Hello All,

If you're in the Discord (and why wouldn't you be) you may already know that one of my perks for paid subscribers in 2026 is SNAIL MAIL. If you already had your address in your Bindery account, you likely received a holiday card from me sometime between Dec- Jan!

Moving forward, this will be opt in by quarter, meaning, I will send out a survey each quarter, and if you want to opt in for that quarter, you fill out your address.

This quarter, your mail WILL INCLUDE A WHAT FEEDS BELOW BOOKMARK. And they are so cute!

If you want to receive this mail, please fill out this form before March 1.

Here are 10 more horror books by women I can't wait to read this year.

You can find this year's previous list here, here, here and here.

1. Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm (9/22) In this lyrical debut, three generations of Palestinian women must put the haunting of their ancestral home to rest, before the secrets of the past drown them all. Our Cut of Salt is a powerful and intimate look at what it means to make a home, to lose it, and to return, only to find it irrevocably changed.

2. The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own by Gwendolyn Kiste (4/14) recriminations from bygone eras, where the regrets and malice of years past still reverberate and shape our doom. Here, morally complex women and queer antiheroines swim against the current of a social structure that serves as a spectral prison in these layered stories of the weird and the Other.

3. Odessa by Gabriella Sher (4/21) in a powerfully imagined Russia at the height of the pogroms, a grief-stricken family turn to ancient magic to bring their daughter back from the grave. 

4. We Call Them Witches by India Rose Bower (4/7) For fans of The Watchers and T. Kingfisher comes a queer, post-apocalyptic horror following one woman's journey across a merciless wasteland to save her brother and confront the dark truth behind the monsters that ravaged the world - with the help of a woman she's not sure she can trust but can't help falling for.

5. These Familiar Walls by CJ Dotson (4/14) In 1998, desperate loneliness pushes preteen Amber to ignore the misgivings of her family, particularly her younger sister, when she befriends the troubled new kid in the neighborhood―a boy with dead eyes, a fascination with fire, and no remorse. Their turbulent relationship is brief but creates lasting consequences.
   
   Twenty-two years later, in 2020, he resurfaces to kill Amber’s parents, and is in turn betrayed by his accomplice and killed in Amber's childhood home.
   
   After the deaths, Amber inherits the house and, in an effort to save money, moves in with her husband and two children, hoping to reclaim some sense of stability in the grief and chaos surrounding her. Instead, she finds that the familiar walls are haunted by more than just bitter memories and lockdown stress. She shifts in and out of dreamlike trances, her reflection won’t meet her gaze, and a menacing voice whispers to her from the gathering shadows. Although she tried to brush off the strange happenings as stress-fueled hallucinations, Amber is soon forced to admit that something much more real―and more dangerous―haunts her family. But Amber has deadly secrets of her own, and she must resolve these long-buried truths or lose the life she’s contrived for herself.

6. May the Dead Keep You by Jill Baguchinksy (4/21) A story about breaking cycles of abuse and overcoming generational trauma, May the Dead Keep You is an edge-of-your-seat read—equally horrifying, heart-wrenching, and hopeful.

7. The Cove by Claire Rose (5/5) Midsommar meets Fear Street in this modern, sea-soaked folk horror debut about fighting to survive, and fighting to be yourself.

8. Bone of my Bone by Johanna van Veen (5/26) The year is 1635.

   Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying man: the gilded skull of a saint.

   It is said that if you reunite the saint's skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic's power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing truth: the magic they seek comes at a cost.

   At the journey's end, they'll face an impossible choice―one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.

9. Dead Weight by Holder Knutsdottir (5/26) horror/thriller Unnur was living a normal, if lonely, life until a black cat showed up at her door.
   
   When she tracks down the cat’s wayward owner, she finds a young woman just as lost and in need of help. Like a gust of cold air in a Reykjavík night, Ásta and her pet slip into Unnur’s life.
   
   It’s unexpected, but welcome. Unnur likes the company, and she begins to rely on Ásta in turn. But like a black cat, trouble has been tailing her new friend, and Unnur is the only one there for Ásta when things take a violent turn.
   
   The two women quickly learn: nothing tests a friendship like blood on your hands.

10. She Waits Where Shadows Gather by Michelle Tang (5/5) Avery and Carlos Tam have built their lives on logic, not legends. Carlos, the host of a hit reality show that exposes paranormal hoaxes, has made a name disproving the supernatural.

    But when they travel to his ancestral home in the Philippines, darkness clings to every corner. The mirrors are shrouded. The housekeeper won't stay in the house alone. And no one will speak of the tragedies the family has seen.

    Then a brutal car crash leaves Carlos trapped in his own body―silent, helpless, and utterly vulnerable. As Avery tends to him, the house begins to stir. It watches. It listens. And it speaks―in a voice only Carlos can hear―offering a twisted kind of comfort.

