Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel

The Bram Stoker Award for First Novel is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for an author's first horror novel.

Winners and nominees

Nancy A. Collins with her 1989 Bram Stoker Award

Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Year	Recipient	Title	Citation	Ref.
1987	Lisa Cantrell	The Manse	Winner	[4]
	Clive Barker	The Damnation Game	Nominee	[4]
	Rex Miller	Slob
	Tony Richards	The Harvest Bride
	Steve Rasnic Tem	Excavation
1988	Kelley Wilde	The Suiting	Winner	[5]
	Michael Paine	Cities of the Dead	Nominee	[5]
	Kevin J. Anderson	Resurrection, Inc.
	Allen Lee Harris	Deliver Us From Evil
	J. Michael Straczynski	Demon Night
	John L. Byrne	Fear Book
1989	Nancy A. Collins	Sunglasses After Dark	Winner	[6]
	Tom Elliott (JW Paine)	The Dwelling	Nominee	[6]
	Douglas Clegg	Goat Dance
	Dean Wesley Smith	Laying The Music To Rest
	Jean Paiva	The Lilith Factor
1990	Bentley Little	The Revelation	Winner	[7]
	Alan Rodgers	Blood of the Children	Nominee	[7]
	Tom Piccirilli	Dark Father
	T. Chris Martindale	Nightblood
1991	Kathe Koja	The Cipher	Winner	[8]
	Melanie Tem	Prodigal
	Chris Curry & L. Dean James	Winter Scream	Nominee	[8]
	Dennis Danvers	Wilderness
	Ashley McConnell	Unearthed
1992	Elizabeth Massie	Sineater	Winner	[9]
	Poppy Z. Brite	Lost Souls	Nominee	[9]
	Brian D'Amato	Beauty
	Gary Raisor	Less Than Human
	Wayne Allen Salee	The Holy Terror
1993	Nina Kiriki Hoffman	The Thread that Binds the Bones	Winner	[10]
	Yvonne Navarro	Afterage	Nominee	[10]
	Richard Christian Matheson	Created By
	Anne Billson	Suckers
	Philip Nutman	Wet Work
1994	Michael Arnzen	Grave Markings	Winner	[11]
	Jay R. Bonansinga	The Black Mariah	Nominee	[11]
	Robert Devereaux	Deadweight
	Nancy Kilpatrick	Near Death
1995	Lucy Taylor	The Safety of Unknown Cities	Winner	[12]
	Gary Bowen	Diary of a Vampire	Nominee	[12]
	Tananarive Due	The Between
	Robert Girardi	Madeleine's Ghost
	Edo van Belkom	Wyrm Wolf
1996	Owl Goingback	Crota	Winner	[13]
	Donald R. Burleson	Flute Song	Nominee	[13]
	Greg Kihn	Horror Show
	Del Stone	Dead Heat
1997	Kirsten Bakis	Lives of the Monster Dogs	Winner	[14]
	Stephen Dedman	The Art of Arrow Cutting	Nominee	[14]
	Barry Hoffman	Hungry Eyes
	Mary Ann Mitchell	Drawn to the Grave
	Mary Murrey	The Inquisitor
1998	Michael Marano	Dawn Song	Winner	[15]
	P.D. Cacek	Night Prayers	Nominee	[15]
	Charlee Jacob	This Symbiotic Fascination
	Caitlin R. Kiernan	Silk
1999	J.G. Passarella	Wither	Winner	[16]
	Steve Beai	Widow's Walk	Nominee	[16]
	John Connolly	Every Dead Thing
	China Miéville	King Rat
2000	Brian A. Hopkins	The Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club	Winner	[17]
	Simon Clark	Nailed by the Heart	Nominee	[17]
	Mark Z. Danielewski	House of Leaves
	Douglas E. Winter	Run
2001	Michael Oliveri	Deadliest of the Species	Winner	[18]
	Diana Barron	Phantom Feast	Nominee	[18]
	d.g.k. goldberg	Skating on the Edge
	Joe Nassise	Riverwatch
2002	Alice Sebold	The Lovely Bones	Winner	[19]
	Tina Jens	The Blues Ain't Nothing	Nominee	[19]
	Michael Laimo	Atmosphere
	Scott Nicholson	The Red Church
2003	Brian Keene	The Rising	Winner	[20]
	William D. Gagliani	Wolf's Trap	Nominee	[20]
	Jeffrey Thomas	Monstrocity
	Jeff VanderMeer	Veniss Underground
2004	John Everson	Covenant	Winner	[21]
	Lee Thomas	Stained
	James Kidman	Black Fire	Nominee	[21]
	Nick Mamatas	Move Under Ground
2005	Weston Ochse	Scarecrow Gods	Winner	[22]
	Kealan Patrick Burke	The Hides	Nominee	[22]
	Alan M. Clark and Jeremy Robert Johnson	Siren Promised
2006	Jonathan Maberry	Ghost Road Blues	Winner	[23]
	Sarah Langan	The Keeper	Nominee	[23]
	Nate Kenyon	Bloodstone
	Alexandra Sokoloff	The Harrowing
2007	Joe Hill	Heart-Shaped Box	Winner	[24]
