With Halloween right around the corner, all things scary are coming out of the dark. Scary movies are on TV, your favorite shows are doing Halloween themed episodes, and you can’t walk into a store without encountering a skeleton.
Well, here’s a way to bring those terrors into your reading list as well. These ten books can help you immerse yourself in the Halloween spirit, and the best part is that you can read these even when someone else is hogging the TV!
You know about the Amityville horror, right? There are so many movies for it it’s become a classic, and some people have even taken pieces of the house itself for themselves. This one is different. This story focuses on the house and the way that it influences not just one family. Get to know the entity haunting the halls of the Amityville house, and see how it gets its inhabitants to do its dark work.
If you want a new and different story about a haunted house, check out Harmony House. This time, though, the house isn’t the only one with powers, and when Jen and her father move into the house and her powers awaken along with those of the house, things get…interesting. Maybe a new house will haunt your dreams.
Serial killers are fascinating for everyone. Jazz, though, doesn’t necessarily feel the same way. See, he knows one. Lives with one. Was fathered by one. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to grow up with a murderer for a father? Worse, what it would be like to watch those murders happen as a child? Jazz knows, and when bodies start popping up in his home town, he helps the police search for the killer. After all, who would know better how killers think than a kid who was raised by one?
The Killing Jar by Jennifer Bosworth
Finding out that you have powers is every kids dream, and there’s always that wise old mentor there to help you figure them out. Right? Wrong. Kenna doesn’t know what kind of powers she has, but she doesn’t want them and tries to tamp them down. When an attack brings out her gifts in full force, she’s exiled to a commune to live with relatives she’s never met. But while they help her hone her gifts, Kenna tries to figure out exactly what they’re helping her master them for, and something tells her it’s not anything good.
Tell Me What You See by Zoran Drvenkar
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been afraid of walking over someones grave and falling into it. You know, when the wood is old and your weight is just the last straw, and you fall in and end up face-to-face with a skeleton. That’s basically what happens to Alissa, except it’s not a full grown skeleton. She’s faced with the body of a child, and something growing there that won’t let Alissa go.
The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude
Definitely nothing bad could ever happen in a remote town full of farmers and superstition, right? That’s the kind of place that Ivy Glen lives, and she certainly has no qualms about the oddities that occur in towns like that. Until her cousin Heather, who is also Ivy’s best friend, goes missing. Then Ivy is left on her own to uncover the secrets that have hidden in the woods around her town for centuries. And not all of them aged well.
The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
Hunting and studying monsters for a living comes with a certain amount of risk. Especially when dealing with monsters that probably shouldn’t exist. But that’s what Will does, as the assistant to a doctor who studies these creatures. Naturally, not much phases him at this point, but one night brings a new monster that is nothing like anything that Will and Dr. Warthorpe have ever seen. They have to find out where it came from, and what it is, and that’s never an easy task with monsters.
Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace
Being at a party and then waking up a year later to find out that you’re dead, you don’t know who killed you, and that you can kill others just by touching them is rough. Then finding out that there’s a cult looking for people like you so that they can hunt you down makes things even more difficult. Welcome to Breezy’s new life, in which she has to find out who killed her and what she is before someone else comes along to kill her again.
The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco
Here’s another story that might sound familiar, just like Amity did. This one focuses on a girl who lives in a well (ringing any bells yet?) who hunts murderers. Like the guy who murdered her. By throwing her down a well. When she encounters a boy who has an even deadlier secret, and they start working together, things get darker and ever more dangerous.
You know things aren’t ideal when you’re in juvie, but things get worse when you get a new 10 year-old inmate. And worse yet when things start happening at the same time as the youngster arrives. No one gets into juvie for small things, but a child? You know that kid did something bad. Now juvie is more dangerous than ever, and Angela Davis has to find a way to get herself and everyone else out before something really bad happens to all of them.
What’s on your reading list for Halloween? Let us know your favorite horror books in the comments!
Reviewer: This article was written by Elizabeth from Harrington Library.
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Get in Trouble: Stories
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