cover reveal: This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want

Posted on 2026-02-06 by Hailey Piper novel this movie doesn't end the way we want

It’s cover reveal day! I’m overjoyed to share the cover for my upcoming cursed film novel This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want!

As with my other Titan Books, the art is again from the incredible Julia Lloyd, and its eerie atmosphere and sense of mystery fit the book down to its written celluloid. I’m immensely grateful to Paul Tremblay for taking time to read and to offer the book his kind words.

“This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want is a fun, creepy, and thrilling twist to the cursed film genre, with more than a hint of King in Yellow, that will keep you guessing and compulsively turning the pages. The Toad Man will like you best.”

– Paul Tremblay, author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts

This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want opens its cover to audiences on September 15th! Let’s all go to the movies and never come back.

Pre-order: Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Penguin Random House

And now, a trailer for our coming attraction:

A woman haunted by the disappearance of her sister and best friend thirty years ago uncovers the terrifying urban legend behind the last film they watched together, in this chilling riff on the cursed film subgenre by the Bram Stoker award-winning author of Queen of Teeth.

Perfect for fans of Gretchen Felker-Martin and Andrew Joseph White.

In November 1994, three girls visit their local movie theater to see an obscure film. Only one of them is ever seen again.

Thirty years later, Val McQueen has never forgotten the day she lost her little sister and best friend, but she’s closed the curtain on it, certain she’s moved on despite her parents’ resentment and hounding by true crime enthusiasts.

That is until a stranger’s murder brings it all screaming back—a terror she’s tried to tell herself is only a movie. Enlisting the help of cinephile and former classmate Roxie de la Fontaine to find the film, Val soon realizes that hers is not the only pursuit. Someone, or something involved with the movie is on the hunt, too…

… For the girl who got away all those years ago.

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons in audio!

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons is now out in audiobook!

Produced by Tantor, it’s been narrated by the wonderful Moniqua Plante and is available at all the usual audiobook places like LibroFM, Chirp, Barnes & Noble, and more.

Stoker Preliminary Ballot 2026

Posted on 2026-01-27 by Hailey Piper a game in yellow award collection novel teenage girls can be demons

I’m thrilled to share that both A Game in Yellow and Teenage Girls Can Be Demons have made the preliminary ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards! They join a feast of incredible books up and down over a dozen categories that will hopefully be up on the Horror Writers Association website to share soon. Mid-February will tell which works make the final ballot as nominated fiction, but it’s an honor for both of my 2025 book releases to be selected. Thank you to everyone who’s been reading them!

Splatterpunk Award Finalist: Teenage Girls Can Be Demons

Posted on 2026-01-10 by Hailey Piper audiobook award collection teenage girls can be demons

Absolutely thrilled to share that my recent collection Teenage Girls Can Be Demons has been nominated for a Splatterpunk Award in Best Collection!

This is the first time one of my works has been nominated, and it’s a wonderful bloody honor to join the legacy of Splatterpunk Finalists. Congratulations to all of this year’s nominees!

In more collection news, we’re less than a month from the February 3rd release of the audiobook, narrated by Moniqua Plante, coming from Tantor.

Bloody Disgusting’s Best Books, Onward to 2026

Posted on 2025-12-29 by Hailey Piper a game in yellow collection no gods for drowning novel teenage girls can be demons this movie doesn't end the way we want

One last post for 2025!

I’m so excited to share that A Game in Yellow is back in Bloody Disgusting, this time for “The Best Horror Books of 2025”, joining a fantastic assembly of new horror from this year, some of them favorites of mine, others I’m still eager to read.

“Perhaps the gutsiest conceptual leap from a major horror writer this year, Hailey Piper’s latest novel is a riff on Robert W. Chambers’ revered collection The King in Yellow, a foundational weird fiction book that gets an unexpected expansion through A Game in Yellow. The book follows a lesbian couple in a BDSM relationship whose limits are tested when they read pages from a mysterious play that’s said to drive you mad, and even beyond the ties to cosmic horror history, it’s a phenomenal showcase in character study from one of the best horror writers working right now.”

And that’s a wrap on 2025 for me. 2026 is shaping up to be a busy new year, with lots of events, and more releases to come.

January 23-25: MystiCon in Roanoke, VA

February 3: Teenage Girls Can Be Demons releases in audiobook

March 3: No Gods for Drowning returns to print from Bad Hand Books

June 4-7: StokerCon in Pittsburgh

September 15: This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want releases from Titan Books

October: … it hasn’t been announced yet, but there will be another book coming. Stay tuned!

Have a Happy New Year!

Library Journal Best Books 2025

Posted on 2025-12-10 by Hailey Piper a game in yellow benny rose the cannibal king collection novel novelette short story teenage girls can be demons

I’m delighted to share that both A Game in Yellow and Teenage Girls Can Be Demons have made the Library Journal Best Books 2025 list along with many wonderful books of horror. This was an enormous year for me, and I’m so happy seeing people enjoying my new novel and new collection, both of which had starred reviews in Library Journal earlier this year.