    And as the lies buried by Carlos and his family begin to surface, Avery must confront the truth: if the past won't rest, their future may never begin.

    Some inherit memories. Others inherit monsters.

I’ve got a ton of these bookmarks!

How to get your hands on one?

• A bookmark will be included with every Pango order

• Paid subscribers who opt into quarterly snail mail will receive one (going out first week of March) look out for an exclusive opt in post for paid subscribers later today!

Find me at Bookcon in April

have you pre-ordered yet? Help Make What Feeds Below a Best Seller

Early copies of What Feeds Below are out and PEOPLE ARE READING IT!

We asked our favorite Mother, Sadie Hartmann (just kidding, Mom, if you're reading this), to blurb and she's already shared to Goodreads (go follow her and give this review a like).

Advanced reading copy entrusted to me for blurb consideration from Boozhoo Books, a Bindery imprint from acquisitions editor, Naomi (fromthemixedup desk) who is committed and dedicated to 'uplifting Indigenous voices and making space for Indigenous books on shelves'. This aligns with my goals to center horror books by women in underrepresented communities. I read, The Mean Ones by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne and fell in love with her storytelling style and imagination, so I leapt at the opportunity to be a first-reader of What Feeds Below

I don’t know how to take my entire reading experience and all of my notes and feelings about this book and what makes it so great and try to boil it down to a few sentences. Somehow, someWAY, she understands modern horror readers, and more specifically, her own niche audience and delivers EXACTLY what we want.
Like a Horror-Fantasy Alchemist, Tatiana Schlote-Bonne pulled in my adolescent obsession with high fantasy and elaborate world-building and blended it with my hyper-fixations with
-Sporror (fungus-horror)
-Descent horror
-Body horror
-Anime-style quest narratives
-Intricately plotted, character-driven, horror with heart
-Elaborate, vivid, atmospheric eco-centered setting where the location is a standalone character
-Two MC protagonists who are best friends, opposites, and have an intense, relational dynamic with a strong gravitational pull on the reader--I could not STOP reading! I love how the author gave Jade and Petra unique voices and played them against each other but stayed mindful of the ways in which they fight for each other
My mind is honestly blown. Tatiana Schlote-Bonne writes specifically for me, I am her target audience. She serves impossibly high-stakes (big risks with the promise of emotional devastation), fully developed, unique characters to fall in love with (total upfront investment) and an intricately plotted story where she taps some hyper-specific niche obsession. I don't know how she does it.

Official blurb:

"Tatiana Schlote-Bonne is a horror genre alchemist, a mixologist able to blend together niche sub-genres and cultural hyper-fixations to create wildly satisfying stories that hit on so many levels. What Feeds Below is horror-fantasy hybrid centering an opposites attract friend dynamic, plunges them into an anime-style quest drama set in a horror landscape with high-fantasy elements. This is addictive brain-candy. I could live in this book."

We are absolutely beyond thrilled to hear Mother Horror loved What Feeds Below, beyond thrilled to have these lovely words and we can't wait for YOU to read it.

Grab a copy on bookshop and support Indigenous owned bookstore Black Walnut Books (help make this book a best seller!)

and while you're there, pick up one of Mother Horror's books (Tagged Below).

You can find Mother Horror on Instagram here.

I joined Bindery because I believe that diverse voices needed to be leading the charge behind the scenes in publishing so that more diverse stories could be brought into the world.

I started with a mission to have a community dedicated to uplifting Indigenous voices and to create room for Indigenous books on shelves. While we struggled in the beginning to have people understand who Bindery was and what Bindery was and how they fit into the publishing ecosystem and just to build awareness of our imprint in general, we are finally at a place where people know who we are, the work that we do, and the dedication this imprint has to its authors and challenging the status quo. We are seeing more submissions from Indigenous authors all over the globe and I can't wait to see that grow. (there is one I'm super, super excited about and hope to get to read this week! If you pressure me, I might tell you more!)

We have expanded our booklist to include women writing horror and our first two books are in the works! What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne comes out this October! (It's finally on Edelweiss and Netgalley should be coming this month!) and Cracks in an Ocean of Glass by Kristy Park Kulski will be coming out next spring. These are two of the most unique horror books I've read in the last couple of years and I cannot wait for you to read them.

I want to take a minute to talk about the future. My goal with this imprint is to be able to share as many diverse stories and to support as many authors as I can. I want to publish more books. I want to be able to move forward with every manuscript that I love when it is submitted to me and to be frank, I don't think that can happen without your support. Paid subscriptions help to pay for the production of the books that our imprint publishes. If you would like to see more books from this imprint please consider upgrading to the $5 or $12 tier.

$5 subscribers will get e arcs to all of the books from our imprint.

$12 subscribers will get physical arcs.

