Ever since Halloween ended, it feels like Christmas has completely taken over – with even more force this year, if that is possible. But never fear, just because Spooky Season is over doesn’t mean that our love of horror has to stop. Here at The Horror Maven, Spooky Season is year-round, and what better way to celebrate the holidays than with themed Christmas and winter horror novels and collections?

Below are five selections I have for you to try. Some of these are anthologies, while others are full length novels. I hope that you find enjoyment out of them and be sure to drop holiday horror suggestions you have in the comments!

Christmas and Other Horrors: An Anthology of Solstice Horror

Hugo Award winning editor, and horror legend, Ellen Datlow presents a terrifying and chilling horror anthology of original short stories exploring the endless terrors of winter solstice traditions across the globe, featuring chillers by Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu and many more.

The winter solstice is celebrated as a time of joy around the world—yet the long nights also conjure a darker tradition of ghouls, hauntings, and visitations. This anthology of all-new stories invites you to huddle around the fire and revel in the unholy, the dangerous, the horrific aspects of a time when families and friends come together—for better and for worse.

From the eerie Austrian Schnabelperchten to the skeletal Welsh Mari Lwyd, by way of ravenous golems, uncanny neighbors, and unwelcome visitors, Christmas and Other Horrors captures the heart and horror of the festive season.

Because the weather outside is frightful, but the fire inside is hungry…

Where the Dead Go to Die

There are monsters in this world. And they used to be us. Now it’s time to euthanize to survive in a hospice where Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible.

Post-infection Chicago. Christmas.

Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as ‘Smilers.’ Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred.

Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore – at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse.

This emotional, political novel comes from two of horror’s freshest voices, and puts a new spin on an eternal topic: the undead. In the spirit of George A Romero meets Jack Ketchum, Where the Dead Go to Die it is an unforgettable epilogue to the zombie genre, one that will leave you shaken and questioning right from wrong…even when it’s the only right left.

It won’t be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood.

The Gingerbread Men

Eric abandons his fiancé, Eleanor, at the Edinburgh Christmas market, following a mysterious woman back to the hotel she owns in the Highlands. Here he meets the men that staff the vacant rooms. Men like him. Men with something to hide…

By day, the men carry out their domestic chores in the hotel, cut off from the rest of the world by the snow. At night, they tell horror stories beside the fire, hoping to entertain the woman they serve. They do not ask why there are no guests, why it always snows, why they can’t go home. Seeds of doubt begin to plague Eric and, as he delves deeper into the lives of the men at the hotel, secrets are uncovered.

The Gingerbread Men mixes Shining-esque mystery with dark fairy-tales, serving up a perfect Highland hotel horror. Joanna Corrance’s nightmarish novel explores the quiet corridors of desire that pull us, and the places occupied by men and women in the tales we’re all familiar with.

Xtreme Xmas

Blood is soaking the streets of Shawville this festive season. Residents are getting more than they bargained for at Laymon’s Lot tree farm.
Horror writers D.J. Doyle and Lee Franklin invite you into the darkest depths of their twisted psyches. From horny snowmen to flesh-eating elves, and the body count soaring, we encourage you to sit down, put your feet up, and allow us to disgust you with our depraved minds.
Countdown twelve days to a very bloody Xmas.

The Ritual: A Holiday Folk Horror Story

“Let us bow our heads and close our eyes,” the villagers chanted, “for the Bell waits not for the one who dies.”

In the square, the villagers had gathered for The Ritual, which hasn’t been performed in more than thirty years. Only those old enough to have been at the last one knew the full gravity of what was to come. Everyone (even the children) knew why they had gathered, but there was only so much that could be conveyed through the retelling of a tale.

Some things you had to see for yourself to truly understand.