USA Today bestselling author Saratoga Schaefer is having already having a stellar year with Trad Wife and The Last Time We Drowned, but it continues with their latest novel. A Thousand Monstrous Forms, a dread-filled, creepy, and terrifying horror tale that had me reading with my back to the wall.
Artist Poppy Reed doesn’t care if others think her marriage to Celia Marie Fox, a wealthy art dealer, is impulsive. Sure, they’ve only known each other for six months, and Celia has an infamous romantic reputation, but Poppy is brimming with excitement when she moves across the country to Celia’s home: a formidable, isolated, and art-filled manor called Busirane.
As Poppy tries to celebrate her first weeks of marriage and enjoy her new home, Busirane seems intent on rebuffing her every attempt to settle in. Strange noises and confounding occurrences lead Poppy to believe the house is haunted, a suspicion worsened by Celia’s insistence that Poppy avoid the locked basement.
When Celia leaves for a work trip, Poppy is left alone in the house, then finds herself snowed in. Surrounded by secrets, stalked by faceless statues, and beset by bodiless whispers, she struggles to trust her wife—and her own mind. When Poppy is eventually drawn to the forbidden basement, dark truths shatter everything she thought she knew, throwing her into a desperate bid for survival.
I have read my fair share of haunted house stories over the years and while I don’t tend to go for them first, I do tend to enjoy them. What makes this haunted dwelling story stand out is the author. I have now convinced myself that I would read the instructions on making an apple pie if it was written by Schaefer. There is something about the way Saratoga crafts their stories, no matter the genre or plot, that draws me in and keeps me around.
A Thousand Monstrous Forms was one I was heavily looking forward to reading and it didn’t disappoint. Not only is this story filled with dread and unease, it has a few jump scares that will make you yelp out loud, something I find hard to accomplish in prose novels at times. This story is one of those tales that is hard to read inside your own house, especially one like mine which is over 100 years old. What creepy, unsettling things have happened in the history of this house that might rear its ugly face in moments of quiet and tranquility, making you utterly frightened.
What made A Thousand Monstrous Forms even more terrifying was the fast-paced nature of the story as well. Schaefer wasted no time allowing these frightening moments to appear, not letting us settle in at all. Saratoga does wonderfully balance this scares with a real sense of foreboding unease, building on tension and dread throughout the story as well.
I feel most people have had or know of someone who has had a relationship that has moved extremely quickly, ignoring any red flags, rules, or questions that may arise. With A Thousand Monstrous Forms, Schaefer builds a story that is more than just one that frightens, but has deeper story to tell. When things get creepy after moving into an ld house with someone, let’s be honest, you barely know and they don’t take it seriously, how could you not question everything. It can be good to trust someone, but how far does that trust go when this unsettling house proves to be too much.
A Thousand Monstrous Forms is a modernized and horrifying take on the classic French folktale Bluebird by Charles Perrault. Taking stories from the 1600s and twisting them to fit a modern tale feels like an undertaking that I would not want to try, but Schaefer seems to do with ease.
A Thousand Monstrous Forms is a chilling haunted house tale filled with a sense of dread, a ton of tension, and some pretty frightening scares, all while exploring trust and relationships. Saratoga Schaefer once again proved they are one of the more compelling voices in storytelling today. A Thousand Monstrous Forms is dread-soaked horror story that made me happy I read with the lights on.
A Thousand Monstrous Forms hits bookstores everywhere on September 15, 2026 from Crooked Lane Books.
