A Very Off/Kilter Hallowe’en

For a new kind of zombie reader

Roth (Wheetago War Book 1) by Richard Van Camp, illustrated by Christopher Shy (Renegade Arts and Entertainment)

The Wheetago were meant to stay undisturbed, their dismembered limbs scattered, frozen under the permafrost, but as is always the way, the greed of industry has unburied them once more. Now, the most feared, the Wheetago, have returned, using their powers to call back the Na acho, cannibalistic giants once banished by Dene deities.

The revered hero known as the Child Finder who is fighting to cling to his humanity after a Wheetago attack, a mother and her young son, and a desperate band of convicts, form an uneasy alliance to survive the Wheetago horrors now awakened.

For Black Mirror fans

One Hand Screaming: Twenty Haunting Years by Mark Leslie (Shadowpaw Press)

In 2004, Mark Leslie released his first collection of chilling fiction and disturbing poetry in a volume called One Hand Screaming. Twenty years later, this special anniversary edition includes all the original stories and poems plus new ones published in the past twenty years along with all original pieces crafted specifically for this volume. This collection includes previously published award-nominees alongside all original and never-before published works.

These haunting tales are sure to bring a delicious shiver to any fan of The Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, and Black Mirror. If, that is, you’re interested in opening your imagination to the sound of those silent screams.

For a domestic thrill

Satellite Image by Michelle Berry (Wolsak & Wynn)

The night before they move from the bustling, expensive rat race of the city to a sleepy, innocent, affordable small town two hours away, Ginny and Matt decide to look up their new home on a satellite image website. When they see what appears to be a body lying in their new backyard everything changes and an uneasy chain of events is set into motion. Little do they know they have bought a house with a baffling history and life in their new town is not all it’s meant to be. Odd neighbourhood dinner parties and a creepy ravine just out their back door have Ginny and Matt quickly questioning their move.

For Indigenous horror excellence

Zegaajimo, edited by Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler and Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm (Kegedonce Press)

A brand-new, spine-chilling collection of horror/thriller fiction, Zegaajimo includes stories from eleven leading First Nations and Metis authors from across the territories of Canada: Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler, Dawn Dumont, Daniel Heath Justice, D.A. Lockhart, Karen McBride, Tyler Pennock, Waubgeshig Rice, David A. Robertson, Drew Hayden Taylor, and Richard Van Camp. The collection is co-edited by Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler and Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm. Thrilling horror, Indigenous-style!

For reading on the squiddy side

False Bodies by J.R. McConvey (Breakwater Books)

False Bodies creates a horror/thriller blend of the renowned Newfoundland culture seen in shows like Come From Away with the heart-pounding tension and creeping fear of Alien.

False Bodies follows monster hunter Eddie “The Yeti” Gesner to Newfoundland, to investigate a mass death on an offshore oil rig—which some say is the work of a kraken. A mysterious incident in Eddie’s life has made him obsessed with chasing unfathomable things, but when an antique diary plunges him into a watery world of squid cults, tentacled beasts and corporate greed, Eddie finds even his own fractured reality pushed to the brink, as he’s forced to confront an undersea power beyond human imagining. 

For genre-bending literary horror

Donner Parties by Keith Cadieux (At Bay Press)

In genre-bending fiction, Keith Cadieux’s collection of dark short stories set against the backdrop of terrifying events and using a narrative “frame/scenario”, this collection pushes various boundaries within the literary form and challenges artistic norms. These propulsive, linked stories by one of Manitoba’s most exciting emerging short-story writers are gripping and taut, elevating short stories and genre fiction together.

For queering the gothic

All Things Seen and Unseen by RJ McDaniel (ECW Press)

All Things Seen and Unseen follows Alex Nguyen, an isolated, chronically ill university student in her early 20s. After a suicide attempt and subsequent lengthy hospitalization, she finds herself without a job, kicked out of campus housing, unable to afford school, and still struggling in the aftermath of a relationship’s dissolution. Hope comes in the form of a rich high school friend who offers Alex a job housesitting at her family’s empty summer mansion on a gulf island. Surrounded by dense forest and ocean, in the increasingly oppressive heat of a 2010s summer, Alex must try to survive as an outsider in a remote, insular community; to navigate the awkward, unexpected beginnings of a possible new romance; and to live through the trauma she has repressed to survive, even as the memories — and a series of increasingly unnerving events — threaten to pull her back under the surface.

For a cavity-free kids’ treat

Ghosts of Gastown by Jessica Renwick (Great Plains Press)

Twelve-year-old Hope Graves can see the dead. But nobody believes her – not even her best friend. When Hope and her mom move to the Gastown area of Vancouver, their new home isn’t exactly as she imagined. The ancient apartment sits over a weird crystal shop, she misses her dad, and ghosts lurk around every corner. The worst part? The strange boy whose parents own the shop can see spirits too, and he won’t stop bugging her about it.

Hope tries to avoid Oliver, but when a ghost appears in her bedroom with a haunting plea, he’s the only person she can turn to for help. Trying to banish the spirit only leads them down a twisted path far more dangerous than any ghost. Something is hunting the souls of Gastown, and it’s closing in on its next victim.