Horror
It's been three months since Alexis helplessly witnessed Lydia Small's violent death, and all she wants is for her life to return to normal. But normal people don’t see decaying bodies haunting photographs. Normal people don’t have to deal with regular intrusions from Lydia’s angry ghost. At first, it seems that Lydia wants revenge on Alexis alone. But when a girl from school disappears and Alexis spots one of Lydia’s signature yellow roses lying on the girl’s dresser, it becomes clear that several of Alexis’s friends are in danger, and that she's the only person who can save them. But as she tries to intervene, Alexis realizes that her enemy is a much more powerful ghost than she's ever faced before and that its fate is tied to hers in ways she couldn't possibly imagine. Not even in her worst nightmares.
When Cora and her younger sister, Mimi, are sent to stay with their elderly aunt in the isolated village of Byers Guerdon, they receive a less-than-warm welcome. Auntie Ida is eccentric and rigid and the girls are desperate to go back to London. But what they don't know is that their aunt's life was devastated the last time two young sisters were at Guerdon Hall and she is determined to protect her nieces from an evil that has lain hidden for years. Along with Roger and Peter, two village boys, Cora must uncover the horrifying truth that has held Bryers Guerdon in its dark grip for centuries--before it's too late for little Mimi.
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: he kills the dead. So did his father, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost. Now Cas travels the country with his mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead. When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted house she used to call home. But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life.
Junior high really sucks for thirteen-year-old Vladimir Tod. Bullies harass him, the principal is dogging him, and the girl he likes prefers his best friend. Oh, and Vlad has a secret: his mother was human, but his father was a vampire. With no idea of the extent of his powers, Vlad struggles daily with his blood cravings and his enlarged fangs. When a substitute teacher begins to question him a little too closely, Vlad worries that his cover is about to be blown. But then he faces a much bigger problem: he's being hunted by a vampire killer. First in a series.
The Vours are evil, demonic beings that inhabit human bodies during the darkest hours of the winter solstice. When Reggie reads about the Vours in a mysterious old journal, she assumes they are just the musings of an anonymous lunatic. But when her little brother, Henry, begins to act strangely, it's clear that these creatures exist beyond a madwoman's imagination, and Reggie finds out what happens when fears come to life. To save the people she loves, Reggie must learn to survive in a world of nightmares. Can she devour her own terrifying fears before they devour her? First in The Devouring Series.
On the Day I Died: Stories from the Grave by Candace Fleming
Set in White Cemetery, an actual graveyard outside Chicago, each of these ten stories takes place during a different time period from the 1860s to the present, and ends with the narrator's death. Some teens die heroically, others ironically, but all due to supernatural causes. Readers will meet walking corpses and witness demonic possession, all against the backdrop of Chicago's rich history--the Great Depression, the World's Fair, Al Capone and his fellow gangsters.
The Poisoned House by Michael Ford
Life can be cruel for a servant girl in 1850s London. Fifteen-year-old Abi is a scullery maid in Greave Hall, an elegant but troubled household. The widowed master of the house is slowly slipping into madness, and the tyrannical housekeeper, Mrs.Cotton, takes on more power and punishes Abi without mercy. But there's something else going on in Greave Hall, too. An otherworldly presence is making itself known, and a deadly secret will reveal itself---this ghostly presence's secret will shatter everything Abi knows.
The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee
Set in White Cemetery, an actual graveyard outside Chicago, each of these ten stories takes place during a different time period from the 1860s to the present, and ends with the narrator's death. Some teens die heroically, others ironically, but all due to supernatural causes. Readers will meet walking corpses and witness demonic possession, all against the backdrop of Chicago's rich history--the Great Depression, the World's Fair, Al Capone and his fellow gangsters.
Life can be cruel for a servant girl in 1850s London. Fifteen-year-old Abi is a scullery maid in Greave Hall, an elegant but troubled household. The widowed master of the house is slowly slipping into madness, and the tyrannical housekeeper, Mrs.Cotton, takes on more power and punishes Abi without mercy. But there's something else going on in Greave Hall, too. An otherworldly presence is making itself known, and a deadly secret will reveal itself---this ghostly presence's secret will shatter everything Abi knows.
