THE SHADOW KEY de Susan Stokes-Chapman

From the best-selling author of Pandora.

THE SHADOW KEY
by Susan Stokes-Chapman
HarperCollins, TBC
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Meirionydd, 1783. Henry Talbot has been dismissed from his post at a prestigious London hospital. The only job he can find is as a physician in the backwaters of Wales where he can’t speak the language, belief in myth and magic is rife, and the villagers treat him with bewildering suspicion. When Henry discovers his predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, he is determined to find answers.

Linette Tresilian, the unconventional mistress of Plas Helyg, lives a lonely life. Her father is long dead, her mother haunted by demons which keep her locked away in her room, and her cousin treats her with cool disdain – she has had no choice but to become fiercely self-reliant.

Linette has always suspected something is not quite right in the village, but it is only through Henry’s investigations that the truth about those closest to her will come to light…a truth that will bind hers and Henry’s destinies together in ways neither thought possible.

Susan Stokes-Chapman was born in 1985 and grew up in Lichfield, Staffordshire. She studied for four years at Aberystwyth University, graduating with a BA in Education & English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing.

THE DARK TIMES OF NIMBLE NOTTINGHAM de Ryan James Black

Set during World War II, a twelve-year-old orphan who accidentally unleashes a shadow monster onto the streets of London must team up with unlikely allies to hunt it down.

THE DARK TIMES OF NIMBLE NOTTINGHAM
by Ryan James Black
Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, August 2025
(via Park, Fine & Brower)

Surviving on the streets of World War II London alone certainly hasn’t been easy, but Nimble Nottingham has perfected the art of going it alone—and that’s just how he likes it. The only friend he needs is his beloved dog, Winnie. To pass the time between rolling blackouts and bombs falling through the air, Nim spends his days fence-climbing, roof-jumping, and gargoyle-perching…that is when he’s not scrounging for food to stave off the ever-present hunger the war has brought to London.

So when opportunity strikes in the form of a bomb falling onto the notoriously creepy Gravenhurst Manor, Nim knows he has to get inside and find whatever spoils he can get his hands on to sell for food. Get in. Get out. Quick as a flash. At least, that was the plan until Mouse—a member of a local street gang called the Dead End Kids—shows up and invites himself along for the heist.

Inside, Mouse and Nim encounter far more than just crumbling walls and shattered windows. Beneath Gravenhurst Manor lies a secret room and inside that room is a locked safe. Nim, inspired by the Hardy Boys adventures he used to read at Waifs and Strays orphanage, knows that something this protected has to be valuable, and so he cracks the safe and unknowingly unleashes a monster.

A shadow creature is now loose on the streets of London, and it’s up to Nim, Mouse, and a band of unattended children to end its reign of terror.

“The twists and surprises just keep on coming. My kind of book! »—R.L. Stine, author of Goosebumps and Fear Street

Ryan James Black is Ryan James Black is a writer from Manitoba, Canada, where he lives with his wife, two children, and a Jumanji’s worth of pets. When not writing or reading, Ryan enjoys travelling, watching scary movies with all the lights on, and exploring the Great Outdoors with his family.

ONE LAST BREATH de Ginny Myers Sain

The New York Times bestselling author of Dark & Shallow Lies  delivers another chilling supernatural thriller filled with murder, romance, and a decades long mystery that haunts a small Florida town.

ONE LAST BREATH
by Ginny Myers Sain
Razorbill/Penguin Random House, March 2024
(viaPark & Fine Literary and Media)

True love never dies. It just stays buried.

Mount Orange, Florida, is famous for two things: Cerulean freshwater springs, perfect for free divers who aren’t afraid of lurking gator, and the gruesome cold case murder of best friends, Bailey and Celeste, twenty years ago.

The spectre of Bailey and Celeste’s murders cast a permanent darkness over sunny Mount Orange. Tru has always lived in that shadow. Sometimes, it seems like she knows the long-dead Bailey, feels the dead girl in her bones. Now she’s supposed to head to FSU in the fall with her boyfriend, but those unsolved murders — and the death of her own sister — invade her every thought. It’s only in the shadowy deep, 100 feet below the surface of Hidden Glen Springs, that she can breathe.

