of this horror/fantasy/gothic/queer romance hybrid from Danai Chrisopoulou, and that makes this debut novel a must-read for me. 

Trad Wife by Sarah Langan (May 14)

Jenny, a disgraced journalist, arrives at the farm of tradwife influencer Mia, intending to expose her carefully curated lifestyle brand for the sham that it truly is. But Black Swan Farm is more than just recipe videos and staged family photos meant to project the ideal of traditional family values. Soon, Jenny starts hearing strange nursery rhymes and barreling toward a dark secret she can’t escape. This is one of those premises that was bound to be explored with this kind of depth eventually in the 2020s, and I’m thrilled that three-time Bram Stoker-winner Sarah Langan is the one tackling it, because with her fiction, I know the premise is only the beginning.

The Dorians by Nick Cutter (May 19)

What if Nick Cutter, the viral horror mastermind who gave us the skin-crawling terror of The Troop, basically did his take on Cocoon? That’s a juicy premise, but even that is underselling what’s going on in The Dorians, Cutter’s latest major novel. I was lucky enough to read this one quite early, and I’m still thinking about the aging and terminal patients who wind up volunteering for a project that could reverse their aging, and end up exposed to an ancient lifeform with a mind of its own. Don’t miss this one.

Filth Eaters by Ito Romo (May 19)

Another debut I can’t wait to sink my teeth into this month. Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters, first hit my radar because Stephen Graham Jones recommended it, and I always take his recommendations seriously. When I looked closer, I found a history-spanning epic waiting for me, following an Andalusian vampire who decamps to the New World to find an ancient version of his kind, a vampire child, and a story that covers centuries and crosses oceans. I can’t wait to dive into this blood-soaked debut.

Salome by Leslie Baird (May 19)

The Biblical story of Salome has seen many updates over the centuries, but it’s never been viewed through a lens quite like what Leslie Baird is promising with this compelling debut. Set in modern France, the novel follows a Francophile young American journalist who meets the title character on a plane and accepts an invitation to stay at her family’s country home. What she finds there is a house full of surveillance cameras and secrets with implications that could change the world. I’m eager to see where this one goes. 

Bone of My Bone by Johanna Van Veen (May 26)

The author of My Darling Dreadful Thing and Blood on Her Tongue returns with a sapphic folk-horror novel set in 17th-century Europe. Frankly, that’s all you need to say to get me on board, but Bone of My Bone is also the story of a nun and a peasant who, while fleeing war-torn Bavaria, happen upon the skull of a saint. What happens next? I can’t wait to find out. This is very much in my wheelhouse, and if you like stuff like Hagazussa or The Witch or the historical horror novels of Christopher Buehlman, it sounds like it’ll be for you, too. 

Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir (May 26)

Hildur Knútsdóttir’s English-language debut, The Night Guest, quickly established her as a voice to watch in the world of dark fiction on this side of the Atlantic. Now the Icelandic phenom is back with a new novella, once again translated by speculative fiction legend Mary Robinette Kowal. The setup is simple: Two women, unexpectedly brought together by a lost black cat, begin a friendship that will soon be tested as one of them brings secrets to light. Violence seems to follow these women like that black cat, and just like that black cat, things are about to get very dark. If you missed The Night Guest and you want something fast-paced and brutal to introduce you to Knútsdóttir, this is a great place to start.