Father’s Day 2026 is mere days away — Sunday, June 21, if you haven’t yet marked it on your calendar — and Quirk Books has a quartet of creepiness for fear-fare loving dads. Following is the official press information for these terror-ific tomes.
By Clay McLeod Chapman
From master of horror Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media.
Noah has been losing his polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of her many conspiracy theories. But when his phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles and his parents locked in a terrifying trancelike state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it.
Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.
But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart––literally––as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend glued to a screen. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn––but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?
Cult Following: The Extreme Sects That Capture Our Imaginations––and Take Over Our Lives
By J.W. Ocker
From weird history expert J.W. Ocker, an eye-popping compendium of the 30 most infamous, audacious, and dangerous cults in history.
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about history’s most notorious cults––and the psychology of the people who join them––is packed into this accessible, engaging volume. Walk in the footsteps of those who were lured into sinister groups from Heaven’s Gate to NXIVM.
Ocker brings his trademark curiosity and wonder to the subject of cults and the terrifying way they attract followers, demonstrating the elasticity of belief, the desperateness of belonging, and the tragedy of trust.
By Sheldon Costa
Sheldon Costa’s dark, vivid, and strangely hopeful debut novel is a supernatural adventure through the wilderness of friendship and the rotten heart of the early American empire.
Alone in a frontier town in the nineteenth-century Pacific Northwest, Gentle Montgomery is grieving his best friend. Liam was an alchemist, killed when he tried to capture a crate that shouldn’t exist; a giant salamander that drives men mad. When Gentle’s nephew, Kitt, arrives at his doorstep, the two set out together to track the monster down so they can use its blood in an alchemical formula that will bring Liam back to life.
It’s a hard and haunted journey. The salamander produces surreal nightmares and waking dreams of a blighted, burning future. And Gentle and Kitt soon find themselves pursued by a bloodthirsty hunter, a sadistic judge, and a doomsday cult, all of whom have their own plans for the river monster. Armed with nothing but Liam’s alchemical notebooks, they must not only find the salamander but learn to understand it––and the terrifying visions it causes––before it’s too late. And as Gentle struggles to comprehend this harrowing experience, it becomes clear that the Great Work of the alchemists may pale in comparison to the small work of human connection.
The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Apocalypse
By Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht
It’s the apocalypse––now what? Prepare for the end of civilization with the help of the world’s best-selling survival guide series and learn how to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.
The doomsday clock is seconds from midnight. Extinction-level dangers draw closer with every tick. But fear not! Here is an indispensable guide to preparing for and surviving the ultimate in worst-case scenarios, with humor to lighten the load. You can’t panic if you’re laughing.
