Best Horror of 2021

It was a tough choice but these are my picks for the best horror of 2021. Notice I did not say novels this year because I just had to include some short stories that were way too good to be left out. The title links will take you to the book synopsis, review, author info if available and Amazon page. These are books you will definitely want to add to your TBR. Dead Daughters actually published in 2020 but since it was my first 5 star read of this year I'm including it.

Dead Daughters by Tim Meyer        Near The Bone By Christina Henry   

The Neighbor by London Clarke     Your Frightful Spirit Stayed by Matthew Cash  

Ride Or Die by James Newman         Come With Me by Ronald Malfi

The Last House On Needless Street by Catriona Ward  The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke

Faithless by Hunter Shea               Dread Softly by Caryn Larrinaga

The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig     Beyond the Veil edited by Mark Morris

Christmas Horror Volume 1 Edited by Chris Morey

Introducing the new annual Dark Regions Press holiday anthology: Christmas Horror. Volume 1 features all new and original stories from authors Joe R. Lansdale, John Skipp, Cody Goodfellow, Jeff Strand, J. F. Gonzalez, Stephen Mark Rainey, Nate Southard, and Shane McKenzie. Each story is preceded by a full page/full bleed color illustration by artist Zach McCain

I love Christmas themed horror almost as much as I love Halloween horror. So that, and this gorgeous cover meant I had to own a copy of this book. Most of these stories just weren't that impressive.

I did love The Endless Black of Friday by Nate Southard. It takes place outside a big box store as people line up for hours to get the best Christmas deals, but there is more to worry about than getting trampled over the hottest new toy or the last giant screen tv.

Red Rage by Stephen Mark Rainey was also very good, told on two timelines about a family recently moved into a house near Christmas, and what happened to the previous owners. I also enjoyed Belsnickel by J.F. Gonzalez  when a long lost uncle comes to visit at Christmas. but all is not as it seems.

The other stories just weren't for me and the only one I will mention by name is because

Naughty by Shane Mckenzie should really have come with a trigger warning. Think Stir of Echoes but with revenge for an unnecessarily graphic gang rape on a physically and mentally disabled teen. Put a warning on that shit! Not everyone wants to read that.

3 out of 5 stars

 

Lamella by Max Halper

Mel Lane assumed his life was on the track it was supposed to be: a career with upward movement, a home, a long-term relationship. That is, until he comes home one day to a girlfriend he knows and a child he doesn't. Stranger still, no one else seems disturbed by the child’s presence—or by its bizarre, inhuman features. Mel is a reasonable man, and he knows there is a reasonable explanation—but once the veil of reality begins to ripple, the world around him becomes something he simply doesn't understand. Worse yet, it's becoming very clear that he may never have understood it quite as well as he thought he did.

He knows there are answers, written somewhere on the walls or in the airwaves, but finding them will mean confronting truths about himself and the people around him as he spirals down a rabbit hole of identity and place that will threaten to upend the delicate balance of his life.

A darkly surreal and thought-provoking story, 'Lamella' is the debut novella of American author Max Halper.

 Lamella is a debut novella that really packs a punch. It's darkly humorous, disturbing, sad, gross, unsettling, and unnerving.

Mel Lane comes home from a lousy day and finds his home life to be something out of Twilight Zone. He and his girlfriend did not have any children when he left for work and yet here she is waiting for him with this odd looking multi-holed baby and acting like it's the most normal thing in the world for him to have fathered it. Nobody else seems to think it's at all unusual so he pretty much just rolls with it because what can you do right? At first he is totally repulsed by baby Lamella but eventually she sort of grows on him. 

There is a very poignant anecdote told in this book about how as children, things just go over our heads but we pretend to get the joke, and we laugh along so as not to be left out. And that as adults perhaps we still do the same thing, pretending to understand the point of life and to know what's going on even though it still flies over our heads. That totally jibes with my first thoughts when starting this book. What the hell did I just read? As crazy as it was I enjoyed every minute of this weird and wild story. The writing flows along like a fast moving river and all you can do is just roll with it.

5 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy for review.

Available for pre-order
 

Twelve Days of Christmas Horror Volume 2 by Rick Wood

 From horror master Rick Wood, author of The Sensitives and This Book is Full of Bodies, comes ANOTHER twelve horrifying stories to spook up your Christmas season!
From a festive family of cannibals, to a terrifying present, to a psychotic Santa... here are twelve stories guaranteed to make your Christmas sick and twisted!

Features stories such as:

- The Present
- Christmas With the Cannibals
- 'Twas the Night Before Murder Part Two
- Christmas Night of the Living Dead
- Me and My Christmas Jumper
- Carolling With Killers
- Interview With Krampus November 2020
- Tiny Tim: The Trauma Years
- A Letter From Simon

It's time to bring some horror to your festivities...

I read the first volume last year and upon completion I immediately bought volume 2. I never had a chance to read it until now but as soon as I finished I ordered the new one because they seem to just get better as they go. This is a quick read at 160 pages.  I enjoyed all the stories and the illustrations too. I can't say that I cared much for the poems or reworked Christmas Carols but I did enjoy the stories.

Some of my favorites were Me and My Christmas Jumper in which a lonely, meek, and mild office worker has a drastic personality change. The Present which is written in three installments spread throughout the book, about a mysterious gift that ruins lives, and Christmas Night Of The Living Dead in which a boy who wants to hunt down zombies is made to take his poor old granny along.

Sprinkled with dark humor and seasoned with fear this second volume of Christmas Horror is the perfect recipe for a merry and macabre holiday.

4 out of 5 stars

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