Ghoulie Gals

Hawk, Rhodi. A Twisted Ladder (Forge $15 ) is a debut Southern gothic thriller, introducing Dr. Madeleine LeBlanc, a staff psychologist at New Orleans's Tulane University with a special interest in cognitive schizophrenia. Maddy's father, “Daddy Blank,” suffers from the disease, as does her brother, Marc, whose suicide leads Maddy, who fears she may also be schizophrenic after psychic visits from a “devil-child,” to probe her family's past. Tulane neurologist Ethan Manderleigh provides support as terrible secrets surface about the family sugarcane plantation.

Feeding Ground (Leisure $7.99) is Pinborough's sequel to her 2007 British Fantasy Award–nominated novel Breeding Ground. Set in post-apocalyptic London, Feeding Ground combines chilling science fiction narrative with visceral horror in a way that is simultaneously unflinching yet emotionally satisfying.  Publishers Weekly has compared Pinborough to Bentley Little and Dean Koontz.

“This is one of those rare horror novels that hits the ground running on page one and doesn’t break stride once all the way through.… Breeding Ground is a wonderfully entertaining and shriek-inspiring novel beautifully wrought by an author with an unflinching eye and a steady hand.” --—Creature Feature

Langan, Sarah. Audrey's Door (Harper $7.99).  Review to come.

Sokoloff, Alexandra. The Unseen (St Martins $25). Sokoloff presents a new supernatural thriller. Two Duke University psychology professors, Laurel MacDonald and Brendan Cody, stumble on suppressed findings of an inquiry into poltergeist activity conducted under the auspices of Duke's Rhine parapsychology lab nearly half a century earlier. All the participants appear to have died, disappeared or, in the case of Laurel's enfeebled uncle, gone mad. Laurel and Brendan corral two students and camp out at spooky Folger House….