When Rinn Jacobs moves to a new town she hopes it will be a fresh start--a place where nobody knows about her past. At first, everything goes according to plan. She falls in with the popular girls at her new school and falls for the very cute Nate. But River Hills High School has a secret. The ghost of a girl who died back when Rinn's mom was a student supposedly haunts a hallway. Rinn's not sure she believes it, but when strange things start happening to her friends, Rinn decides there's only one way to know for sure. She needs to ditch her bipolar meds and see what the voices are really trying to say... Fans of films like Black Swan will be fascinated by this psychological thriller.
Dead Reckoning by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill
Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone - until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren't rising from the dead of their own accord ... but who would want an undead army? And why?
Jane is not your typical teen. She and her best friend Lexi call themselves the Creep Sisters. Only Lexi knows why Jane is different from anyone else: Her own shadow seems to pull her into near-fatal accidents. Jane is determined to find out why these terrifying things happen, and to overcome her shadow enemy. Her sleuthing with Lexi connects her own horrors to the secret history of a serial killer.
Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone - until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren't rising from the dead of their own accord ... but who would want an undead army? And why?
Possess by Gretchen McNeilFifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her over-protective mom, by Matt Quinn, the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, the voices are demons--and Bridget possesses the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from. Literally. Terrified to tell her friends or family about this new power, Bridget confides in San Francisco's senior exorcist, Monsignor Renault. The monsignor enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession, but just as she is starting to come to terms with her freakish new role, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. And when one of her oldest friends is killed, Bridget realizes she's in deeper than she ever thought possible. Now she must unlock the secret to the demons' plan before someone else close to her winds up dead--or worse, the human vessel for a demon king.
In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death? First in a series.
Darren Shan is an ordinary schoolboy, until he and his best friend Steve get tickets to the Cirque du Freak, a bizarre freak show featuring such arcane performers as Hans Hands, Gertha Teeth, the Wolf Man and Rhamus Twobellies. In the midst of the ghoulish excitement, true terror raises its head when Steve recognizes that one of the performers -- Mr Crepsley -- is in fact a vampire! Later, in a moment of insane daring, Darren sets out to steal the vampire's magnificent performing tarantula, an act which will have severe, tragic consequences for both Darren and Steve. Their lives will never be the same again... First in the Saga of Darren Shan. There's also a manga series.
When Alex is framed for murder, he becomes an inmate in Furnace Penitentiary buried a mile beneath the earth’s surface. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex’s actions grow ever more dangerous and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world. First in the Escape from Furnace Series.
After getting drunk at a party, Jack is kidnapped by a homicidal sadist. He narrowly escapes and the only person he tells about his kidnapping is his best friend, Conner. When the two arrive in London for spring break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses that allow him to see an alternate reality called Marbury. But in this world of Marbury, Conner is also a sadistic killer and Jack may be the only one who can stop him. In the real world, Jack is afraid that he's losing his mind. Conner tells him it's going to be okay. But it's not.
Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside.
Elizabeth Valchar--pretty, popular, and perfect--wakes up the morning after her eighteenth birthday party on her family's yacht, where she'd been celebrating with her six closest friends. A persistent thumping noise has roused her. When she goes to investigate, what she finds will change everything she thought she knew about her life, her friends, and everything in between. As Liz begins to unravel the circumstances surrounding her birthday night, she will find that no one around her, least of all Liz herself, was perfect-or innocent.
Suspense
Olive Corbett is not crazy. Not anymore. She obediently takes her meds and stays under the radar at school. After "the incident," Olive just wants to avoid any more trouble so she knows the smartest thing is to stay clear of the new girl who is rumored to have quite the creepy past. But there's no avoiding Miranda Vaile. Mousy Miranda edges her way into the popular group, right up to the side of queen bee Katie and pushes the other girls right out. Only Olive seems to notice that something strange is going on. Something almost . . . parasitic. Either Olive is losing her grip on reality or Miranda Vaile is stealing Katie's life. But who would ever believe crazy Olive? And what if Olive is the next target?
Angered by her parents and aching to be older, Gemma allows herself a small flirtation in a Bangkok airport cafe with a handsome man she doesn't know. But Ty doesn't consider himself a stranger. He has been waiting for this moment for years, the opportunity to drug Gemma and steal her away to the rugged Australian outback. Ty believes if he can just get her alone, he can prove his love and win hers in return.Written as a letter from a victim to her captor, this is Gemma's desperate story of survival; of how she has to come to terms with her living nightmare--or die trying to fight it.
