New Monsters

Joe Morey presents fifteen raw stories in New Monsters, a collection that explores terror, grief, and predators through historical and present-day lenses. The author is known for The Inamorta and The Descent and Other Strange Stories. His narratives range from an starving family in the 1600s forced to consume a strange blue animal with hideous consequences, to an escaped prisoner imprisoned by his betrothed creature. A boy seeking to lose his virginity finds far worse outcomes, while another man returns home only to confront the personification of his harrowing youth. A homeless man also disturbs a tomb occupant, adding to the gallery of monstrous figures lurking in corners and dreams. This book suits readers who enjoy gothic fiction and supernatural tales that do not shy away from visceral horror. It draws on historical periods like the seventeenth century but remains grounded in immediate, personal dread. The collection does not offer comfort or resolution. Instead, it presents creatures and phantoms that crouch in the future and worst dreams of the reader. Those seeking lighthearted entertainment or traditional heroic arcs may find the tone too bleak. Morey focuses on the wretched and the terrifying rather than the redemptive. The stories are organized to present a varied gallery of horrors, ensuring each tale stands as a distinct encounter with the monstrous. The work invites readers to face fears they did not know were present.