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Superior Horror Novel Nominees: 2022 Bram Stoker Awards

Chris Well

Find out more about the nominations for Superior Achievement in a Novel in horror fiction.

The Horror Writer’s Association (HWA) has announced the nominees for the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards. Below, find out the nominees in the Superior Achievement in a Novel category—with info about the nominated books from Gabino Iglesias, Alma Katsu, Gwendolyn Kiste, Josh Malerman, and Catriona Ward. You can also check out the the whole list of nominations below!

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Superior Achievement in a Novel

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (Mullholland Press)

From an award-winning author comes a genre-defying thriller about a father desperate to salvage what’s left of his family—even if it means a descent into violence.

Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull.

But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.

Find The Devil Takes You Home on Amazon

The Fervor by Alma Katsu (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

The acclaimed author of the celebrated literary horror novels The Hunger and The Deep turns her psychological and supernatural eye on the horrors of the Japanese American internment camps in World War II.

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.

Find The Fervor on Amazon

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste (Saga Press)

For fans of Mexican Gothic, from three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a novel inspired by the untold stories of forgotten women in classic literature—from Lucy Westenra, a victim of Stoker’s Dracula, and Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester’s attic-bound wife in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre—as they band together to combat the toxic men bent on destroying their lives, set against the backdrop of the Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury, 1967.

Reluctant Immortals is a historical horror novel that looks at two men of classic literature, Dracula and Mr. Rochester, and the two women who survived them, Bertha and Lucy, who are now undead immortals residing in Los Angeles in 1967 when Dracula and Rochester make a shocking return in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.

Combining elements of historical and gothic fiction with a modern perspective, in a tale of love and betrayal and coercion, Reluctant Immortals is the lyrical and harrowing journey of two women from classic literature as they bravely claim their own destiny in a man’s world.

Find Reluctant Immortals on Amazon

Daphne by Josh Malerman (Del Rey)

Horror has a new name: Daphne. A brutal, enigmatic woman stalks a high school basketball team in a reimagining of the slasher genre by the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box.

It’s the last summer for Kit Lamb: The last summer before college. The last summer with her high school basketball team, and with Dana, her best friend. The last summer before her life begins.

But the night before the big game, one of the players tells a ghost story about Daphne, a girl who went to their school many years ago and died under mysterious circumstances. Some say she was murdered, others that she died by her own hand. And some say that Daphne is a murderer herself. They also say that Daphne is still out there, obsessed with revenge, and will appear to kill again anytime someone thinks about her.

After Kit hears the story, her teammates vanish, one by one, and Kit begins to suspect that the stories about Daphne are real . . . and to fear that her own mind is conjuring the killer. Now it’s a race against time as Kit searches for the truth behind the legend and learns to face her own fears—before the summer of her lifetime becomes the last summer of her life.

Mixing a nostalgic coming-of-age story and an instantly iconic female villain with an innovative new vision of classic horror, Daphne is an unforgettable thriller as only Josh Malerman could imagine it.

Find Daphne on Amazon

Sundial by Catriona Ward (Tor Nightfire)

Sharp as a snakebite, Sundial is a gripping novel about the secrets we bury from the ones we love most, from Catriona Ward, the author of The Last House on Needless Street.

Rob has spent her life running from Sundial, the family’s ranch deep in the Mojave Desert, and her childhood memories.

But she’s worried about her daughter, Callie, who collects animal bones and whispers to imaginary friends. It reminds her of a darkness that runs in her family, and Rob knows it’s time to return.

Callie is terrified of her mother. Rob digs holes in the backyard late at night, and tells disturbing stories about growing up on the ranch. Soon Callie begins to fear that only one of them will leave Sundial alive...

Find Sundial on Amazon

The rest of the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards nominations

The HWA organization presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror work, Dracula. Winners will be announced June 17 during the Annual Bram Stoker Awards at StokerCon™ 2023 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Bookings and information at: http://stokercon.com.

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Jackal Erin Adams (Bantam Books)

The Hacienda Isabel Cañas (Berkley)

Black Tide KC Jones (Tor Nightfire)

Beulah Christi Nogle (Cemetery Gates Media)

All the White Spaces Ally Wilkes (Emily Bestler Books/Atria/Titan Books)

Info about each book HERE: First Novel Nominees: 2022 Bram Stoker Awards

Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel

Camp Scare
Delilah S. Dawson
(Delacorte Press)

They Stole Our Hearts
Daniel Kraus
(Henry Holt and Co.)

