★Cutter, Nick. The Queen. S. & S. Audio. Oct. 2024. 12:02 hrs. ISBN 9781797181851. $26.99. HORROR

Cutter (The Troop) offers a heartfelt yet horrific coming-of-age tale, starting with nascent visceral descriptions that eventually emerge, fully fledged, into a monstrously beautiful body horror. A month after her best friend Charity disappears, Margaret finds a new iPhone on her front porch with a text from her missing friend. Charity offers to tell Margaret what happened the harrowing day she disappeared, a day that ended in death and horror. Soon, Margaret discovers she never knew what lurked within her best friend. Mean Girls spliced with The Fly may sound like an odd pitch, but Cutter delivers, injecting this premise with blood-soaked horror, nerve-shredding suspense, and heartrending emotion, along with some examples of teen (and general human) cruelty. A stellar voice cast including Ariel Blake, Zac Aleman, Corey Brill, and Pete Simonelli covers the evolution and subsequent mutation of the teen girls’ friendship. Blake is a standout, perfectly portraying Margaret, the only terrified witness to the crawling evil that consumes her and her small town. VERDICT For fans of Cutter’s descriptions of mutilations and mutations and Grady Hendrix fans looking for something more gruesome, this book breaks a listener’s heart before pulling it out of their chest.—James Gardner

★Fram, John. No Road Home. S. & S. Audio. Jul. 2024. 11:29 hrs. ISBN 9781797181974. $26.99. HORROR

Fram (The Bright Lands) channels V.C. Andrews in this gothic novel about a father doing all he can to protect his son from the Wrights, his glitzy and corrupt televangelist in-laws. Before Toby sets foot on his new wife’s family estate, he receives a prophecy that doom will fall upon them, and he must do all he can to protect his queer seven-year-old son, Luca. What follows is part locked-room mystery, part thriller, and all family drama, as increasingly unsettling secrets are revealed. At the heart of it all is the cost of bigotry—which is always paid with interest. Shaun Taylor-Corbett narrates most of the novel, giving voice to Toby’s determination and confusion as he tries to understand the Wright family’s tangled connections. Taylor-Corbett voices the varied personalities with seeming ease, creating a distinct and believable cast of characters on the isolated estate. He is joined by Jade Wheeler and Travis Tonn, who deftly transition to their characters’ perspectives to supply needed background information. VERDICT Fram wraps real-world pain in juicy, over-the-top drama that makes the bitter pill fun to swallow.—Matthew Galloway

★Iglesias, Gabino. House of Bone and Rain. Hachette Audio. Aug. 2024. 10:56 hrs. ISBN 9781668641453. $27.99. HORROR

Iglesias’s (The Devil Takes You Home) beautifully haunting coming-of-age noir features five young men journeying into the heart of a hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. Childhood friends Gabe, Bimbo, Tavo, Paul, and Xavier would do anything for each other, so when Bimbo’s mother, Maria, is murdered, they all seek revenge. Bimbo, overwhelmed with grief, does not care that his mother’s killers are connected to a powerful crime boss and drags his friends along on a terrifying ride. As the sky darkens and monsters walk the night, the storm descending on the five friends threatens to consume them all. Only in the universe created by Iglesias can the grittiest crime fiction seamlessly meld with folkloric and cosmic terrors. Narrator Jean-Marc Berne’s portrayal of Gabe, the main protagonist, cements him as the group’s (and the book’s) moral center, a person who knows the price of killing but will also do anything to help his friends. Daya Mendez voices characters who helplessly watch the destruction of Puerto Rico and the potential destruction of these five men. VERDICT Essential. With vibrant prose and nuanced characters, Iglesias shows why he is a truly original voice in both horror and crime fiction.—James Gardner

★Rosson, Keith. The Devil by Name. Books on Tape. (Fever House Duology, Bk. 2). Sept. 2024. 11:54 hrs. ISBN 9780593790199. $95. HORROR

Rosson’s conclusion to the “Fever House Duology” cements it as a postapocalyptic story as emotional and ambitious as Stephen King’s The Stand. It has been five years since the Message was broadcast to phones across the world. Those who heard it became “fevered,” with their minds in tatters and their hunger ever-insatiable. As these individuals roam zombielike across the United States, the nation, allied with megacorp Terradyne Industries, has turned major American cities into facilities for corralling the fevered. Amid this new, frightening world, a girl in France discovers she has a unique gift that could pull the world back from utter chaos. Fans of Rosson’s Fever House will remember characters such as conflicted agent John Bonner and broken mother Katherine Moriarty. Xe Sands returns to narrate, lending her distinctive voice to expose the characters’ frayed nerves and emotional weariness as they struggle to maintain their humanity and hope. Rosson continually tests the characters’ resolve, hammering them with one horrible event after another and leaving listeners to wonder how long their resilience will hold out. VERDICT Fans of epic postapocalyptic stories need to sink their teeth into this captivating story.—James Gardner