There are so many good books coming in 2026 (aka, the year of the vampire). The ones on my list below have varying degrees of horror, but they are all spooky and atmospheric and haunting. I’m always open to recommendations as well, so feel free to drop yours below if you have any!

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The Gravewood by Kelly Andrew

Expected April 2026 | YA, Fantasy, Vampires

Shea Parker has lived her entire life in the shadow of the Gravewood – a deadly forest that’s cut her town off from the world. With resources dwindling, she’s forced to ration her hearing aid batteries. When her stash runs out, she’ll be left in silence.

Her only hope is Oliver Lysander, the volatile leader of the vampires who rule the Gravewood. Their deal is simple: she gives him her blood, he brings her batteries. No lines crossed. Nothing personal.

She Haunts Me Still by De Elizabeth

Expected August 2026 | Adult, Horror, Dark Academia, Vampires

After surviving a shadowed childhood, Mallory Webb is ready to start fresh as a theater major at her mother’s alma mater, a sanitarium turned liberal arts university in Rhode Island. Landing the lead role in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet feels like a dream—until the blood-soaked wraith that caused her mother’s death resurfaces after years of quiet. With nothing to go on but cryptic symbols in an old college notebook, Mallory hopes the reason behind her mother’s haunting lies somewhere on campus, and resolves to find answers before she meets the same fate.

Lethal Kiss by Taylor Grothe

Expected October 2026 | Horror, LBGT, Dark Academia

When Marcella is hired at Preston University, she has her game plan already mapped out―lay low for a few semesters, enjoy the extensive library, and maybe feast on a couple of her coworkers. That is, until a professor is found murdered and it’s not her doing. She may be the newest monster on campus, but she definitely isn’t the most dangerous.

You Did Nothing Wrong by CG Drews

Expected March 2026 | Horror, Gothic, Adult

Single mother Elodie’s life has become a fairy tale. She’s met Bren, equal parts golden-retriever devoted and sinfully handsome. He’s whisked her and her autistic son, Jude, to the crumbling family house he’s renovating. She has a new husband, a new house, and a new baby on the way. Everything is perfect.

Then Jude claims he can hear voices in the walls. He says their renovations are “hurting” the house. Even Elodie can’t ignore it–something strange is going on. The question is, is it with the house, or with her son?

Daughter of the Dark by R. J. Valldeperas

Expected September 2026 | Dark Romantasy

The first in a series of interconnected standalones, Daughter of the Dark is a dark romantasy set in a South-American-inspired world forged from the flesh of a fallen god, about a lone demon slayer whose elevation to the royal court pits her plans for escape against the fate of her people, and the curse condemning them to a land where the dead never stay buried.

Fruit of the Flesh by I.V. Ophelia

Expected January 2026 | Dark Romance, Gothic, Horror

In early 1900s New York, former ballerina Petronille De Villier makes an unconventional choice: Marry struggling sculptor Arkady Kamenev. For her, it’s an escape from her family’s unsavory legacy. For him, the De Villier name promises the patronage his art desperately needs. It should be a simple arrangement.

But beneath their marriage of convenience lurks a darker recognition. In each other, they see a reflection of their own dangerous appetites. As buried secrets surface and bodies begin disappearing, Petronille and Arkady discover their union runs deeper than social advantage. Their shared obsessions draw them into an intoxicating dance of predator and prey, though it’s never quite clear who is which.

This Hideous Heart by Jessie Thomas

Expected February 2026 | Gothic, Retellings, LGBT

A house is never without its ghosts. And the ghosts of Montresor are restless…

Buffalo, 1881. Reunited after nearly a year, clairvoyant Madeline “Mattie” Montresor welcomes her wife Lenore back into their home—once the stage for extravagant séances held to entertain the city’s wealthy elite. But the house has changed dramatically in the time they’ve been separated. The rooms feel colder. The shadows seem darker. Mattie is tense and fraying at the edges, haunted as she’s never been before.

The Sourdough Compendium by A.G. Slatter

Expected June 2026 | Fantasy, Short Stories, Dark Fairytales

Comprised of three collections (Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings and The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales) these mosaic narratives form much of the foundational mythology for the novels All the Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns, The Briar Book of the Dead¸ The Crimson Road and A Forest, Darkly.

Once Upon A Song by Nadine Bells

Expected January 2026 | Gothic, Fantasy

Welcome to the Hôtel de Neige. Let yourself be swept away by its grandeur and glamor, but beware…the cold may swallow you whole. When lonely waitress Ana lands a job as a singer at the prestigious Hôtel de Neige, she believes it to be the beginning of her fairytale. Yet she soon finds that in those eerie halls, the line between Cinderella story and Gothic nightmare blurs. Sinister dreams cause her to sleepwalk, a ballerina makes ominous threats, and a phantom in white haunts the hotel—and Ana. As Ana discovers that the hotel’s last singer lost his life under mysterious circumstances, she needs to decide if happily-ever-after is worth it. She knows she cannot trust her secretive colleagues or the charming but elusive hotel manager, Dimitri. All Ana ever wanted was to belong, but at the Hôtel de Neige, that may mean never leaving again…

Midnight Covenant by Amelie West

Expected February 2026 | Gothic, Vampires

Sold into marriage by her father’s reckless gamble, Mina Murray travels across Europe to wed a Transylvanian nobleman cloaked in mystery.

The castle towers above the mountains, a fortress of stone and silence that seems to watch her every step. Once inside, she feels trapped within a gilded cage—every door locked, every corridor alive with listening shadows.

The Count is charming, yet secretive, and Mina soon realizes the truth her new husband conceals may be far more monstrous than she dares imagine. Silenced and far from home, she must trust her instincts if she hopes to survive the castle—and the master who rules it.

Spider, Spider by L.C. Winter

Expected May 2026 | Historical Fiction, Mystery

Young Nancy Ratcliffe is on the run. Her father had sought refuge for his family with the Brethren, led by the charismatic but dangerous Prophet. But now her father is gravely ill, and even the sooty streets of Victorian London hold less terror for Nancy than the brutality of Brethren Hall.

Meanwhile, Spider is biding her time. Wrapped in dreams and visions, she paces the dark corridors and hidden staircases of the crumbling house she grew up in. The man who murdered a part of her disappeared many years ago, but still she hopes for revenge.

The Book of Blood & Roses by Annie Summerlee

Expected January 2026 | Fantasy, Vampires, Romance

In the mists of the Scottish Highlands is a university where vampire students study alongside humans.

Rebecca Charity is a vampire hunter undercover at the university, searching for the mysterious Book of Blood and Roses, a lost compendium of ways to kill vampires. If she finds it, she’ll be one step closer to avenging her parents, who were slain by those creatures of the night.

But when Rebecca arrives, she finds something unexpected: a coffin. Her new roommate is Aliz Astra, scion of one of the most powerful vampire families… and the most beautiful woman Rebecca has ever met.

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