This Appearing House
Ally Malinenko
(Katherine Tegen Books)

The Clackity
Lora Senf
(Atheneum Books for Young Readers)

A Comb of Wishes
Lisa Stringfellow
(Quill Tree Books)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Kolchak: The Night Stalker: 50th Anniversary
James Aquilone, editor
(Moonstone Books)

Eat the Rich
Sarah Gailey (author) and Pius Bak (artist)
(Boom! Studios)

Kraken Inferno: The Last Hunt
Alessandro Manzetti (author) and Stefano Cardoselli (artist/author)
(Independent Legions Publishing)

Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 4
James Tynion IV (author) and Werther Dell’Edera (artist)
(Boom! Studios)

The Me You Love in the Dark
Skottie Young (author) and Jorge Corona (artist)
(Image Comics)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

What We Harvest
Ann Fraistat
(Delacorte Press)

The Weight of Blood
Tiffany D. Jackson
(Katherine Tegen Books)

These Fleeting Shadows
Kate Alice Marshall
(Viking)

The Triangle
Robert P. Ottone
(Raven Tale Publishing)

Gallant
V.E. Schwab
(Greenwillow Books)

Burn Down, Rise Up
Vincent Tirado
(Sourcebooks Fire)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

And in Her Smile, the World
Rebecca J. Allred and Gordon B. White
(Trepidatio Publishing)

“Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell” 
Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror
Christa Carmen
(Wicked Run Press)

Below
Laurel Hightower
(Ghoulish Books)

The Wehrwolf: A Short Story
Alma Katsu
(Amazon Original Stories)

Three Days in the Pink Tower
EV Knight
(Creature Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

“Nona Doesn’t Dance”
Cut to Care: A Collection of Little Hurts
Aaron Dries
(IFWG Australia, IFWG International)

“Poppy’s Poppy”
Douglas Gwilym
(Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine, Vol. V, No. 6)

“The Only Thing Different Will Be the Body”
A Woman Built by Man
J.A.W. McCarthy
(Cemetery Gates Media)

“A Song for Barnaby Jones”
Anna Taborska
(Zagava)

“The Star”
Great British Horror 7: Major Arcane
Anna Taborska
(Black Shuck Books)

“Fracture”
Mother: Tales of Love and Terror
Mercedes M. Yardley
(Weird Little Worlds)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

We Are Here to Hurt Each Other
Paula D. Ashe
(Nictitating Books)

Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted
RJ Joseph
(The Seventh Terrace)

Breakable Things
Cassandra Khaw
(Undertow Publications)

Spontaneous Human Combustion
Richard Thomas
(Keylight Books)

The Black Maybe
Attila Veres
(Valancourt Books)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

The Pale Blue Eye
Scott Cooper
(Cross Creek Pictures, Grisbi Productions, Streamline Global Group)

The Black Phone
Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill
(Blumhouse Productions, Crooked Highway, Universal Pictures)

Stranger Things: Episode 04.01 “Chapter One: The Hellfire Club”
The Duffer Brothers
(21 Laps Entertainment, Monkey Massacre, Netflix, Upside Down Pictures)

Men
Alex Garland
(DNA Films)

Pearl
Mia Goth and Ti West
(A24, Bron Creative, Little Lamb, New Zealand Film Commission)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Sifting the Ashes
Michael Bailey and Marge Simon
(Crystal Lake Publishing)

Girls from the County
Donna Lynch
(Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Crime Scene
Cynthia Pelayo
(Raw Dog Screaming Press)

The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry
Sumiko Saulson
(Dooky Zines)

The Gravity of Existence
Christina Sng
(Interstellar Flight Press)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous
Ellen Datlow
(Tor Nightfire)

Human Monsters: A Horror Anthology
Sadie Hartmann and Ashley Saywers
(Dark Matter Ink)

Mother: Tales of Love and Terror
Christi Nogle and Willow Becker
(Weird Little Worlds)

Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga
Lindy Ryan
(Black Spot Books)

Chromophobia: A Strangehouse Anthology by Women in Horror
Sara Tantlinger
(Strangehouse Books)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Weird Fiction: A Genre Study
Michael Cisco
(Palgrave Macmillan)

A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts
Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes
(Citadel Press)

Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult
Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson
(Quirk Books)

Writing in the Dark: The Workbook
Tim Waggoner
(Guide Dog Books)

Writing Poetry in the Dark
Stephanie M. Wytovich
(Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

“I Don’t Read Horror (& Other Weird Tales)” by Lee Murray
(Interstellar Flight Magazine) (Interstellar Flight Press)

“This is Not a Poem” by Cynthia Pelayo
(Writing Poetry in the Dark) (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

“A Clown in the Living Room: The Sinister Clown on Television” by Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.
(The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More) (McFarland and Company)

“African American Horror Authors and Their Craft: The Evolution of Horror Fiction from African Folklore” by L. Marie Wood
(Conjuring Worlds: An Afrofuturist Textbook for Middle and High School Students) (Conjure World)

“The H Word: The Horror of Hair” by L. Marie Wood
(Nightmare Magazine, No. 118) (Adamant Press)

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