Stephen Jones: Best New Horror #26

A group of girls began convulsing and foaming at the mouth in Megan Abbott’s The Fever .

Teenagers found themselves trapped in a reality based on a dead author’s work in Ilsa J. Bick’s White Space , while more teens were caught up in re-enactments of a horror director’s movies in Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz.

An ouija board connected a group of teenagers to a malevolent spirit in Teen Spirit by Francesca Lia Block, and a girl was apprenticed to the terrifying titular character in Michael Grant’s The Messenger of Fear .

A pair of Irish orphans found themselves working on a creepy Victorian estate in Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener , and a group of teens ended up working in a haunted psychiatric hospital in Susan Vaught’s Insanity .

Madeleine Roux’s Sanctum was a sequel to Asylum and illustrated with photos and postcards.

Darkest Fear was the first in the “Birthright” series by Cate Tiernan, while Page Morgan’s The Lovely and the Lost was the second book in the “Dispossessed” series, set amongst the demons and gargoyles of Paris. Endless was the third volume in Kate Brian’s “Shadowlands” trilogy.

Somebody was killing small town girls in The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson, and a house turned people to evil in Amity by Micol Ostow.

Something was forcing animals to attack humans in Robert Lettrick’s Frenzy , while a boy was the only person who remembered his brother who disappeared into a Louisiana swamp in Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker.

Jessica Verday’s Of Monsters and Madness was the first book in a Gothic YA series inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , while Alexandra Monir’s Suspicion took its inspiration from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca .

Unhinged , A.G. Howard’s darker Gothic version of Alice in Wonderland , was a sequel to the same author’s Splintered , with the text printed in red. The Glass Casket was a twisted take on Snow White by McCormick Templeman.

Nighmares! by actor Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller was a children’s book about how you can accomplish anything, so long as you are brave enough to try.

Redeemed by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast was the twelfth and final novel in the YA “House of Night” vampire series, while Kalona’s Fall by the same authors was a novella set in the same series, illustrated by Aura Dalian.

Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unmasked by Aubrey Clark was the thirteenth book in the YA series created by a co-credited L.J. Smith.

A shape-shifter was raised by vampires in Bloodwich , the first in the “Maeve’ra” series set in Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ “Midnight Empire” universe, and Birthright: Darkest Fear was the first volume in a new series by Cate Tiernan about a teen jaguar shape-shifter.

Rachel Neumeier’s Black Dog featured a rare shape-changer with the power to protect humanity from supernatural evil.

A girl investigating her mother’s disappearance was helped by a strange young man in the zombie novel Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore.

The Queen of Zombie Hearts was the third book in Gena Showalter’s “The White Rabbit Chronicles”, a YA mash-up between the walking dead and Alice in Wonderland .

Zom-B Gladiator , Zom-B Mission , Zom-B Clans and Zom-B Family were the sixth to ninth novellas in the series by Darren Shan (Darren O’Shaughnessy), illustrated by Warren Pleece. The first three volumes were collected in the omnibus Zom-B Chronicles .

Canadian artist Emily Carroll illustrated her own five tales of twisted sibling relationships in Through the Woods , while Christine E. Johnson edited Grim , which contained seventeen YA stories (one revised reprint) inspired by fairy tales.

Jean Thompson re-imagined Grimms’ fairy tales in a contemporary setting in her collection The Witch , and Last Stories and Other Stories collected thirty-two supernatural tales by William T. Vollmann.

The always-busy Ellen Datlow edited Nightmare Carnival , which featured fifteen original tales about not-so-funfairs by N. Lee Wood, Nick Mamatas, Terry Dowling, the late Joel Lane, Glen Hirshberg, Robert Shearman, Nathan Ballingrud and others, along with an Introduction by Katherine Dunn.

The third and concluding volume in editor Stephen Jones’ “mosaic novel” trilogy, Zombie Apocalypse! Endgame , featured interconnected contributions from, amongst others, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Baxter, Jo Fletcher, Gary McMahon, Michael Marshall Smith, Brian Hodge, Nancy Kilpatrick, John Llewellyn Probert, Alison Littlewood, Peter Crowther, Angela Slatter, Paul McAuley, Peter Atkins, Pat Cadigan and Kim Newman.

Edited by John Joseph Adams, Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West was an anthology of twenty-three stories, featuring Joe R. Lansdale, Orson Scott Card, Kelley Armstrong, Tad Williams, Elizabeth Bear, Jeffrey Ford and others.

Dark Duets edited by Christopher Golden collected seventeen original collaborations between authors who had never previously worked together, including Michael Marshall Smith and Tim Lebbon, and Charlaine Harris and Rachel Caine.

Although most of the fiction would have been equally at home in The Pan Book of Horror Stories , the quality of contributions to Dead Funny: Horror Stories by Comedians was surprisingly high. Editors Robin Ince and Johnny Mains managed to extract mostly decent work from sixteen British comedians, including Reece Shearsmith, Sara Pascoe, Al Murray, Stewart Lee, Katy Brand, Rufus Hound, Phil Jupitus and Charlie Higson. Co-editor Ince also contributed a story to the pocket-sized hardcover.

The Baen Big Book of Monsters edited by Hank Davis featured twenty-one stories (five original) about giant monsters by H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur C. Clarke, David Drake and others.

The Madness of Cthulhu Volume 1 edited by S.T. Joshi contained sixteen stories (two reprints) inspired by Lovecraft’s work from Caitlín R. Kiernan, John Shirley, Melanie Tem, William Browning Spencer and others, along with an Introduction by Jonathan Maberry.

Edited with an Introduction by Jonathan Oliver, Dangerous Games: An Anthology of Original Short Stories contained eighteen short stories by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Lavie Tidhar, Melanie Tem, Gary McMahon, Robert Shearman, Helen Marshall and Pat Cadigan, amongst others.

Games Creatures Play was the latest in the series of themed anthologies edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner. It contained fifteen paranormal sports stories by Joe R. Lansdale, Ellen Kushner, Mercedes Lackey, Adam-Troy Castro and others, including a new “Sookie Stackhouse” story by co-editor Harris.

Harris was also the sole editor of Dead But Not Forgotten , an anthology of fifteen “Sookie” stories by Jonathan Maberry, MaryJanice Davidson, Rachel Caine and others.

Editor Stephen Jones’ The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror reached a landmark 25th Anniversary edition featuring twenty stories and Stephen Volk’s novella ‘Whitstable’ before the title was promptly dropped by UK imprint Robinson after a quarter of a century, when an American co-publisher could not be found. PS Publishing quickly stepped in to continue the series under its original title of Best New Horror , retaining the original numbering sequence.

Editor Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year from Night Shade Books reached its sixth volume with twenty-three stories, one poem and a summation of the year, while Paula Guran’s The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2014 from Prime Books contained an impressive thirty-two reprints.