In 2026, we vow to be Good People...relatively speaking
Jan 07, 2026 2:31 pm
Happy New Year, Tenebrous Cult!
We hope it was a safe and warm celebration for you, whatever other directions it may have taken. For our parts, neither Alex nor I managed to pry ourselves off our respective couches, and the height of excitement for me was deciding which of these movies to watch first:
I went with MALIBU EXPRESS. I regret nothing. Bless you yet again, Night Flight.
(Full disclosure, Alex did inhale one'a them noisemaker party horns, but only because she thought it was made out of cheese.)
But enough revelry: It's time for 2026 to deliver the goods in style!
This September, we bring you a horrifically hysterical, utterly gonzo sendup of the modern American dream courtesy of Tenebrous alumni, Danger Slater.
Feast your eyes on the cover of Danger's upcoming WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE, art courtesy of me:
There's a lot to absorb here: why is that woman wielding an axe? Why is there blood splattered around the kitchen sink?
More importantly, what the hell is going on under the house? It doesn't look...pleasant.
In WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE, you'll meet a couple of truly good people. Pillars of the community, even (no, they don't self-describe that way! ...Okay, they do, but they didn't give themselves that title! ...Okay, they did, but they really are still most definitely pillars of the community.) They shop sustainably, with their own reusable bags. They only drink ethically sourced coffee. They recycle and compost responsibly; donate to NPR; keep their neighborhood tidy and everything on the up-and-up; they give the best gifts and have amazing credit scores.
...Boy, they really do sound like good people, huh? On second thought, Danger, this book may not be the greatest idea, there's not really any dramatic stakes involved-
What's that you say? Read Chapter Two? Okayyy...
...
...jesus, Danger. You sick fuck. We can't publish this.
Wait, we already signed the contract? Alex, is that right?! Christ.
Okay, well, helloooooo incoming Content Warnings.
WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE by Danger Slater is scheduled for September 1st. It's pretty hilarious. It's also pretty horrifying. You've been warned.
IT'S ALSO PART OF THE 2026 TENEBROUS BOOK CLUB
Have you signed up yet? You can get all nine of our scheduled fiction titles for the year—in either print+eBook or eBook-only options—with some bonus features added in.
You can read more about the entire year's selections here.
If you're more of a mind to pick and choose the titles that interest you—or you would just rather order them individulally—well you're in luck, because our first books of 2026 are up for preorder!
In OLYOKE, the End Tymes are fast approaching in a reign of fire, and everyone in town has an opinion
“OLYOKE lures you into the crevice between Weird fiction and Appalachian horror, where something inscrutable yet warm has been gestating. You will come back different—burned in a great fire, perhaps serenaded by a Dolly Parton impersonator—but you never have to think of your old self again. If that isn’t a resin—I mean reason, oh God, the book has infected me, too!—to recommend this unique melting pot of horrors, I don’t know what is.”
- Michael Wehunt, author, The October Film Haunt
About OLYOKE:
Welcome to Olyoke, Tennessee: home to a Dollywood-style theme park, generations of troubled families, mysterious plagues, and the prophecies of a dead architect turned cult leader who has foretold a fiery cataclysm.
As the time of the fire nears, inexplicable events compound:
Darcy, a Dolly Parton impersonator, finds strange worms in the swamp and feeds them to her dog, who begins to speak with the voice of Darcy's dead mother;
Recently divorced Lyle Knox is called through its dreams by a strange house, and soon discovers that Lyle Knox itself is not a person, but a structure;
Maggie Warner organizes a theater production to stave off her gnawing misery and becomes convinced that only the people she sees in her dreams are real. Moreover, the Whistler—the man Maggie becomes when she sleeps—welcomes the town’s impending Judgment with open arms.
Many destinies will converge in Olyoke. None will escape unchanged.
Cover art by Jenna Cha. Interior illustrations by Echo Echo.
Told via recovered documents; local history recollections; podcast transcriptions; a particularly unhinged Reddit AMA; as well as traditional prose; author Vincent Endwell's sordid history of the small town of OLYOKE, Tennessee is wildly entertaining, haunting and—unsurprisingly—Weirder than a talking dog.
If we strip the log line down to "Appalachian Twin Peaks", I mean, could we be any more enticing?
OLYOKE is out March 24th.
KAYAK is the epic "Alien-Invasion+Survival-Horror+Post-Apocalyptic-Coming-of-Age+Literally-Everything-You-Need-to-Know-About-Surviving-on-the-Water" novel you need this February
"KAYAK absolutely drowns you in detail. Stittle has an uncanny ability to convey tactile prose with such supreme clarity that I caught myself holding my breath on a few occasions. A hypnotically suffocating and immersive read."
- J.Krawczyk, author of It Looks Like Dad
About KAYAK:
For eighteen-year-old Keith—floating alone on a series of lakes and rivers, lost and without supplies—his kayak is his means of survival. Solid ground means certain death at the scissor-claws of vicious invading creatures.
What he needs is to find more people; but terrible guilt anchors him in solitude. A year earlier, when the creatures first appeared, it was Keith's choices that brought disaster to the island community that took him in.
Now, it's time to take responsibility for his actions, heal his scars, and survive.
Told in two alternating timelines, Kayak is a story of family, the strength we draw from others, and the strength we learn to draw from ourselves.
Cover art by Kerisson Wemerson. Interior illustrations by Blacky Shepherd.
And here's a preview of Blacky's knockout interiors:
KAYAK is tactile in a similar fashion to last year's WE LIKE IT CHERRY, except that, unlike how Jacy Morris immersed us in vicious Arctic cold, author Kristal Stittle makes us painstakingly aware of every single detail at stake as she takes us on a harrowing journey of survival against horrific enemy invaders in the Canadian wilderness and riverways.
Personally, I'm guessing that I would inevitably die a very messy death during KAYAK's ongoing alien invasion; but with Stittle's tome as my guidebook, I'd at least look like I knew what I was doing for a while.
KAYAK is out February 17th. That's barely over a month! Holy shit, 2026 is feeling fer-real now.
Next week, if all goes according to plan (and the world hasn't ended first), we'll be announcing the shortlist for this year's BRAVE NEW WEIRD: THE BEST NEW WEIRD HORROR + MORE: VOLUME FOUR!
Now, go out into the world and be Good People.
...wait, not that kind of Good People!
Hail New Weird Horror.
Hail Indie Publishing.
Hail the Tenebrous Cult.
Matt + Alex
