Given the sizeable number of new releases that arrive in store each month, it’s easy to miss some hidden gems. We’ve compiled a short list of books you might have missed in August.

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

Several of our staff members can attest to the fact that Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls was extremely terrifying. Her newest release, Broken Monsters looks set to the same. In Detroit, violent death - along with foreclosure and despair - is a regular occurrence. But the part-human, part-animal corpses that have started appearing are more disturbing than anything Detective Gabriella Versado has ever seen. The Guardian writes: ‘Never exploitative, never superficial, never uncomplicated: Beukes shows how horror can be the best way to explain our unbelievable reality. She uses the mode like the knife that opens the oyster.’

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay is an exciting new talent. Our staff have been reading and loving her essay collection Bad Feminist. Her novel An Untamed State has received rave reviews and we can’t wait to read it too.

The New York Times writes: ‘Contemporary tellings tend to mask the real horrors of the original Brothers Grimm stories and their ilk. We remember the princess and the happy ending. We’d rather forget that a passing stranger raped Sleeping Beauty as she lay unconscious, or that Snow White’s jealous stepmother not only called for her death but wanted to eat her liver and lungs. … An Untamed State, is a fairy tale in this vein, its complex and fragile moral arrived at through great pain and high cost.’

I am Having So Much Fun Here without You by Courtney Maum

Skilfully balancing biting wit with a deep emotional undercurrent, debut novelist Courtney Maum has created the perfect portrait of an imperfect family-and a heartfelt exploration of marriage, love, and fidelity. The Rumpus writes: ‘crafts her sentences in a way that catches the reader off-guard: for every note of chick-lit melodrama there are full measures played in darker, daringly honest, minor keys.’

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Discover a terrifying world in the woods in this collection of five hauntingly beautiful graphic stories from acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll. Comics Alliance writes: ‘There are so many cleverly constructed turns of phrase here that through all of the horror, sometimes you have to also stifle a grin at the sheer joy of one word next to another next to an image … without question, one of the singular experiences in comics this year.’