First Impressions: The Minotaur Sampler, Volume 23 (New Books to Make Your Heart Race)

2027 has some exciting horror and thrillers coming our way! In The Minotaur Sampler, Volume 23, we get a generous sampling of twelve upcoming releases, each with an excerpt of a few chapters. They’re long enough to get a good sense of each book’s writing style, characters, and plot. But they’re also short enough to keep readers eager for more! Several of these are debut authors. The only one I’ve read before is Melissa Larsen, whose 2025 debut, The Lost House, I loved.

I couldn’t help but notice three primary themes that emerged in the books sampled here: Psychiatrists, relationships with complicated mothers, and missing siblings.

Speechless, Chasing Demons, The Haunting of Rosa Sinclair, and Gone at First Light all feature a major dose of psychology. Speechless is told from the perspective of a communication facilitator helping a nonverbal patient who, a year prior, fell down the stairs and suffered brain damage. This one has vivid writing, feels full of personality, and dare I say might feature an unreliable narrator?! Chasing Demons is about a man who survived a massacre as a kid, spent time in psychiatric care as a result, and is now looking into his former therapist’s murder. The imagery instantly captured my imagination. The Haunting of Rosa Sinclair is about a therapist recovering from the loss of her daughter… and now has a client who is disturbingly similar to that long-deceased girl. I really enjoyed this writing style, with the constant check-ins about what aren’t problems making my question Rosa’s reliability in other ways. And Gone at First Light is a detective story following the murder of a therapist. Fans of whodunits will gravitate towards this.

Then there are the mother-related books here: The House at Hanger Hill, Tell Me What You See, and Mother Dearest offer fraught looks at mothers and daughters. The House at Hanger Hill follows three generations of women. In the present, 18-year-old Betty is demanding answers of her unpredictable mother. Years earlier, her mother was grappling with a strange house; and before that was her grandmother, who ultimately died by suicide… but left behind letters that may explain all. Absolutely intriguing! Tell Me What You See is about a medium who predicted a lot before drowning; her daughter has inherited her store, as well as a new mystery that parallels one her mother was working to solve years before. I loved this excerpt more than I’d anticipated! Mother Dearest is a domestic thriller told through letters from an estranged daughter to her exacting mother. It feels tense, and epistolary fans in particular will enjoy this one.

On the Ice, The Spring, and Famous Last Lies each center sibling relationships. On the Ice takes place on an Antarctic expedition, in which the main character’s scientist brother has gone missing. This one looks thrilling, not least of all because of the harsh climate. In The Spring, the protagonist’s adoptive sister is missing, apparently in some kind of cult in Northern California. I enjoyed this author’s previous book, so I’m excited for this one. Famous Last Lies shows a former singing duo that was broken up by a producer who later went missing… and now, years later, has been found dead. I love stories about music, and this one is already engrossing.

Two other books don’t fit the above themes. Last Mission to Paris moves between WWII and now, with three women working together to solve the murder of their agent in France. Scream City follows a police officer and the granddaughter of a serial killer. In the wake of copycat murders, both must prove their innocence.

So many of these books look absolutely gripping, and I can’t wait to read them in full. I’ve already gotten seven of them from NetGalley, so stay tuned for my reviews of them in the new year.

Special thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Official Summary

Looking for a new book that will make your heart race? The twenty-third edition of The Minotaur Sampler — our largest sampler yet! — compiles the beginnings of 12 can’t-miss novels publishing Winter 2027 for free and easy sampling.

Speechless is a twisty, inventive thriller that follows a communication facilitator whose coma patient begins to share chilling messages about what really caused the accident that led to his vegetative state. Chasing Demons is a horror-thriller following a young man who survived a terrible massacre and must confront the demons of his past when years later, his former therapist is murdered in the same grotesque manner. Last Mission to Paris follows three women, decades after they served as secret agents during World War II, who reunite to uncover the truth behind the murder of their fellow agent in Nazi-occupied Paris. Scream City is an electrifying thriller where a former police officer and the granddaughter of a notorious serial killer must work together to clear both of their names when a new string of copycat murders emerges. On the Ice is a chilling mystery where a screenwriter’s desperate search for her missing brother on an Antarctic research station leads her into a tangled web of secrets, love, and wilderness. The House at Hanger Hill is a searing debut about three generations of women and their family home, which has been haunted by chilling deaths and a terrible, hidden truth.

Famous Last Lies introduces a pop music golden girl in the heart of Hollywood whose cost to her success threatens to be revealed when her producer’s remains are found in the California desert. Tell Me What You See follows a woman who must confront the pain of her past when a teenager goes missing, and the case feels strangely tied to the death of her psychic late mother. Mother Dearest is a pulse-pounding thriller that follows a woman writing letters to her estranged mother about the man she wants to marry, except he already has a wife and family. Gone at First Light follows a detective who is assigned to uncover the murder of a beloved Laguna Beach therapist—except she isn’t just a victim, but a woman woven into his own past, and the killer may be closer than anyone dares to believe. The Haunting of Rosa Sinclair is a supernatural thriller where a therapist must question her past after she receives a new client who is nearly identical to her long deceased daughter. The Spring is an alluring thriller about a young woman who must navigate the mystery of a cult-like community in order to find and save her adoptive sister.