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.