I AM THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED d’Emily Zinnikas

In this horror debut, the only survivor of an unsolved teen massacre returns to her hometown and confronts her stalker with the help of her childhood boogey man and the possessed forest that surrounds her haunted house. For fans of Final Girls by Riley Sager and September House by Carissa Orlando.

I AM THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED
by Emily Zinnikas
St. Martin’s Press, October 2026

Something lives under Willa’s bed.

As an adult, her fondest childhood memories are of the invisible entity under her bed who taught her how to read. Now thirty-two, Willa Greene is a reclusive but successful painter. But when a bombshell news report exposes her identity as the controversial survivor of the unsolved Rapture Mystery Slayings, her tentative peace is shattered.

It was a small-town tragedy her senior year of high school. Six teenagers died in the woods while Willa walked free, and everyone thinks she did it. Collectors who once fought over her paintings can’t distance themselves fast enough. Reporters arrive by the dozens and park themselves on her lawn.

So when an old classmate calls about a funeral, Willa reluctantly escapes to the last place anyone would look: her sleepy hometown, overshadowed by the possessed forest that stole her friends. But her troubled past is waiting there to haunt her. The trees whistle for her attention, there is an unexplained knocking from the shadows in the basement of her decaying childhood home, and a past stalker is creeping on her once again. She is determined to show the stalker the rage of a grown woman; but nights spent pursuing her stalker draws Willa to discover a chilling truth—another stalker is behind the stalker, and one of them is determined to destroy her.

Her defense will draw her closer to the hungry forest she swore she’d never return to, to the monster at home she chose to forget—and to becoming the villain her hometown has always suspected her to be.

Emily Zinnikas has a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and lives in New York. Emily loves all things spooky – and considers a ghost tour the highlight of any vacation.

THE TOWER OF THE TYRANT de J.T. Greathouse

In a terrorized kingdom where the ghosts of the past do not rest in peace, a sorceress comes calling.

THE TOWER OF THE TYRANT
by J.T. Greathouse
November 2025
(via JABberwocky)

Some flee from wraiths. Others are drawn to them. Fola is both.

Cast out from the City of the Wise, Fola embarks on a journey to explore her interests in the barriers between life, death, and undeath. It has been a lifelong passion for Fola and she has the magical skills to help those in this world as well as comfort the restless souls from beyond. When Fola hears word of a kingdom plagued by darkness, she knows what she must do.

Pervading all of Parwys are rumors of a haunting that drove its king mad. Upon arrival, Fola’s greater challenge may be among the living. Hostile nobles, political machinations, and a growing rebel faction have shaken the stability of the court. And as the threat of a templar invasion looms, Fola’s quest to rid the vulnerable Parwys of a sinister scourge has just begun.

As chaos threatens the kingdom, Fola must rely on her uncanny talent, outwit conspiracies, and trust unlikely new allies to survive what lies ahead.

J.T. Greathouse has been writing fantasy and science fiction since he was eleven years old. He holds a BA in history and philosophy with a minor in Asian studies as well as a Master’s in Teaching from Whitworth University, and spent four months of intensive study in Chinese language and culture at Minzu University of China in Beijing. His short fiction has appeared, often as Jeremy A. TeGrotenhuis, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Writers of the Future 34, Deep Magic, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and elsewhere. In addition to writing, he has worked as an ESL teacher in Taipei, as a bookseller at Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane, and as a high school teacher. He currently lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife Hannah and several overflowing bookshelves.

THE FIRST STEP by Tao Wong

In a spectacular world of immortals, spirit beasts, and mystical martial arts, a young farmer’s life will be changed forever when he is unexpectedly invited to join an elite school of cultivation.

THE FIRST STEP
(A Thousand Li Series: Book 1)
by Tao Wong
Ace, March 2026
(via The Gernert Company)

It is said that a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step. . . .

Long Wu Ying never expected to become a real cultivator, never dreamed of having the chance to train and develop wondrous martial arts skills and magic of his own. As a farmer’s son in a rural village, his days were spent studying, planting rice, and spending time with his friends. Fate, however, has different plans for him.

