3 New Western Horror Books for Your Summer TBR

Between literature, TV, and film, there are thousands of stories of people traveling into the unknown, remote “American West,” in search of new opportunities or fleeing pasts they hope won’t follow them (though they always do). Lavalle has taken that familiar story and given it a sharp, horrifying twist in Lone Women. It’s the story of a woman who arrives on the Montana frontier to take the U.S. government up on its offer of free land in the wilderness to any homesteader who can settle and keep it. And Adelaide isn’t the only one; there are a number of “lone women” taking their chances on the Montana frontier. But not all of them have come to Montana literally dragging their pasts behind them like Adelaide has, hidden away in the massive steamer trunk that travels with her but always remains locked.

Hailey Piper’s Cruel Angels Past Sundown, published just last week, is the most recent title in Death’s Head Press’ Splatter Western series, whose gorgeous pulpy covers are almost as memorable as the stories they contain. Set in New Mexico Territory in 1882, Cruel Angels Past Sundown is about a woman, Annette, and her husband, whose life together is violently and irrevocably interrupted one day at sunset when a naked, pregnant woman stumbles onto their ranch. Escaping the bloodshed that follows, Annette flees to the nearby town. But the nightmare of that night has followed her to Low’s Bend. If she wants to survive the hell that’s coming, she’ll have to put her trust in new friends and face down an evil more frightening than anything she has yet encountered.

Vampires of El Norte takes place in 1846 in a territory that was once part of Mexico before being annexed into the United States, and is centered around the events that sparked the Mexican-American War. Nena and Néstor were childhood sweethearts growing up on her father’s ranch until the night that Nena was attacked by a terrifying winged creature. Néstor vanished into the night, sure that Nena was dead and that he would be blamed. Years later, they’re brought together again by the looming war with the United States, and find themselves having to set aside their past in order to survive when the violence of the battlefield gives way to an even more horrifying, unnatural danger in the form of the same monsters that once attacked Nena. The only way for Nena and Néstor to protect their home and the ones they love is to work together, or everything will be lost, including their second chance at a life together.