It was a sizzling summer day when, at the age of fourteen, I first came across a Stephen King book. My friend’s dad lent me his copy of Gerald’s Game, and it was love at first sight. I spent the entire day in my shaded room, sipping my ice cold lemonade (actually, it most likely was Coke), reading well into the night.
This was twenty years ago, and since then I have pretty much read everything the man wrote. I still need to get my hands on Sleeping Beauties, the book he wrote with his son, Owen, and Gwendy’s Button Box, a collaboration with Richard Chizmar.
You can imagine my delightful little squeal when I saw the master’s new book is coming in May. The Outsider has no official cover yet, but I honestly couldn’t care less.
But the wait is long, and it feels like May is still far, far away. There are some new books coming out this year that might just satisfy our dark cravings in the meantime.
The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.
The Storm King by Brendan Duffy
Nate McHale has assembled the kind of life most people would envy. After a tumultuous youth marked by his inexplicable survival of a devastating tragedy, Nate left his Adirondack hometown of Greystone Lake and never looked back. Fourteen years later, he’s become a respected New York City surgeon, devoted husband, and loving father.
Then a body is discovered deep in the forests that surround Greystone Lake.
The Hunger by Alma Katsu
Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere.
Tamsen Donner must be a witch. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the pioneers to the brink of madness. They cannot escape the feeling that someone–or something–is stalking them.
The Hollow Tree by James Brogden
After losing her hand in a tragic accident, Rachel is plagued by vivid nightmares of a hollow tree, and a hand reaching from it, begging her for help.
Terrified that she is going mad, Rachel experiences phantom sensations of leaves, trees, and finally a hand that grasps hers and pulls a young woman into Rachel’s world.
Obscura by Joe Hart
In the near future, an aggressive and terrifying new form of dementia is affecting victims of all ages. The cause is unknown, and the symptoms are disturbing. Dr. Gillian Ryan is on the cutting edge of research and desperately determined to find a cure. She’s already lost her husband to the disease, and now her young daughter is slowly succumbing as well. After losing her funding, she is given the unique opportunity to expand her research. She will travel with a NASA team to a space station where the crew has been stricken with symptoms of a similar inexplicable psychosis—memory loss, trances, and violent, uncontrollable impulses.
For the full list and description from the publishers check out BookBub.
To see the Goodreads description, click on the book title you are interested in from the list above.
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