Four Past Meat Night also released recently, however, the limited print run sold out before the boxes even shipped. It includes my new novelette “The Lie and Death of a Trickster God,” so if you can find a copy, there’s crime horror with dinosaur bones out there waiting.

That’s my final publication for 2025! A novel, a collection made up of 9 reprints and 4 original stories, 3 more original stories, 2 more reprints, and 2 non-fiction essays. I also attended more in-person events than any previous year.

BookPage Best SFF and Horror 2025

Posted on 2025-11-21 by Hailey Piper a game in yellow novel

“You have never read another piece of weird fiction like this.”

– BookPage (starred review)

Just a small update to share that A Game in Yellow made BookPage’s “Best SFF & Horror 2025” alongside novels by R.F. Kuang, Joe Hill, and more!

A Game in Yellow previously got a starred review in BookPage, and I’m thrilled to see it on their annual list of Best of’s in speculative fiction!

A kink-fixated couple, Carmen and Blanca, have been in a rut. That is until Blanca discovers the enigmatic Smoke in an under-street drug den, who holds pages to a strange play, The King in Yellow. Read too much, and you’ll fall into madness. But read just a little and pull back, and it gives you the adrenaline rush of survivor’s euphoria, leading Carmen to fall into a game of lust at a nightmare’s edge.

Late October 2025 Update

Posted on 2025-10-22 by Hailey Piper a game in yellow benny rose the cannibal king collection convention no gods for drowning novel podcast short story teenage girls can be demons

We’re racing toward the end of Halloween month, but thankfully around here, horror fiction is a year-round event. But for in-person events, that’s a wrap on this year! Next place you’ll find me is MystiCon in late January.

But virtually, I had the pleasure of returning to the Books in the Freezer podcast. This is one of the best places for book recs, and I had a blast chatting with Stephanie about my recent collection Teenage Girls Can Be Demons along with talking about books and movies that fit the theme, coming-of-rage.

And with another release inbound March 3rd from Bad Hand Books, it only made sense to come back to The Bad Signal to talk about the upcoming return to print of my noir/horror/dark fantasy novel No Gods for Drowning, along with chatting about the new cover by Anna Chiara Stagi, and my recent releases A Game in Yellow and Teenage Girls Can Be Demons. Three very different books, so it was fun getting to hop between them in one discussion!

Also, my 2022 story “Hollywood Werewolf Conspiracy” was recently read aloud on Cool Zone Media Book Club, so give it a listen!

Lastly, A Game in Yellow made the Men’s Health article “The 52 Best Horror Books of 2025” alongside works by Jenny Kiefer, Cynthia Pelayo, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Isabel Canas, Stephen King, Stephen Graham Jones, and more. It’s been another beautiful year for horror, and it’s lovely seeing my strange erotic cosmic novel among these.

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons in Publishers Weekly

Posted on 2025-10-03 by Hailey Piper benny rose the cannibal king collection teenage girls can be demons

Thrilled to share that my new coming-of-age horror collection Teenage Girls Can Be Demons has a new and glowing review in Publishers Weekly!

“The diverse cast of heroines and genuinely chilling scares make this a winner for anyone looking for feminist horror that is weird, surreal, and driven by more than a touch of rebellion.”

The review also gives shout-outs to “Why We Keep Exploding,” “Unkindly Girls,” and “Thagomizer,” “Last Leaf of an Ursine Tree,” “The Many Sins of Clara Greenstone,” and the Blackwood Devil himself, “Benny Rose the Cannibal King.”

More good news to come with these 13 coming-of-rage stories.

“The Giant Footprint of Horror” in Why I Love Horror

Posted on 2025-09-29 by Hailey Piper article

the cover of Why I Love Horror, edited by Becky Spratford, showing a tall monstrous shadow holding the hand of a human silhouette A few days late in posting this due to podcasts and events, but I’m delighted to share the release of Why I Love Horror, edited by Becky Spratford, gathering essays from many of us horror authors on why we love the genre so much. I’m honored to be part of with my essay “The Giant Footprint of Horror,” about a certain giant monster and what horrors means to me.

There are so many wonderful essays in here, personal stories and studies on why we love the things that creep us out in fiction.

Becky also joined Alma Katsu, one of the contributors, in talking with People magazine, and they both gave lovely shout-outs to many of us in “Why Is Horror Having a Moment? Authors Alma Katsu and Becky Spratford Break It Down (Exclusive)”.

“Then there are authors like Rachel Harrison, Gwendolyn Kiste and Hailey Piper who take the experiences and rage of simply being a woman and use the guardrails of horror to create something wholly new. As a result, they are bringing so many women readers to what used to be thought of as a male-dominated genre.”

Hailey Piper