I will make another post about all of the tier perks later this week (I'm also open to adding things that would make you want to become a paid member, so please drop any suggestions below!)

There are over 2,000 of you here. If every single one of you preordered WHAT FEEDS BELOW today (it's $16.73 on bookshop.org, our preferred purchasing partner, benefiting Indigenous bookstore Black Walnut Books) you could help make a serious impact on this imprint's future.

I am asking for your support because I need it. I would like to get this imprint where I know it could be.

I believe the work that we do together to uplift voices that are often left unheard is crucial and necessary in a world on fire and working against us every day and I'd like to do it long term. Thank you all so much for showing up for book club, for our authors, for the books we champion. Thank you for helping to publish stories that haunt and heal.

In other news:

Did you see me on the Tamron Hall show today talking about May Cobb? Never in a million years did I think I would make it to TV! I am waiting for them to send me a clip so I can share it with you all. NATIONAL TELEVISION! Book EMPRESS.

This year one of my goals is to do more journaling content and more long form video content

If you're on Substack follow me here

If you're on Youtube, follow me here

I owe many responses to Get A Rec, those are coming soon!

Thank you all for everything you do. I appreciate you.

I’m so excited to share that What Feeds Below is on Edelweiss!

You can request Here

I cannot wait for you all to start reading this book that I just could not put down (I’m currently on my 3rd reread!)

Once you read it PLEASE review on Edelweiss, Goodreads and on your socials!

If you haven’t already, please add to your Goodreads Want to Read Shelf. We would love to hit 2,000 by Valentine’s Day!

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, you may have missed but I have extended the Contest to Win A What Feeds

Below PR BOX until 2/14!

If you haven’t preordered yet, could you help give us a chance at a bestseller list by Pre-ordering your copy today.

For those of you without Edelweiss, I’m hoping it hits Netgalley soon. Will let you know as soon as it happens! Let me know down below if you’ll be requesting to read (or submitting your dance video!!!)

Our first book, What Feeds Below is listed next to CG Drews on the Barnes and Noble Bestsellers in teen fiction!

Tatiana and I could not be more thrilled! Your support and preorders mean everything! Seeing your response has been incredible! If you haven't preordered yet, it's actually cheaper on Bookshop right now.

Your early support gives What Feeds Below and Tatiana a shot at all kinds of bestseller lists, media attention and can even help with store placement.

You will love What Feeds Below if

• you love horror or quest fantasy

• you loved Annihilation or The Descent

• you loved Attack on Titan, Made in Abyss, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

• you always think about quicksand

• you love books that read like video games

Hi All,

So excited to share February's read: This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers! Grab your copy at the link above if you’ve haven’t preordered this one!

And the coolest news: Courtney will be joining us for a bookclub zoom. Still working out the date, so stay tuned!

Did you know This is Not A Test has been turned into a movie! (limited theater release 2/20, and then we should be able to watch on Shudder, I think!

Check out the movie trailer here.

Women in Horror book club takes place primarily in the community Discord. It's a very low stakes book club. Discussions are left up a few months so conversations continue for people who are unable to read the book during bookclub month.

If you're not in the community Discord already, that's is where all the magic happens, so make sure you're a member today.

Hi Friends,

Back with another 10 more horror books written by women that I can't wait for this year! There are way too many books coming out this year, I have no idea how I'm going to read them all. Have you heard of any of these?

1. I Love You Don't Die by Jade Song (3/17) This one is for the weird girls.

   For as far back as she can remember, Vicky has been fascinated and obsessed with death as the only inevitable thing in life. From living above a Chinatown funeral parlor to working at a celebrity start-up for bespoke urns, she has surrounded herself with death—in her home, in her work, and in her ever-growing collection of zhizha, paper creations meant to be burned for the dead, adorning the walls of her apartment. Yet, though living in Manhattan and working her dream job is all she ever wanted, she still struggles to have meaningful connections—or find any meaning at all—in her life. Too often she spends the day in bed, only drawn out from time to time by her best (and only) friend, Jen.

   That changes when a dating app leads her into a throuple with an artist and a labor organizer, who offer exactly the kind of love she needs. For some time, it’s perfect, but no one understands better than Vicky that all things must end. As doubts grow over the love in her life, her friendship with Jen, and her professional success, the oddly comforting abstraction of death starts becoming something else altogether. With everything beginning to feel hollow and temporary, Vicky must decide how to keep moving forward. To try and hold on to what she has, or to once again do what she does best: destroy.

2. Afterbirth: Novel by Emma Cleary (3/24) An unsettling, hypnotic descent into the visceral heart of “mommy horror,” Afterbirth is a story of fractured sisterhood, aching hunger, and irrevocable transformation—reverberating with the echoes of classic horror cinema.

