How to Survive a Horror Story
  • Published: 30 September 2025
  • ISBN: 9781464227400
  • Imprint: Poisoned Pen Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 350
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

How to Survive a Horror Story

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Welcome to Queen Manor. If you survive... well, that's quite a story to tell...

Seven authors enter the manor
Can they survive the story within?

When legendary horror author Mortimer Queen passes, a group of writers find themselves invited to his last will and testament reading expecting a piece of his massive fortune. Each have their own unique connection to the literary icon, some known, some soon to be discovered, and they've been waiting for their chance to step into the author's shoes for some time.

Instead, they arrive at his grand manor and are invited to play a game. The rules are simple, solve the riddle and progress to the next room. If they don't, the manor will take one of them for itself.

You see, the Queen estate was built on the bones of Mortimer's family, and like any true horror story, the house is still very, very hungry.

With the clever, locked-room thrills of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone with the ghostly horror of The Fall of the House of Usher, How to Survive a Horror Story is a bright, biting, thrill-ride that begs us to contemplate how the best horror stories come to be.
  • Published: 30 September 2025
  • ISBN: 9781464227400
  • Imprint: Poisoned Pen Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 350
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

About the author

Mallory Arnold

Mallory Arnold is a magazine editor and writer who lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and three cats. When she’s not penning a scary story, she can be found curled up with a book, running, listening to podcasts, painting, eating pickles and Diet Coke (not together), or bopping her head to Southcourt’s music. This is Mallory’s debut novel, and she hopes to continue writing until the cows come home (though she wonders where the cows went in the first place).

Feel free to follow her journey on Instagram—if you dare. @malwriteswords

Praise for How to Survive a Horror Story

Mallory Arnold's bingeable debut, How to Survive a Horror Story, is the most fun I’ve ever had in creepy manor! Come for the authors behaving badly. Stay for the carnivorous books. Thank me later.

Emma C. Wells, USA Today bestselling author of This Girl’s a Killer

Equal parts clever and creepy, How to Survive a Horror Story kept me up all night reading (and jumping at every unexplained creak). Spine-tingling fun that you won't be able to put down!

Jilly Gagnon, author of All Dressed Up

Mallory Arnold lures you into a hungry house of horrors where the mystery deepens behind every door. With colorful characters meeting grisly demises, this puzzle box of a book won't let you escape until you turn the final frightful page.

Brian McAuley, author of Curse of the Reaper and Candy Cain Kills

Captivating adult horror for those of us still scarred by that furnace scene in Home Alone. Mallory Arnold's clever debut combines the thrill of dark theme park rides with the breathless intrigue found only in the creepiest whodunits. I devoured it and can't wait to read what she serves up next.

MJ Wassmer, author of Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend

A compulsive, unputdownable book which is equal parts terrifying and playful. Mallory Arnold takes the traditions of horror and mystery and turns them on their head to create something original and exciting.

L.J. Shepherd, author of The Trials of Lila Dalton
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