ROAD TO STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES’ OFF THE RESERVATION: An Obsessive’s Fiction Review Column
We’ve come to the last stretch of road. In just one week, the new novel from award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones, Off the Reservation, will be out there waiting for you. And if you’ve hitched along this six-column road trip I’ve been taking, you’re more than ready for it.
There’s an old saying that goes like this: “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” It’s also the thematic statement used by the British documentary series that began with Seven Up!
While we know some things about Jack Sawyer from when he was seven, we first really got to know him when he was twelve, in 1981. We spent a few exciting months with him that fall/winter, ending with his thirteenth birthday.
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Editor's PicksLeave a comment on 13 Halloween Book Recs From Your Favorite Horror Authors 13 Halloween Book Recs From Your Favorite Horror Authors
by Haley Newlin
It’s officially October and readers, myself included, are eagerly assembling their spooky season TBR. I scrolled Goodreads, Instagram, the usual, looking for recommendations but then thought, why not ask authors who have written some of the most terrifying and memorable horror stories I’ve ever read? So, dear readers, with your cravings for wickedry and menace, ghosts and vampires, grab a pen, because these recommendations, from the likes of Tananarive Due (author of Mazywood and The Reformatory), Daphne Fama (author of House of Monstrous Women), Nat Cassidy (author of When the Wolf Comes Home), Isabel Cañas (author of The Possession of Alba Díaz), and more, are not to be missed.
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: How to Escape a Tiger Cult by Briana Morgan How to Escape a Tiger Cult by Briana Morgan
Independently Published (October 6, 2026)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool
Remember all the rage of Tiger King during the pandemic? I certainly watched it and was fascinated by the entirety of this weird industry. Then I learned about Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, a figure from Tiger King who ended up with his own documentary because of his isolated, manipulative, cult-like tendencies at his wildlife park. Obviously, when given the opportunity to read How to Escape a Tiger Cult, it was an automatic YES. Plus, it is Briana Morgan, and I’ve loved her other work so win-win!
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Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Worry Box by Chris Panatier Worry Box by Chris Panatier
Angry Robot (September 2026)
Reviewed by Abby Wolf
There is something notably cruel about a haunted house story when the house is not the only thing the characters have to fear. Chris Panatier’s (Daytide, The Redemption of Morgan Bright) Worry Box shows us that the scariest monsters don’t always break down the door. Sometimes they live inside your head. Sometimes they are the things you are afraid you might do. And, maybe, the place you call home is listening.Continue Reading
ROAD TO STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES’ OFF THE RESERVATION: An Obsessive’s Fiction Review Column
As we near the end of this column series, I’ve been reflecting on why I wanted so passionately to take on a project of this size. Yes, like other fans, I am beyond excited for Stephen Graham Jones’ upcoming novel, Off the Reservation (in fact, I’ve just begun re-reading The Only Good Indians in preparation). But more than anything, as I watch (and cheer for) his growing popularity, I can’t help but think of a younger me, just fresh off discovering this new-to-me author. As I scrolled through social media pics and reviews of Mongrels and his other major titles, I started spotting the spines and covers and titles of SGJ books I’d never heard of. It was as if I were suddenly inside of the Stephen King novella Ur, stumbling across the bibliography of my favorite author but from a parallel universe. And there was so much of it. I didn’t know where to start; I didn’t know when I’d reach the end.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Nightjars by Michael Wehunt Nightjars by Michael Wehunt
St. Martin’s Press (September 29, 2026)
Reviewed by Briana Morgan
“Does the nightjar remember the night?”
Michael Wehunt has become an auto-buy author for me. Fans of his previous release, The October Film Haunt, will be thrilled to hear that Nightjars also features found-footage elements, this time in the form of terrifying photographs.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm
Tor Nightfire (September 22nd, 2026)
Reviewed by Adam Allen
Our Cut of Salt marks the debut of a fierce new voice in literary horror. This is not only one of the best horror novels of the year, but one of the best books you’ll ever read. It is haunting, tragic, very entertaining, and it will make you do the most important things a book can do: think and feel. Horror is the genre that looks at the world and asks why, digs deeper, and doesn’t turn away from the darkness. Deena Helm’s debut is a brilliant example of how much can be accomplished by a horror novel.Continue Reading
ROAD TO STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES’ OFF THE RESERVATION: An Obsessive’s Fiction Review Column
Stephen Graham Jones is largely known as a horror writer—the horror writer, one could argue—but one of the greatest pleasures upon reading through his immense backlist is discovering just how widely he’s drawn from other genres. There is always that vein of horror running through his work, but today we will discuss books that could also be categorized as crime, thriller, noir, and the like. All can and often do share a relation to horror, but to just call these books “horror” would be reductive. I’ll speak more on SGJ’s specific style in the final column of this series, but for the purposes of today’s column, the common denominator is one in which he excels quite deviously: the mind of a serial killer.
