As of October 2026, Gwendolyn Kiste has published four novels, two story collections and a handful of novellas, and none of them belong to a story series, so any of them can be read first. Her two Stoker-winning novels make the strongest starting points: The Rust Maidens (2018), her debut novel about girls transforming in 1980 Cleveland, and The Haunting of Velkwood (2024), a suburban ghost story. Her next novel, Everything Looks Better in Red, is scheduled for April 20, 2027.
Where to start: The Rust Maidens won the Stoker for Superior Achievement in a First Novel and The Haunting of Velkwood won it for Superior Achievement in a Novel, according to the Horror Writers Association’s awards record for Kiste. For something shorter, A.C. Wise, in her Women to Read column at The Book Smugglers in January 2018, named the novella Pretty Marys All in a Row as her recommended starting place.
Gwendolyn Kiste books in publication order
Years for the Gwendolyn Kiste books below follow her official site, publisher listings and ISFDB.
- And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe (2017), collection, JournalStone
- Pretty Marys All in a Row (2017), novella, Broken Eye Books
- The Rust Maidens (2018), novel, Trepidatio Publishing
- The Invention of Ghosts (2020), novelette, Nightscape Press
- Boneset & Feathers (2020), novel, Broken Eye Books
- In the Rose-Colored House Where They Died (2020), novella, Thunderstorm Books
- Reluctant Immortals (2022), novel, Saga Press
- The Haunting of Velkwood (2024), novel, Saga Press
- The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own (2026), collection, Raw Dog Screaming Press
- In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts (2026), novella, Creature Publishing
Announced as of October 2026: the novel Everything Looks Better in Red (April 20, 2027) and the novella When We Were Brutal (September 7, 2027).
Gwendolyn Kiste novels
The Rust Maidens (2018)
Her first novel, from Trepidatio Publishing, an imprint of JournalStone. Girls on Cleveland’s west side begin to transform in the summer of 1980; full details follow below.
Boneset & Feathers (2020)
Listed with the novels on Kiste’s site. Five years after witchfinders killed most of her family, Odette, the last witch from her village, lives in exile in the woods and has sworn off magic. Then crows start falling from the sky, the dead start whispering, and the witchfinders are returning to burn the witch who got away. Her site notes that Library Journal named it a best horror book of 2020.
Reluctant Immortals (2022)
Her first novel with Saga Press at Simon & Schuster, published August 23, 2022. Lucy Westenra from Dracula and Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre are undead immortals in 1967 Los Angeles when the men who wrecked their lives, Dracula and Mr. Rochester, resurface in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. It won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction and reached the final ballot of the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement in a Novel.
The Haunting of Velkwood (2024)
Published March 5, 2024, by Saga Press. Twenty years after everyone in their suburban neighborhood turned into ghosts, three childhood friends remain the only survivors. Talitha Velkwood, who lost her mother and eight-year-old sister that night, agrees to go back behind the veil when a researcher offers to pay her. It won the 2024 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel, presented in June 2025, and was nominated for the 2024 Shirley Jackson Award for Novel.
Coming in 2027: Everything Looks Better in Red
Union Square & Co., an imprint of Hachette, lists this sapphic werewolf novel for April 20, 2027. Elsa, in her forties and married to her high school sweetheart, meets a dangerous, magnetic woman named Jacey at an airport bar, and something feral wakes up.
Novellas and story collections
Novellas
- Pretty Marys All in a Row (2017). Resurrection Mary, who calls herself Rhee, haunts a decaying mansion with Bloody Mary, Mistress Mary, Mary Mack and the Mari Lwyd, urban legends and rhymes made real who cannot remember who they were before.
- The Invention of Ghosts (2020). A Nightscape Press novelette whose paperback was limited to 100 copies. Two best friends at college treat conjuring as a hobby until a broken promise brings a real haunting. The HWA lists it as a Stoker finalist for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction.
- In the Rose-Colored House Where They Died (2020). A limited-edition hardcover from Thunderstorm Books’ Tempest line, 45 copies and long sold out, per Kiste’s blog. She describes it as a story of possessed girls and the dubious exorcists who come to cure them.
- In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts (2026). A queer horror sequel to The Great Gatsby, released by Creature Publishing on September 15, 2026. In 1955, Daisy Buchanan is found dead in an abandoned West Egg mansion, where her daughter Mel finds Daisy’s ghost and the bleeding phantom of Jay Gatsby. Kiste calls it a novella; ISFDB catalogs it as a novel.