	Michael Louis Calvillo	I Will Rise	Nominee	[24]
	John R. Little	The Memory Tree
	Mary SanGiovanni	The Hollower
2008	Lisa Mannetti	The Gentling Box	Winner	[25]
	Christopher Conlon	Midnight on Mourn Street	Nominee	[25]
	Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin	Monster Behind the Wheel
	David Oppegaard	The Suicide Collectors
	Joel A. Sutherland	Frozen Blood
2009	Hank Schwaeble	Damnable	Winner	[26]
	S. G. Browne	Breathers	Nominee	[26]
	Daniel G. Keohane	Solomon's Grave
	Paul Tremblay	The Little Sleep
2010	Benjamin Kane Ethridge	Black & Orange	Winner	[27]
	Lisa Morton	The Castle of Los Angeles
	Gemma Files	A Book of Tongues	Nominee	[27]
	Lucy A. Snyder	Spellbent
2011	Allyson Bird	Isis Unbound	Winner	[28] [29] [30] [31]
	John Hornor Jacobs	Southern Gods	Nominee	[28] [29] [30]
	Frazer Lee	The Lamplighters
	Thomas Roche	The Panama Laugh
	Brett J. Talley	That Which Should Not Be
2012	L. L. Soares	Life Rage	Winner	[32] [33] [34]
	Michael Boccacino	Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling	Nominee	[32] [33] [34]
	Deborah Coates	Wide Open
	Charles Day	The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief
	Peter Dudar	A Requiem for Dead Flies
	Richard Gropp	Bad Glass
2013	Rena Mason	The Evolutionist	Winner	[35] [36]
	Kate Jonez	Candy House	Nominee	[35] [36]
	John Mantooth	The Year of the Storm
	Jonathan Moore	Redheads
	Royce Prouty	Stoker’s Manuscript
2014	Maria Alexander	Mr. Wicker	Winner	[37] [38] [39]
	J. D. Barker	Forsaken	Nominee	[37] [38] [39]
	David Cronenberg	Consumed
	Michael Knost	Return of the Mothman
	Josh Malerman	Bird Box
2015	Nicole Cushing	Mr. Suicide	Winner	[40] [41]
	Courtney Alameda	Shutter	Nominee	[40] [41]
	Brian Kirk	We Are Monsters
	John McIlveen	Hannahwhere
	John Claude Smith	Riding the Centipede
2016	Tom Deady	Haven	Winner	[42]
	Barbara Barnett	The Apothecary’s Curse	Nominee	[42]
	Greg Chapman	Hollow House
	Michelle Garza & Melissa Lason	Mayan Blue
	Stephanie M. Wytovich	The Eighth
2017	Robert Payne Cabeen	Cold Cuts	Winner	[43] [44] [45] [46] [47]
	Andy Davidson	In The Valley of the Sun	Nominee	[48] [49] [50] [51] [52]
	Matt Hayward	What Do Monsters Fear?
	Jeremy Hepler	The Boulevard Monster
	Scott Thomas	Kill Creek
2018	Gwendolyn Kiste	The Rust Maidens	Winner	[53] [54] [55] [56]
	Julia Fine	What Should Be Wild	Nominee	[53] [54] [55] [56]
	T.E. Grau	I Am the River
	Zoje Stage	Baby Teeth
	Tony Tremblay	The Moore House
2019	Sarah Read	The Bone Weaver's Orchard	Winner	[57] [58] [59]
	Gemma Amor	Dear Laura	Nominee	[57] [58] [59]
	Eric J. Guignard	Doorways to the Deadeye
	Michelle Renee Lane	Invisible Chains
	Caitlin Starling	The Luminous Dead
2020	EV Knight	The Fourth Whore	Winner	[60] [61] [62] [63]
	Polly Hall	The Taxidermist’s Lover	Nominee	[64] [65] [66] [67]
	Rachel Harrison	The Return
	Ross Jeffery	Tome
	Kate Reed Petty	True Story
2021	Hailey Piper	Queen of Teeth	Winner	[68] [69] [70] [71]
	Lisa Quigley	The Forest	Nominee	[68] [69] [70] [71]
	S. Alessandro Martinez	Helminth
	Terry Miles	Rabbits
	Nicole Willson	Tidepool
	LaTanya McQueen	When the Reckoning Comes
2022	Christi Nogle	Beulah	Winner	[72]
	Erin Adams	Jackal	Nominee	[73] [74]
	Isabel Cañas	The Hacienda
	KC Jones	Black Tide
	Ally Wilkes	All the White Spaces
2023
	Christa Carmen	The Daughters of Block Island	Winner	[75]
	Johnny Compton	The Spite House	Nominee	[75]
	Eric LaRocca	Everything the Darkness Eats
	CJ Leede	Maeve Fly
	Sam Rebelein	Edenville
2024
	Monika Kim	The Eyes Are the Best Part	Winner	[76]
	Donyae Coles	Midnight Rooms	Nominee	[76]
	Jessica Drake-Thomas	Hollow Girls
	Jenny Kiefer	This Wretched Valley
	Lindy Ryan	Bless Your Heart

References

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