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Infernal Tramps by Alex Grass Infernal Tramps by Alex Grass
Dickinson Publishing Group (July
2026)
Reviewed by Danica Davidson
Infernal Tramps is a fascinating, morbid, and hallucinatory collection of seventeen short stories. Reading them is a bit like reading something that combines nightmares, surrealist paintings, and an extra shot of weirdness, all into a cocktail of well-written, genre-defying tales of horror. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Ghost in the Grove by Frank Reddy Ghost in the Grove by Frank Reddy
Shadeland House Modern Press (July 14th, 2026)
Reviewed by Adam Allen
If you enjoy your horrors filled with sweltering heat, religious frenzy, and generational trauma, Frank Reddy has created a Southern Gothic that fits perfectly on the shelf alongside Flannery O’Connor and Del Sandeen. This is a book that seeps into your consciousness, presenting a mystery that brings in all of the things that fascinate us about the genre. Swamps, Antebellum estates, and horror that echoes through decades all converge into one deeply disturbing and mesmerizing novel that is a true must-read.
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Poems to Be Afraid of by Pixie Bruner Poems to Be Afraid Of by Pixie Bruner
Authortunities Press (September 3, 2026)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Poems to Be Afraid Of is a detailed exploration of fear and phobia. Each poem is dedicated to one type of fear, detailing those fears intimately and artfully, forcing the reader to be as afraid as the speakers of these poems are. Some of these are simple detailing of lists, such as in the Chroma series.
Chroma 9 (8.1) begins with the lines:
The endless dark mouth of the sky
the interstices on the pool deck
where no light can pry beams down into.
Bituminous asphalt, sulfured night terrors,
Rottweilers and labs, sleek shadow cats
that absorb sunlight like event horizons. Continue Reading
Markus Redmond is an actor, director, screenwriter, and author of the Blood Saga. Known for his roles on Doogie Howser, MD, NYPD Blue, Murder One, Mad About You, Angel, and Fight Club, he wrote and starred alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Sharon Stone in the indie film If I Had Known I Was a Genius. He wrote, directed, and starred in the Amazon Prime thriller The 6th Degree, and has multiple screenplays in development. You can connect with him on Instagram @markusredmond.
Redmond sat down with Cemetery Dance to discuss the recently released second installment in the Blood Saga— Blood Rising—historical horror, vampires, and themes of identity and retribution.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Blood Rising (The Blood Saga #2) by Markus Redmond Blood Rising (The Blood Saga #2) by Markus Redmond
Dafina (August 2026)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
“If Blood Slaves is about the cost of freedom, Blood Rising is about the cost of power.” 
Markus Redmond introduces both installments of the Blood Saga with a letter to the readers. In the Blood Slaves opening, Redmond describes wanting to write a “badass vampire book,” which was what he was in the middle of writing in May 2020, right before George Floyd was murdered. And while Floyd’s murder was tragic, Redmond reminds us that it was not a new or unique occurrence. This kind of violence, with little to no consequence, has been happening since slavery in colonial America.
Feeling infuriated and powerless, Redmond returned to his vampire book, wishing he could be one, imagining how that kind of power could right so much wrong, unleash revenge, settle scores, and change culture, society, and history. That’s when the author’s vampire book became something more. That’s when it became Blood Slaves, and much to this reader’s delight, the Blood Saga.Continue Reading
ROAD TO STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES’ OFF THE RESERVATION: An Obsessive’s Fiction Review Column
Short stories are a form of magic. Perhaps dark magic, if we’re talking about horror short fiction here, though of course with SGJ we’re never talking about just one genre. For me, horror short fiction has always been that siren song, luring me out into the deep. It started with “The Tell-Tale Heart,” was re-ignited by Joyce Carol Oates’ 1966 story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” and became truly ravenous when young Spencer discovered the cosmic tales of H.P. Lovecraft and the stacks of books collecting the short fiction of Stephen King.
For Stephen Graham Jones, you could say his siren song was, of all things, the author bio of late modern writer Stephen Dixon. As the legend goes, some 30 years ago, near the beginning of his career, SGJ would seek out that author bio at the end of a Stephen Dixon short story to stare at one particular magic number: “[Dixon] has some 300 stories published.” Jones would dream of having that many of his own stories out there. And though I may not have an exact count for you, I would bet that all these years later, he does. And then some. And, SGJ being the dictionary entry for “prolific,” he did it in half the time.Continue Reading
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