BOOKS

Jen’s second novel, The Winter Folk, is upcoming through Orbit/Run For It in July 2026!

A woman returns to the mysterious lodge in the woods where she once worked, and to the inscrutable creature that bound her there, in this haunting Appalachian gothic horror from singular voice Jen Julian. Perfect for fans of Alix E. Harrow and T. Kingfisher.

The Winter Folk is a dark fairy tale that perfectly captures the magic and awe of your first childhood journey to Narnia or Oz or Fantasia, and the terror and heart-break of returning when you finally understand the adult stakes. A mesmerizing and spell-binding tale, beautifully told, that you will not want to end. You, too, will never want to leave Deerhaven. – Bitter Karella, author of Moonflow

…feels like an Appalachian Spirited Away, blending the Blue Ridge with Studio Ghibli, teeming with haints, haunts and monsters. Jen Julian crafts a tale that feels as if it has been handed down through generations of storytellers, a hauntingly evocative gothic for every campfire. — Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Devil Inside

This is the story of Moth, who earned her name working for the Winter Folk.

Every year, the Winter Folk gather at a secret lodge in the Appalachians, a place known as Deerhaven, refuge for the time-worn and weary. As a child, Moth heard warnings from her mother: They are heartless, wild creatures—and they got no concern of us. At twenty-one, Moth is a college dropout, indebted, impoverished, and desperate for better things. She falls instantly for Deerhaven’s beautiful antlered host, the mild-mannered Mr. Oslin. When he offers her a housekeeper’s contract—one wish granted for a winter of service—she signs without question.

But Deerhaven is a dangerous place. Staff must follow strict rules or else face dire consequences, and the guests can be unpredictable and savage. And yet, Moth endures, enticed by a rumor that Mr. Oslin is looking for a protégé. A singular worker who would stay with him forever and be transformed. Instead, she is banished, for reasons she can’t quite remember.

Decades later, Moth returns to Appalachia with her husband and teenage daughter. She can’t shake the feeling that she needs to return to Deerhaven. As she hunts for a way in, her haunting memories and harrowing experiences come roaring back — her friends and rivals, her growing obsession with Mr. Oslin, and her mysterious exile.

A door exists in the dark of the woods. After so long away, what has Deerhaven become?

A Goodreads Giveaway of The Winter Folk can be found here from March 23 to April 20!

Red Rabbit Ghost is available through Orbit/Run For It. Drawing from the traditions of mystery, fabulism, and the Southern Gothic, this atmospheric debut is a complicated love letter to the rural towns and landscapes in which the author did much adolescent wandering.

Purchasing options can be found here. Updates and excerpts can be found on the author’s Substack.

An impulsive young outcast confronts his small town’s dark secrets in this atmospheric and haunting debut horror novel from brilliant new voice Jen Julian.

The town of Blacknot is not what it appears, and a place on its desolate edge known only as The Night House is calling… 

What remains of Jesse’s mother can fit inside an old jerky tin. Photos, postcards, a single, worn-out bracelet. But nothing that can explain why she was found dead eighteen years earlier on the bank of a river, her infant son left wailing by her side. When Jesse starts to receive anonymous messages promising him answers, he returns home to the regressive town of Blacknot, North Carolina so that his lifelong obsession can finally be laid to rest. 

But Jesse’s investigation is stirring up trouble with the locals, including his well-armed ex-boyfriend and the mysterious daughter of a local businessman, each with their own inscrutable agendas. They will soon find that this backwater town holds a power more volatile than any of them could have imagined, and that the answers they seek might be better left buried

Early Praise for Red Rabbit Ghost:

“A chilling dark fantasy that readers will savor.”
—PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY

“Drenched in dread and yearning, RED RABBIT GHOST is the kind of Gothic novel that you don’t so much read as inhale. I loved it. “
—KELLY LINK, author of The Book of Love