- When We Were Brutal (September 7, 2027). Announced from Shortwave Publishing, which lists that publication date. Kiste calls it an homage to Carrie, Jennifer’s Body and Ginger Snaps, about a woman returning to her hometown thirty years after four boys burned to death at the local roller rink.
Story collections
- And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe (2017). Fourteen horror and dark fantasy stories from JournalStone, and a Stoker finalist for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection.
- The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own (2026). Published April 14, 2026, by Raw Dog Screaming Press. Sixteen stories, three of them new, including the Stoker-winning “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt From Lucy Westenra’s Diary)”.
Gwendolyn Kiste’s The Rust Maidens: premise, awards and themes
What is The Rust Maidens book about?
It is the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio. Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated from high school into a city of abandoned factories, where one spark could set the Cuyahoga River alight. Then the girls they grew up with on Denton Street start to change: their bodies wither, their fingernails turn to broken glass and their bones show through like corroded metal. Onlookers crowd the street to see “the Rust Maidens”, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are preparing for something. The story alternates between that summer and the present, according to the JournalStone listing.
Awards
- Won: the 2018 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel (Horror Writers Association).
- Won: This Is Horror’s Novel of the Year for 2018, ahead of runner-up The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay.
- Nominated: its Spanish translation, Las doncellas de óxido (Dilatando Mentes), was a finalist for the 2021 Ignotus Award for Foreign Novel and the 2021 Premios Kelvin 505 for Best Translated Novel, per Locus.
Themes
Becky Spratford’s Booklist review called it “a tale of friendship, monsters, and growing up”, and her posting of the review on her RA for All blog notes the closing mills and unemployment. The Book Smugglers described the girls of Denton Street as “living in the shadow of a collapsing industry and under the weight of misogyny and patriarchy,” and read it as a novel about connection and love. Tor.com’s Mallory O’Meara filed it under feminist body horror.
Books like The Rust Maidens
The five picks below come from published comparisons. Within Kiste’s own work, the closest match on premise is The Haunting of Velkwood: both follow a woman returning, decades later, to a neighborhood changed by something nobody can explain.
- The Wayward Girls by Amanda Mason. The Book Smugglers reviewed it alongside The Rust Maidens in 2019. In 1976, sisters Loo and Bee live in a run-down cottage where knocking in the walls draws paranormal investigators; thirty years later, Loo goes back. The review noted that both books move between then and now and refuse a clear answer.
- Children of the Dark by Jonathan Janz. Spratford’s review, as posted on her blog, placed The Rust Maidens in the coming-of-age horror tradition of this novel, in which a local baseball star in small-town Indiana leads his community against an ancient evil.
- Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay. Named in the same review. A thirteen-year-old boy vanishes after a night with friends in Borderland State Park, and torn pages from his journal begin to appear, per HarperCollins.
- Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. The third title from that review. The town of Black Spring in upstate New York lives under a centuries-old witch’s curse until teenagers try to expose her, as Kirkus describes it.
- Haven by Tom Deady. In the same blog post, Spratford added this debut as another coming-of-age horror novel with a similar feel. Child murders shook Haven, Massachusetts, in 1961, and in 1978 the killings start again.
For other authors and series, browse more reading orders.
Frequently asked questions
What order should Gwendolyn Kiste’s books be read in?
Any order works. Her novels have separate casts and settings, and ISFDB lists no fiction series under her name. Publication order runs from And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe (2017) to In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts (2026).
Did The Rust Maidens win the Bram Stoker Award?
Yes. The Horror Writers Association lists it as the winner of the 2018 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. It also won This Is Horror’s Novel of the Year.
Where and when is The Rust Maidens set?
On Denton Street, in a west side neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, in the summer of 1980, with a second timeline in the present. The city’s industrial decline runs through the background.
How many Bram Stoker Awards has Gwendolyn Kiste won?
As of October 2026, four, according to the HWA’s awards list: The Rust Maidens (First Novel, 2018), the story “The Eight People Who Murdered Me” (Short Fiction, 2019), the essay “Magic, Madness, and Women Who Creep” (Short Non-Fiction, 2019) and The Haunting of Velkwood (Novel, 2024). Reluctant Immortals, The Invention of Ghosts and And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe were finalists.
What is Gwendolyn Kiste’s newest book?
As of October 2026, it is In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, released by Creature Publishing on September 15, 2026. Everything Looks Better in Red follows on April 20, 2027, from Union Square & Co., with the novella When We Were Brutal listed for September 7, 2027.
Lead photo: A steel plant on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, where The Rust Maidens is set. Photo: Roy Luck, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