3. Wayward Souls by Susan J Morris ( 3/17) gothic sequel to Strange Beasts, a delicious gothic suspense following the daughter of Dracula's killer and the daughter of criminal mastermind Moriarty.

4. Indigent by Briana Cox (3/20)

LEIGH PIERCE ESTATES is home to a diverse array of tenants: families, immigrants, students, the forgotten elderly. All working poor, and all in danger.

Because the tenants of Leigh Pierce are disappearing.

Live-in handyman Xavier seems to be the only one who notices. Or cares. After a chance encounter with the culprit leaves him infected with something horrifying, Xavier is thrust into a surreal nightmare of starvation and consumption all too familiar to his gentrifying Atlanta neighborhood.

Succumbing to his infection, Xavier is drawn into the cobbled-together family squatting in Leigh Pierce's basement. People who, through a myriad of doomed roads, fell into the same self-destructive cycle of indigency, harboring dark secrets... and darker appetites. Trapped in a dynamic of codependency and complicity, Xavier and his family- new and old- are forced to confront the cost of survival in a world that has disregarded them

1. Hex House by Amy Jane Stewart (4/28) A feverishly told, dark and unsettling Scotland-set fairy-tale about a safe haven for women which transforms them into vessels of revenge, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, A. G Slatter and Julia Armfield

2. The Lady in Chains by Bonnie Quinn (4/28)

Every year, campground manager Kate sends out a pamphlet titled “How to Survive Your Camping Experience.” It includes a list of rules to help campers have an enjoyable experience and hopefully survive any encounters with the campgrounds other…inhabitants.

With the campground in the throes of a bad year, it will take more than a list of rules to keep everyone safe. Monsters that were previously lying dormant are starting to stir and they’re waking up hungry. Among them is the Lady in Chains, a creature feared by both human and inhuman things alike.

Her reappearance creates an upheaval in the balance of power in the campground by renewing an old grudge with the harvesters, who are willing to sacrifice anyone they get their hands on in order to gain an advantage. On top of all this, the man with the skull cap has started taking an unusual interest in Kate. But with the harvesters on the prowl, the Lady in Chains hunting her down, and a sinister spider infestation, Kate is going to need all the allies she can get, even if those allies aren’t actually…human.

1. Wife Shaped Bodies by Lauren Cranehill (4/14) Sorrowland meets Manhunt in this literary horror debut in which an isolated newlywed—covered in mushroom growths like all the other wives in her community—strikes a precarious balance between following her husband’s strict rules and pursuing an intense connection with a woman who makes her question everything.

2. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker (4/21) In this lyrical, wildly inventive horror novel interwoven with Japanese mythology, two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds.

3. Molka by Monica Kim (4/30) Dahye can't believe her luck when she finds herself in a whirlwind romance with handsome, charismatic Hyukjoon, the heir to a multi-million dollar fortune. But then a shocking revelation threatens everything: the couple has been caught on a spycam amid Korea's growing molka epidemic, and the video is all over the internet.

4. Dark is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce The woods are known as the place to avoid. What goes in, doesn’t come out.
   
   Hazel has been gone from her small hometown of Idless in the English countryside for years. Now returned in the wake of a traumatic divorce and crumbling personal life, her simple plans are to lay low at her parents’ vacated house, reconnect with her prickly sister Cathy, and slowly get back on her feet.
   
   Cathy is surprised when Hazel doesn’t show. Their relationship strained from a fallout half a decade ago, she didn’t expect them to get back into a sisterly rhythm…though she hadn’t counted on Hazel bailing, either.
   
   But something isn’t adding up. Other people in town whisper of a threat that can’t be shaken. The woods are known for being restless. And Cathy knows the old saying.
   
   If you go looking for trouble, you just might find it.

Which ones are you preordering? Which ones are you adding to your TBR?

I want to read ALL of these and I want to read them RIGHT NOW!

Enter To Win A WHAT FEEDS BELOW PR Box (once available)

Box will include a finished copy of What Feeds Below and other goodies (still to be determined, tell me your wildest PR box dreams below!)

To Enter:

1. Create a video showing us your best Void Tavern Dance (note: you don't have to be a good dancer, you just have to have fun. You can watch our fearless leader, Tatiana's dance here:

   https://www.instagram.com/p/DTeT2IBkQgF/

   https://www.tiktok.com/@thebuffwriter/video/7595026468439215415

2. Include text in video: "When this banger comes on in the Void Tavern" You can choose ANY song!

3. include the image of What Feeds Below cover in your video, post on Instagram or Tiktok or BOTH

4. tag me (fromthemixedupdesk) and author Tatiana Schlote Bonne (thebuffwriter) in your post

5. use hashtags "whatfeedsbelow" and "horrorbooks"

One winner will be selected on February 1. If we hit 20 entries, I will also make a dancing video.