Best New Horror Books to Read in April 2022

Horror reveals what truly scares us, or provides an escapism as powerful in its own way as any work of portal fantasy. See our picks for top new horror books in April 2022.

And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin

Type: Novella
Publisher: Tor.com
Release date: April 12

Den of Geek says: Part of the intrigue is that it’s hard to describe what this novella really is. What’s real and what’s fake in a world that may or may not include zombies?

Publisher’s summary says: In a world reeling from an unusual plague, monsters lurk in the streets while terrified survivors arm themselves and roam the countryside in packs. Or perhaps something very different is happening. When a disease affects how reality is perceived, it’s hard to be certain of anything…

Spence is one of the “cured” living at the Ironside rehabilitation facility. Haunted by guilt, he refuses to face the changed world until a new inmate challenges him to help her find her old crew. But if he can’t tell the truth from the lies, how will he know if he has earned the redemption he dreams of? How will he know he hasn’t just made things worse?

The Fervor by Alma Ketsu

Type: Novel
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Release date: April 26

Den of Geek says: On the more literary side of this month’s selections comes a detailed, historical novel with elements of the monstrous.

Publisher’s summary: 1944: As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko’s husband’s enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific months prior, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. It didn’t matter that Aiko was American-born: They were Japanese, and therefore considered a threat by the American government.
 
Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death. And when a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, nearly more threatening than the illness itself, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate, and it becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot, a demon from the stories of Meiko’s childhood, hell-bent on infiltrating their already strange world.  
 
Inspired by the Japanese yokai and the jorogumo spider demon, The Fervor explores the horrors of the supernatural beyond just the threat of the occult. With a keen and prescient eye, Katsu crafts a terrifying story about the danger of demonization, a mysterious contagion, and the search to stop its spread before it’s too late. A sharp account of too-recent history, it’s a deep excavation of how we decide who gets to be human when being human matters most. 

The Void Ascendant by Premee Mohamed

Type: Novel
Publisher: Solaris
Release date: April 26

Den of Geek says: Mohamed’s eldritch fantasy series pulls no punches when it comes to going big and weird.

Publisher’s summary: SURVIVAL HAS CONSEQUENCES

Seven years ago, the last survivor of Earth crashed through uncountable dimensions to a strange new world. Nick Prasad found shelter, and a living, as a prophet for the ruling family—servants of the Ancient Ones who destroyed his home.

Now, he’s been offered a chance to rid the multiverse of the Ancient Ones, past and present and forever, although he’ll have to betray his new masters to do it.

The first step is jailbreaking a god—and that’s the easy part…