GOODREADS MOST ANTICIPATED HORROR 2026 A BRAM STOKER AWARD FINALISTClay McLeod Chapman's BODIES OF WORK is a scalpel, and you cannot read this book without being reshaped by it. It is a rot-crumbled tale of human brokenness, clear-eyed and visceral, awful, tragic and somehow exquisitely triumphant. But as with all of Chapman's work: it comes at a cost.-Chris Panatier, author of The Redemption of Morgan BrightOrnate and remarkably intricate for such a slender book, encountering Clay McLeod Chapman's Bodies of Work for the first time feels both startling and exhilarating like discovering a broken relic of long-since forgotten art. A profane hymn screaming from the charnel pit of a blood-clogged throat, an obscene portrait torn from careless, withered hands-this novella is deeply subversive, absorbing, and original.-Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last SpokeIn prose both fevered and stunning, Clay McLeod Chapman takes us into the world of a tormented killer-and into the minds of the young women whose lives he steals. Colorful and haunting, Bodies of Work stitches together beauty and cruelty, madness and imagination, as it plays all our best feelings against each other. A compelling and brutal read that proves Chapman is a true master of horror.-Wendy N. Wagner, author of Girl in the CreekFantasy and reality warp and blend in a pure Chapman product, where a serial killer's demented fantasies give bloom to creative carnage on the canvas of his victims' bodies. Sad, sickening, and weirdly sweet, Bodies of Work is an unflinching window into the horrors of one way too dedicated artist's demented creative process.-Bitter Karella, Hugo nominated author of MoonflowA beautiful, horrifying, and timely tale about the dark side of the creative process (and a frank examination of the artist as monster). Chapman is one of the most inventive voices in contemporary horror.-Shaun Hamill, author of The DissonanceWhile this book warns you away from mainlining Ghost, because of, you know, ghosts, what you will get hooked on here is Clay McLeod Chapman's writing.-- New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, author of Don't Fear the ReaperA Gothic-punk graveyard tale about what haunts history and what haunts the human soul. An addicting read that draws you into its descent from the first page.-- Chuck Wendig, New York Times best-selling author of The Book of AccidentsClay McLeod Chapman's guided tour of a shroom-and-gloom ghost world, where everyone is addicted to death, reads like a scared straight program that horrifies you into choosing life.-- Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of The Final Girl Support GroupClay McLeod Chapman is a weaver of nightmares and Ghost Eaters is his darkest creation yet. A non-stop thrill ride, all you can do is strap in and prepare to be haunted. Chapman is the 21st century's Richard Matheson. He's that good.-- Richard Chizmar, New York Times best-selling author of Chasing the BoogeymanA quintessential ghost story with a fresh, trippy twist. Chapman weaves hair-raising, goosebump-inducing horror through a sharp exploration of loss, addiction, and grim history. Haunting guaranteed.--Rachel Harrison, author of Cackle and The ReturnWake Up and Open Your Eyes is a damn roller coaster of a novel, the kind that leaves you shaken and shrieking and smiling. Clay McLeod Chapman has taken all that's troubling our nation in the current day and, somehow, makes it all more frightening. Rough, ruthless but you can still tell Chapman is having a blast.-Victor LaValle, author of Lone WomenClay McLeod Chapman is one of my favorite horror storytellers working today.-- Jordan PeeleWake Up and Open Your Eyes doesn't just hit close to home - it's a needle sliding under your skin until you bleed, a rabbit hole stocked with terror all the way down.-Christina Henry, author of Alice and The House That Horror BuiltBrace yourself. This novel is relentless and utterly merciless. Chapman takes unflinching aim at modern American culture and nobody is safe in this brutal, insightful apocalypse!-Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Road of Bones and The House of Last ResortThis is a bold badass book. Chapman has seemingly grown impatient with the vague stances and topical hints that must naturally be found in some books of an era such as ours: here he lays it out, naked, in full, what he thinks, what he sees, what he knows is happening in the spinning world. This lens is flat-out frightening, not only for its relevance, but for how easily us readers see the same modernity of horrors in our private lives... By the book's grand finale, the title has been twisted so that it's no longer only a mantra for characters trapped in its pages, but for those of us too immersed in the story to turn away.-Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Incidents Around the HouseFabulously unhinged, this book is a hilarious and terrifying jamboree of modern-day horrors. Gory, chilling, and exhilarating, the book knows to relish its delicious madness. I haven't had such a thrill in ages!-Gerardo S·mano CÛrdova, author of MonstrilioWake Up and Open Your Eyes is the scariest book I have read in years. It's a book for our times and I can't stop thinking about it. A must read this year.-V. Castro, Bram Stoker Award-nominee and author of The Haunting of AlejandraA modern American classic. Clay McLeod Chapman's panic-inducing, adrenaline-fuelled epic digs its fingers into the cracks in 21st-century life and pries them open to expose the rot beneath. Daring, cinematic, funny, horrifying and compulsive in equal measure, this novel is akin to the celluloid nightmares of Cronenberg and Peele-like Videodrome meets Us. A vital work of contemporary horror fiction.-Josh Winning, author of Heads Will RollDisturbing and dangerously prescient, there's the dark shadow of a world-spanning blight spreading deep inside the mottled heart of Clay McLeod Chapman's latest novel, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes. A searing and deeply unnerving apocalyptic thriller executed with the true nerve of a master storyteller.-Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last SpokeGut-wrenching, grief-soaked, the book perfectly embodies the panic of seeing the people you love transform into monsters. An utterly disconcerting mirror held up to the terror of our present.-- Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing but Blackened TeethOnly Clay McLeod Chapman can poignantly illustrate the tragedy of families splitting in American political turmoil while simultaneously serving up maximum gross-out, page-turning, balls-to-the-wall chaos. This book felt so much truer than I wanted it to. It's devastating that I know every character, and so do you. Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is supercharged, gloriously maximalist, terrifying, and disgusting. But mostly it's tragic, and hits much closer to home than any of us want it to.-- C. J. Leede, author of Maeve Fly and American RaptureIn Wake Up and Open Your Eyes Clay McLeod Chapman asks what truly manifests from paranoia. When one gives themselves away to an idea what is really left? This novel is kinetic as chaos unfolds in this reawakening. This is social horror at its most compelling.-- Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Vanishing DaughtersA harrowing horror experience. Like watching through a window as the world explodes, realizing too late you should have sought shelter.-- Johnny Compton, author of The Spite House and Devils Kill DevilsA horror novel so prescient, it's barely even allegorical... just a notch or two above non-fiction. Clay McLeod Chapman takes the radicalising power of far-right rhetoric to its bloody, gooey, bone-crunching conclusion - this is a gripping, apocalyptic vision of Trump-era America that rattles along at a terrifying pace. Videodrome meets George Romero's The Crazies meets InfoWars. It'd be a delicious piece of mischief if it wasn't so chillingly topical.-- Adam Leslie, author of Lost in the GardenWake Up and Open Your Eyes is a fever-pitched maelstrom of modern-day anxieties and terrors. It's the end of the world as only Clay McLeod Chapman can depict it: twisted, witty, absurd, horrifying, devastating, and suffused with a grief that things could ever get this bad. Or, perhaps more accurately, are almost this bad already.-- Nat Cassidy, author of Mary: An Awakening of Terror and NestlingsSurreal, hypnotic, unrelenting, profoundly claustrophobic, and an absolutely scathing sendup of the pitfalls of American divisiveness.-- Keith Rosson, author of Fever HouseBristling with uneasy energy, What Kind of Mother seizes you by the throat and never lets go. An ink-black story about grief, courage, and what we'll do for those we love.-- Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial There's a moment in What Kind of Mother when a character worries that he's telling the story all wrong. The opposite is true of Clay McLeod Chapman. His lyrical prose shimmers, moving us seamlessly from one wounded soul to another. A good old-fashioned salty summer scare about the beautiful, terrifying power of belief.-- Caroline Kepnes, New York Times best-selling author of the You series What Kind of Mother mixes Southern Gothic, a missing child story, and body horror into an entertaining brew sure to inform your nightmares.-- Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts A tremendous, heartbreaking work of dark fiction, where the horror seeps in quietly until you're left drowning. You won't forget about this tale anytime soon. A masterpiece.-- Ronald Malfi, best-selling author of Come with Me I'm not sure how Clay McLeod Chapman manages to be both tremendously tender and brilliantly hideous in What Kind of Mother, but he does-in this strange, poetic, and gut-wrenching portrait of parenthood.-- Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse Another stunner . . . one of horror's modern masters. Beautifully written, deftly plotted, and completely engrossing, What Kind of Mother will get under your skin and take your breath away and break your heart and chill you to the bone. A profound exploration of parental love and loss, of regret and sacrifice.--Rachel Harrison, national best-selling author of Cackle and Such Sharp Teeth What Kind of Mother is a deeply unsettling, oddly sweet book about what love can become.--Sarah Gailey, best-selling author of Just Like Home What Kind of Mother is both a breakneck story about running from your past and also a meditation on loss and guilt. Which is typical Chapman, a writer who always finds ways to marry our real-life fears with crescendos of pure unadulterated horror. His writing is intense, beautiful, disturbing, heartbreaking, and this book is no different. First it takes you by the hand, then it takes you by the wrist.--Gus Moreno, author of This Thing Between Us What Kind of Mother is a masterpiece-a beautiful, intimate work. Clay Chapman is the storyteller supreme, and I will follow him anywhere.-- Andy Davidson, author of The Hollow Kind Equal parts terrifying and beautiful. Chapman crafts a folk tale that slides under your skin and burrows its way into your heart. Visceral. Surprising. Stunning. Not to be missed.-- Erin E. Adams, author of Jackal What Kind of Mother will make you pace the room, reconsider your own sanity, and question the stubborn instinct to nurture.-- Rachel Eve Moulton, author of The Insatiable Volt SistersShades of Flatliners and addiction drama pepper this tale about a woman who learns her college sweetheart died of an overdose - from a drug that allows folks to see the dead.-- USA TodayTrainspotting meets Requiem For A Dream, rewritten as an avant-garde horror movie soundtracked by Nine Inch Nails.-- EsquireA legitimately terrifying ghost story and also a thoughtful and smart (if grim) exploration of how addiction destroys lives, Ghost Eaters should make Clay McLeod Chapman a star.-- VultureWhile this book warns you away from mainlining Ghost, because of, you know, ghosts, what you will get hooked on here is Clay McLeod Chapman's writing.-- New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, author of Don't Fear the ReaperA Gothic-punk graveyard tale about what haunts history and what haunts the human soul. An addicting read that draws you into its descent from the first page.-- Chuck Wendig, New York Times best-selling author of The Book of AccidentsClay McLeod Chapman's guided tour of a shroom-and-gloom ghost world, where everyone is addicted to death, reads like a scared straight program that horrifies you into choosing life.-- Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of The Final Girl Support Group