Conscripted into the army and taken from everything he knows, Wu Ying’s chance observation of an incoming ambush prevents a bloody rout—and brings him to the attention of the powerful Verdant Green Waters sect, an elite school of cultivation. Invited to join the sect as a novice, Wu Ying is thrown into a world he is utterly unprepared for, one filled with demonic beasts, haughty nobles, and, most of all, the very real possibility of reaching immortality—if he’s brave enough to seize it.

Tao Wong is the author of the A Thousand Li progression fantasy series and the System Apocalypse LitRPG series, among others. When he’s not writing and working, he’s practicing martial arts, reading, and dreaming up new worlds. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

OF WIND AND DUST de Shirin Yim Leo

A work of historical fiction and family saga that is set between 1849 and 1876 in Toi Shan, China, and on the Puget Sound in what would become Washington State.

OF WIND AND DUST
by Shirin Yim Leo
Dial, Spring 2027
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

In her adult debut, Shirin Yim Leos draws from the extraordinary lives of her great-great-great-grandfather—the first Chinese settler in Washington Territory—and her great-great-great-grandmother, believed by some to be a daughter of Chief Seattle. The novel also explores the intertwined stories of two of his other wives—one born married, the other born a slave.

Leos was deeply compelled by the idea of these three women, from radically different backgrounds, navigating simultaneous marriage to one man in a moment in history that offered them almost no autonomy.

OF WIND AND DUST beautifully follows each woman’s journey as she seeks identity, belonging, and moments of personal happiness within the rigid boundaries of their cultural and historical circumstances. Shirin Yim Leo explores complex female relationships and generational legacy. Like Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, it positions ordinary lives against sweeping tides of history and change. And like Karen Joy Fowler’s Booth, the novel is told in alternating points of view that come together to form a single, emotionally resonant family portrait. Readers of Lisa See, Jenny Tinghui Zhang, and C. Pam Zhang will also find much to enjoy here.

Shirin Yim Leo is an Ezra Jack Keats Award-winning author of children’s books, an editor, and a former publisher. She has taught writing at international conferences and at institutions such as Stanford University’s Continuing Studies program. Publishers Weekly named her a talent to watch; two feature articles and several years later, they placed her on their front cover. Shirin has presented research related to this novel and its characters at the Seattle Public Library, The Museum of History and Industry, the University of Washington, and the California Writers’ Club.

THE HALTER de Darby McDevitt

Combining the inventive worldbuilding of Philip K. Dick and the elegiac longing of Raymond Chandler and for fans of Ready Player One and Rabbits, THE HALTER by Darby McDevitt (lead writer for Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag) is a debut sci-fi novel that fuses cyber-noir, psychological suspense, and high-concept speculation in a breakneck search for truth inside a utopian metaverse on the verge of collapse.

THE HALTER
by Darby McDevitt
Diversion Books, February 2026
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

In a world where virtual addiction kills, Kennedy Stark is paid to pull the plug. A professional halter—part detective, part counselor—he trawls the world’s darkest surrogate-reality feeds in search of the lost. When he isn’t working, he’s dreaming of a one-way ticket to Mars, where a new colony has been established as a hopeful alternative to an Earth in the early stages of climate collapse.

One evening, after a botched rescue attempt, a mysterious client offers Kennedy a tantalizing new case: brilliant software engineer Delia Walsh, who Kennedy fell in love with years ago, has disappeared inside a surrogate reality project called The Forum. Entering under an assumed identity, Kennedy finds a simulation unlike any other. The Forum bills itself as a tool for cutting-edge scientific research and radical philosophical investigations, but the signs of its corruption are everywhere. As Kennedy investigates, he learns Delia had been working on a new simulation that could upend The Forum’s primary purpose, and that even in this prurient playground for the super wealthy, the dangers are very real.

Brimming with black humor, hardboiled attitude, and a cast of endearing misfits lost in brittle fantasies, The Halter introduces a charismatic detective and heralds a unique and assured new voice in sci-fi crime.

Darby McDevitt is a writer and game developer best known for his work on the Assassin’s Creed series of video games. He served as lead writer for Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and as narrative director for the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed: Codename Hexe. His short fiction has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Jeopardy, Griffel, and In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing. McDevitt is a dual citizen of the US and Canada and lives in Montreal.