Teenage Girls Can Be Demons today!

cover art of Teenage Girls Can Be Demons by Hailey Piper, art by Julia Lloyd, showing a girl turning into a demon, plus a quote by Adam Cesare saying "Harrowing, scary, and raw ... terrific."

art by Julia Lloyd

Release day is here for Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, my new collection from Titan Books!

It’s been a wonderful journey for this book, gathering up some of my most popular stories like “Unkindly Girls” and “The Turning” with brand-new ones like “The Long Flesh of the Law” and “The Many Sins of Clara Greenstone,” and of course the return to print my ’80s coming-of-age slasher, “Benny Rose the Cannibal King” just in time for Halloween season.

Available from: Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, A Room of One’s Own, Politics and Prose, Waterstones, Amazon, Penguin Random House

“A fierce collection of women-centered horror that explores the different ways in which girlhood and growing up can be terrifying but also empowering.”

Library Journal (starred review)

Featured in Paste Magazine’s “The Most Anticipated Horror Books of Fall 2025” and Autostraddle’s “Our Most Anticipated Queer Books for September 2025”.

13 coming-of-rage stories the way only Bram Stoker Award-winning author Hailey Piper can tell them—wildly inventive, brilliantly imaginative, and completely and utterly enthralling.

A vicious group of college upperclassmen prey on the freshman girls in “Why We Keep Exploding”; across the world, something is mutating adolescents into bizarre creatures in “The Turning”; a girl on a night out realizes a bizarre cop is hunting her in “The Long Flesh of the Law”; and in the acclaimed novella “Benny Rose, the Cannibal King”, a Halloween prank goes horribly wrong when a murderous ghost steps out of an urban legend and into the real world.

These stories take our most difficult years of transformation and twist them into new and terrifying shapes, where the monsters are real and you’ll do whatever it takes to get away, or get even.

“With stories that run the gamut from rollicking and brutal to emotional and devastating, Teenage Girls Can Be Demons is sure to be a standout collection in 2025. Check out this fabulous and fearsome book as soon as you can.”

– Gwendolyn Kiste, three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens and The Haunting of Velkwood

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons is Hailey Piper at her best. In a publishing world where the novel reigns supreme, here a collection is the only way to really get to know the multiplicity of Piper’s work. Harrowing, scary, and raw, most often all in the same story, with topics that range from the surreal, to the nostalgic, to the all-too-real. Terrific.”

– Adam Cesare, Bram Stoker Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling author of Clown in a Cornfield

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons simmers and crackles with rage. More than just a dark and fantastic collection, these stories are a guide for survival and fighting back against a world intent on doing harm.”

– A.C. Wise, Nebula Finalist, author of The Ghost Sequences

“Powerful, wickedly clever, and deeply intimate, Hailey Piper delivers a searing and entertaining anthology that speaks to the female rage of becoming. Delightfully and thoughtfully drawn.”

– Dawn Kurtagich, author of The Thorns

“With a delicious focus on rage and transformation, Hailey Piper’s second collection offers up tales that are as bold as they are beautiful. From societal pressures to complex and intimate bonds, Piper’s stories explore multifaceted characters who are unafraid to be loud and vicious. There is a refreshing grittiness to these stories where characters deal with some of life’s harshest lessons. Piper’s ability to dive into the gooey substance that makes humans both fascinating and horrifying is such a marvelous strength. A demonically good time that you don’t want to miss!”

– Sara Tantlinger, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil’s Dreamland

“Nobody writes grounded cosmic horror like Hailey Piper. That might seem like a contradiction in terms, but read these thirteen wild—and wildly different—tales and get a taste of just how Piper can twist you into otherworldly shapes while still reminding you of your essential, heartbreaking humanity.”

– Nat Cassidy, bestselling author of When the Wolf Comes Home and Mary

 

Praise for novella “Benny Rose the Cannibal King” (included in this collection)

“[Piper] knows the slasher well enough to do something new and cool with it. Couldn’t have had a better time.”

– Stephen Graham Jones, NYT-Bestselling author of My Heart Is a Chainsaw

I see your slumber party massacre and raise you a taste of human tragedy, a funhouse ride of plot twists, and a heaping side of gore. Hailey Piper has the audacity to write teenage mean girls as thinking, feeling, bad-ass human beings.

– Joe Koch, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of The Couvade and Convulsive

A good urban legend has a way of seeping into your bones and refusing to crawl out; Hailey Piper’s Cannibal King is certainly one of those that will be creeping into my mind, late at night and unbidden, for a long time to come. Benny Rose is an unforgettable terror, rivaled only by the gutsy teens who dare to go up against him.