Raised in abusive foster homes, Nickel escapes at the age of ten and makes a steady living by blackmailing online pedophiles, selling marijuana to high school students, and working as a private investigator. When a beautiful high school girl named Arrow asks him to find her runaway sister Shelby, Nickel takes the case, but what he finds is as ugly a truth as he's ever seen. Nickel discovers children for sale, and adults with souls black as the devil. And people like that aren't about to let some kid ruin their game.
The disease only affects people sixteen or older. It starts with the symptoms of a cold. Then the skin begins to itch, and spots appear--spots that soon turn into pus-filled boils. But the worst part is the headache, the inner voices that tell you that you need to eat them . . . the young ones. When the Disaster strikes, the world turns upside down for Ed, Jack, Bam and the other students at Rowhurst School. The parents and older siblings they left back at home are dead--or worse. Once the teachers go on the attack, the kids know it's time to escape and make their way to the city. It's got to be better in London . . . or will it be worse?
When Locke gets angry, he loses control. He has named the malevolent force that overtakes him "the Venom." As much as he tries to fight the Venom, it seems to be growing in magnitude and scope. New relationships with emotionally fragile Renee and combative Casey make Locke realize that mastering the Venom is his only way to move on from past traumas in his life.
All Daniel wants to do is spend one last summer with his grandfather before he moves away for college and his grandfather's dementia pulls them apart. But when his dear old Da starts to let things slip about the job he used to hold--people he's killed, countries he's overthrown--old work "friends" show up to make sure he stays quiet. Was his grandfather really involved in a world of assassinations and coups, or are the stories just delusions of a crumbling mind? On the run from the police (and possibly something worse) before he has time to find out, Daniel may have to sacrifice everything to protect his grandfather from those who would do him harm.
The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive. . . . Scotty and his friends Pete and Jason are among the last seven kids at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no one is coming for them. Still, it doesn't seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially when distractingly hot Krista and Julie are sleeping just down the hall. But then the power goes out, then the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the days add up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision. . . .
Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser
The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes popular girl Lucy would die, she vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared and worried. Especially frightened and wracked with guilt is Madison Archer, Lucy’s friend and the last person to see her the night she disappeared. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d’s blog, the residents of Soundview panic. Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous notes warning that she could be next. Desperate to solve the mystery before anyone else disappears, Madison turns to Tyler, but can she trust him when it becomes clear that he knows more than he’s sharing? The clock is ticking. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances before her name appears in Str-S-d’s blog.
Beautiful Lies by Jessica Warman
Rachel and Alice are an extremely rare kind of identical twins--so identical that even their aunt and uncle, whom they've lived with since their parents passed away, can't tell them apart. But the sisters are connected in a way that goes well beyond their surfaces: when one experiences pain, the other exhibits the exact same signs of distress. So when one twin mysteriously disappears, the other immediately knows something is wrong--especially when she starts experiencing serious physical traumas, despite the fact that nobody has touched her. As the search commences to find her sister, the twin left behind must rely on their intense bond to uncover the truth. But is there anyone around her she can trust, when everyone could be a suspect? And ultimately, can she even trust herself ?
The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes popular girl Lucy would die, she vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared and worried. Especially frightened and wracked with guilt is Madison Archer, Lucy’s friend and the last person to see her the night she disappeared. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d’s blog, the residents of Soundview panic. Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous notes warning that she could be next. Desperate to solve the mystery before anyone else disappears, Madison turns to Tyler, but can she trust him when it becomes clear that he knows more than he’s sharing? The clock is ticking. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances before her name appears in Str-S-d’s blog.
Rachel and Alice are an extremely rare kind of identical twins--so identical that even their aunt and uncle, whom they've lived with since their parents passed away, can't tell them apart. But the sisters are connected in a way that goes well beyond their surfaces: when one experiences pain, the other exhibits the exact same signs of distress. So when one twin mysteriously disappears, the other immediately knows something is wrong--especially when she starts experiencing serious physical traumas, despite the fact that nobody has touched her. As the search commences to find her sister, the twin left behind must rely on their intense bond to uncover the truth. But is there anyone around her she can trust, when everyone could be a suspect? And ultimately, can she even trust herself ?