“At once elegiac and deeply visceral, RED RABBIT GHOST is a bittersweet ode to all the ways in which a place can haunt us long after we’ve departed – and transform us when we return.”
—GEORGIA SUMMERS, #1 International Bestselling Author

“RED RABBIT GHOST is a terrifying delight that deftly weaves together the ordinary and supernatural horrors of life in a small town. Sharply contemporary while remaining true to its Southern gothic roots, RED RABBIT GHOST is the perfect blend of Whatsapp and witchcraft, dive bars and haunted houses. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down!”
—GWEN E. KIRBY, author of Shit Cassandra Saw

“Deeply immersive and darkly mysterious. RED RABBIT GHOST is certain to be one of the year’s standout horror reads for its complex family drama, richly textured setting, and modern Southern Gothic flavor.”
—CRAIG DILOUIE, author of How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive

“Every time I thought I had a handle on the deviously entertaining RED RABBIT GHOST, it slipped through my fingers and became something even more remarkable. Jen Julian weaves a dark spell with the bones of southern gothic storytelling, crackling (and often hilarious) dialogue, and gorgeous prose. To enter this haunted swamp of a novel is to lose yourself in cosmic mystery.”
—ANDY MARINO, author of The Swarm

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Earthly Delights and Other Apocalypses

In nine stories and one novella, author Jen Julian explores realms of the surreal and speculative: from two sisters cleaning out their father’s house as it grows and shrinks, to an aunt who watches on anxiously as her niece forges an interdimensional connection; from a small town populated by animate sex dolls, to an eerie near-future in which AI co-opt the social media accounts of the dead. By way of ghosts and fish-men, nuclear threats and giant spiders, each story seeks to capture the inherent otherworldliness of feeling displaced, while at the same time illuminating the intimate and tenacious beauty of human beings in constant search of human connection. Winner of Press 53’s 2018 Short Fiction Award, Earthly Delights and Other Apocalypses is a collection worth exploring.

Praise for Earthly Delights:

“….Jen Julian takes your hand and leads you slowly into a world where ghosts lurk in houses full of strange objects, time and space expand and contract at will, and characters grapple with loss, survival, and what it means to be human. These stories, deliciously flavored with science fiction and Southern Gothic, are subtle and fine-wrought, each sentence pulling you forward to a beautiful or breathtaking conclusion. Every story in this collection is a gem.”
—EMILY CATANEO, author of Speaking to Skull Kings and Other Stories

“I love Jen Julian’s stories. They’re wise, weird, and steeped in an alluring darkness. They’re also deeply felt and resonate with true feeling. This is a stunning risk-taking debut and one that I’ll be returning to often.”
—BRYAN HURT, author of Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France

“This collection will take the top of your head off. Anglerfish. Sex Robots. Sensatones and stereograms. Time travel and Kairotic displacement disorder. Julian’s fiction has it all: the relevance of realism, the imaginative leaps of fabulism, the philosophical depth of S/F. These stories did more than entertain me—they actually changed my mind.”
—TRUDY LEWIS, author of The Empire Rolls: A Novel

“Earthy Delights is full of motherfucking crocodiles: good stories that shouldn’t be true, that couldn’t be true, that flagrantly violate both the rules of reality and the conventions of the genre(s) they inhabit, but that are nonetheless so well told that we’re forced, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge enjoins us, to suspend our disbelief in the patently absurd “facts” of the narrative to get at the tart fruit that lies just underneath.”
—DALE BAILEY, author of Night Wood and The End of the End of Everything, in The North Carolina Literary Review

What an absolutely fantastic debut collection Earthly Delights is. Jen Julian has a vivid imagination and the storytelling chops to match. Her characters face quandaries as well as conflict, all set in interesting and diverse locales. I loved watching these characters figure their way through their dilemma, sometimes making wise decisions, but sometimes being human, making mistakes. That’s okay, though, as mistakes are usually more interesting.

—MICHAEL CZYZNIEJEWSKI, author of  I Will Love You For the Rest of My Life: Breakup Stories, in Story336