– Claire Holland, author of I Am Not Your Final Girl

“Crepuscular” in Roots of My Fears

cover of Roots of My Fears: Terrifying Stories of Ancestral Horror, edited by Gemma Amor, featuring stories by Gabino Iglesias, Nuzo Onoh, Hailey Piper, Ramsey Campbell, Premee Mohamed, and more.It’s release day for Roots of My Fears: Terrifying Stories of Ancestral Horror!

I’m honored to be on this stellar table of contents with the long-awaited return to print of my short story “Crepuscular,” about a family trying to find the cure for their daughter’s ailment, only to realize truths about where they’ve gone and what’s really happening to her.

The anthology is stuffed with excellent familial horror, so check it out!

Also, Teenage Girls Can Be Demons releases in one week, and I’m psyched to see it appear in Autostraddle’s “Our Most Anticipated Queer Books for September 2025” along with many wonderful queer books out this month, and in Paste Magazine’s “The Most Anticipated Horror Books of Fall 2025.”

“Prey Instinct” in The End of the World As We Know It

It’s a momentous new story day!

Today makes for the release of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand, edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, with an introduction by Stephen King himself.

I’m beyond honored to have a story in this volume. And it is a tome; if you pick up the hardcover, you’ll see what I mean. I remember reading The Stand as a teenager in the early 2000s, slowly absorbing the end of the world and the beginning of another. I never could’ve imagined getting to dream into that world myself.

“Prey Instinct” is about a former children’s entertainer who’s convinced Death itself is after her and will use any form to get her, whether it’s as the disease, other people, a storm, or her visions of heading west.

The list of authors is staggering: Wayne Brady and Maurice Broaddus, Poppy Z. Brite, Somer Canon, C. Robert Cargill, Nat Cassidy, V. Castro, Richard Chizmar, S. A. Cosby, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes, Meg Gardiner, Gabino Iglesias, Jonathan Janz, Alma Katsu, Caroline Kepnes, Michael Koryta, Sarah Langan, Joe R. Lansdale, Tim Lebbon, Josh Malerman, Ronald Malfi, Usman T. Malik, Premee Mohamed, Cynthia Pelayo, Hailey Piper, David J. Schow, Alex Segura, Bryan Smith, Paul Tremblay, Catherynne M. Valente, Bev Vincent, Catriona Ward, Chuck Wendig, Wrath James White, and Rio Youers.

I’m thrilled to have a story among theirs and for people to finally get the chance to read these new tales of The Stand.

 

A Game in Yellow is out!

cover of A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper, pink text on a yellow background, with a woman melting like candle wax onto the title, art by Caroline Johnson“Masterful … a dreamlike but still utterly absorbing page-turner.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A mesmerizing, disorienting, and original tale of terror and ecstasy.”

Library Journal (starred review)

“Truly frightening.”

Fangoria

“Uncomfortably immersive … a damn fine read.”

Bloody Disgusting

A Game in Yellow is out today from Saga/Simon and Schuster! It’s been a long time coming, from Carmen, Blanca, and Smoke springing to life in my head, to joining them with The King in Yellow, the madness seeping between early readers, and now it’s alive in the world. I couldn’t be more grateful, and I’m so excited for everyone to go on this wild journey.

Euphoria meets Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke in this latest novel by the Bram Stoker Award–winning author Hailey Piper, following a couple whose search to spice up their sex life leads them down a path of madness.

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.

As the line blurs between the world Carmen knows and the one that she visits after reading from the play, she begins to desire more time in this other world no matter what horrors she brings back with her.

Bram Stoker Award-winning author Hailey Piper masterfully blends horror, erotica, and psychological thriller in this captivating and chilling story.

“With A Game In Yellow, Hailey Piper crafts an erotic descent into both madness and beauty. Haunting and strange cosmic chills that will grip you as tightly as a bondage frame.”

– Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Lucky Day

“Audacious as hell, with the broken heart and searing talent to make it sing! With A Game in Yellow, Hailey Piper makes her horror stardom undeniable. She channels Clive Barker and Robert W. Chambers, but in this story of a lost and broken soul, the voice is all her own. Brava!”

– Christopher Golden, author of The House of Last Resort and The Night Birds

“Surreal, disquieting, and wholly absorbing, Hailey Piper’s A Game in Yellow possesses such suffocating power to bewilder, to enchant, and to completely overwhelm the reader. Written with the provocativeness of a Lynchian fever dream and the sophistication of a story by Lovecraft, this is Piper’s most arresting and satisfying work yet. A novel centered around mythology, obsession, sexuality, fetish, and the facade of the dramatic and the theatrical—I surrendered gladly and this book melted my brain.”

– Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“A dangerous game of cat and mouse between a submissive lesbian at a dead end job and the Cthhonic powers that lurk between the pages of a certain yellow play, A Game in Yellow is a tightly plotted homage that builds upon lost Carcosa and spins you around in a shimmering masquerade of the senses.”

– Linden A. Lewis, author of The First Sister

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

– BookPage (starred review)

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, LJ starred review

Thrilled to share that my upcoming collection Teenage Girls Can Be Demons has received a starred review in Library Journal!

“A fierce collection of women-centered horror that explores the different ways in which girlhood and growing up can be terrifying but also empowering.”

Check out the full review on the LJ site.

It’s an honor for both of my 2025 releases (the collection along with A Game in Yellow) to have gotten starred reviews from Library Journal.

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons is out September 16 from Titan Books!

 

 

August is here!

An image showing the Little District Books logo saying: Author Event, Hailey Piper, A Game in Yellow, August 12 at 7pm. Beneath this is a photo of Hailey Piper and the cover of A Game in Yellow, art by Julia LloydAnd with the new month, a few cool updates (despite the monstrous heat)

Firstly, it’s release month for A Game in Yellow, and Little District Books is hosting the launch event! If you’re in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area, stop on by. Starts at 7pm on August 12th!

A Game in Yellow also got to appear in BookRiot‘s “August Horror Books to Keep the Scares Going for the Rest of Summer” among other amazing horror books coming this month.

I’m also thrilled to share that the audiobook will be narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker, who you may remember from the audiobooks of A Light Most Hateful and among the cast of All the Hearts You Eat.

And in a break from Carcosa news, off to another world: the new edition of No Gods for Drowning has a release date. Whether returning to Aeg or visiting for the first time, Bad Hand Books will be bringing Lilac and the others back to print on March 3, 2026. Can’t wait!

Fangoria interview, A Game in Yellow

I could not be more excited to share this new interview about A Game in Yellow.

And it’s in friggin Fangoria!

Matthew Jackson kindly interviewed me about my upcoming novel, its ties with the legacy of The King in Yellow, and even earlier influences, also cosmic horror in general and my own legacy of writing the subgenre. It was a blast, and I’m so excited to share it.

A Game in Yellow also appeared on Reactor’s “30 More SFF Titles to Look Forward to in 2025.” My new novel will be out in less than a month, on August 12th, so not much longer to wait!

“A Hollow Where the Screams Have Gone” in You, Human vol 2

I have a new novelette out this month!

“A Hollow Where the Screams Have Gone” appears in volume 2 of You, Human, a dark sci-fi anthology, among stories by Eugen Bacon, Josh Malerman, and more!

My tale involves experiments within a secret facility, where consciousnesses swap bodies, uncovering secrets about the monsters we know, the ones we become, and the ones we serve.

Also today, I’m excited to share that A Game in Yellow appears in Cinema Chords as one of “25 Horror Novels to Haunt Your Last 25 Weeks of 2025” and in CrimeReads as part of “25 New and Upcoming Horror Novels to Look Out for This Summer (and Beyond).”

I’m also delighted to share that Jeremy Carlisle Parker, who narrated A Light Most Hateful and was part of the cast for All the Hearts You Eat, will be giving voice to the A Game in Yellow audiobook, which releases August 12! She’s the perfect narrator to take on this descent into Carcosa.

“A Change in Universal Flavor” in Good for Her

It’s release day for Good for Her: An Anthology of Women’s Rage!

From Nefarious Bat Press, an anthology of horror celebrating women’s rights and women’s wrongs. I’m honored to join RJ Joseph Jackson, Ai Jiang, and more with my story “A Change in Universal Flavor,” about a young woman at the end of her rope, forced to choose between cruelty toward herself or feeding two predators, only to find a third road opening to her, one she never expected.

This story has been out of print almost since its publication nearly three years ago, so I’m excited to give everyone another chance to read it, especially here. All proceeds go to the charity Sisters Uncut.

cover reveal: No Gods for Drowning

It’s a joy to share the new cover to No Gods for Drowning!

After years out of print, my dark fantasy novel is returning thanks to Bad Hand Books, now with this glorious art by Anna Chiara Stagi, beautifully blending elements of the book into this eerie seaborne radiance of the nine-pointed star and the prostration toward a bloodthirsty goddess.
I can’t wait to bring new readers to this noir-inspired world where they can meet god-descended Lilac in her desperate determination, the haunted yet gentle flood fighter Arcadia, private detectives Alex and Cecil on the trail of a murderer, and everyone else trying to survive at all costs in the drowning city of Valentine.
Right now Bad Hand Books has limited signed pre-orders up while they last.
The tide rolls in, early 2026.