When Rio, a strange girl, rolls into town, hell-bent on figuring out who killed Bailey and Celeste, Tru can’t resist entangling herself in the thrill of solving the decades old mystery any more than she can resist her familiar, aching attraction to Rio.

As the summer heat ignites, so does the spark between Tru and Rio…along with their other-worldy connection to Bailey and Celeste. But when someone begins stalking them, the girls become convinced the killer is back in town. And if they keep digging into the past, Tru and Rio know this time, it could be their blood that makes the springs run red.

Ginny Myers Sain lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has spent the past twenty years working closely with teens as a director and acting instructor in a program designed for high school students seriously intent on pursuing a career in the professional theatre. Having grown up in deeply rural America, she is interested in telling stories about resilient kids who come of age in remote settings.

A BRIGHT HEART de Kate Chenli

What if you could avenge your own murder? A brilliant young woman gets a second chance at life in this debut YA tale of vengeance, court intrigue, and romance inspired by clasic Chinese tropes.

A BRIGHT HEART
by Kate Chenli
Union Square Press, October 2023
(via Context Literary)

Mingshin is murdered by the prince she loved, the man she helped become king. But as she is dying, she prays for time to turn back so she can have a chance to make things right. Her prayer is granted.

When Mingshin wakes up two years earlier, she swears two things: She will do whatever it takes to prevent Ren from becoming king and she will never fall in love. But it isn’t easy to stop a man who is willing to lie, steal, kill, and even give his soul to the most evil form of magic. And it isn’t easy to prevent falling in love with a good man. Even if that man is Ren’s brother, who is also in competition for the throne.

Book 2: A FIERY SPIRIT – June 2025:

Kate Chenli returns to a world of magic and courtly intrigue in this heart-stopping conclusion to A Bright Heart.

Blessed with a second chance at life, Mingshin has defeated Prince Ren and found love in the handsome, Prince Jieh. Though Ren’s plot has been foiled, Mingshin and her friends have not escaped the dangers of this new timeline.

The Night Dragon, Xiangyu, has been revealed as the sorcerer behind the dark machinations at court—and he’s after the Divine Stone.

As dark forces move in to destroy Dazhou, Mingshin must learn to harness the power of the Divine Stone or risk losing those she loves forever.

Kate Chenli has a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, but has always enjoyed creating elaborate worlds and characters more than designing complex software. Besides reading and writing, her passion is world travel (four continents down and counting.)

RED RABBIT d’Alex Grecian

From bestselling author Alex Grecian comes a folk horror epic about a ragtag posse that must track down a witch through a wild west beset by demons and ghosts—and where death is always just around the bend..

RED RABBIT
by Alex Grecian
Tor Nightfire, September 2023
(via The Gernert Company)

Sadie Grace is wanted for witchcraft, dead (or alive). And every hired gun in Kansas is out to collect the bounty on her head, including bona fide witch hunter Old Tom and his mysterious, mute ward, Rabbit. On the road to Burden County, they’re joined by two vagabond cowboys with a strong sense of adventure – but no sense of purpose – and a recently widowed schoolteacher with nothing left to lose. As their posse grows, so too does the danger. Racing along the drought-stricken plains in a stolen red stagecoach, they encounter monsters more wicked than witches lurking along the dusty trail. But the crew is determined to get that bounty, or die trying. Written with the devilish cadence of Stephen Graham Jones and the pulse-pounding brutality of Nick Cutter, Red Rabbit is a supernatural adventure of luck and misfortune.

Alex Grecian is the New York Times bestselling author of The Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad series: The Yard and its sequels The Black Country, The Devil’s Workshop, The Harvest Man, and Lost and Gone Forever; as well as the contemporary thriller The Saint of Wolves and Butchers, and the ebook The Blue Girl. He has also written multiple award-winning graphic novels, including Proof, and Rasputin.

This is a book I’m going to be pressing into the hands of every reader I know. It’s an epic, sometimes brutal, sometimes tender, but always surprising gallop of a book, populated by characters I found myself caring deeply about. RED RABBIT was impossible to put down.” —Kelly Link, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Get In Trouble

Echoing True Grit, The Good Lord Bird, and any number of classic tales of terror, Alex Grecian’s RED RABBIT is a riotous, Boschian, gun-slinging marvel.” —Laird Hunt, author of In the House in the Dark of the Woods