Books That Go Bump in the Night
The Afterlife by Gary Soto
After his brutal murder, fourteen-year-old Chuy discovers what life is all about. Grades 6-Up
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libby Bray
After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world. Grades 9-Up
All Hallows Eve by Vivian Vande Velde
Presents thirteen tales of Halloween horrors, including ghosts, vampires, and pranks gone awry. Grades 6-Up
Are You in the House Alone? By Richard Peck
A sixteen-year-old girl with a steady boyfriend suddenly begins receiving threatening phone calls while she is babysitting and anonymous notes in her high school locker. Grades 8-Up
Beasties by William Sleator
When fifteen-year-old Doug and his younger sister Colette move with their parents to a forested wilderness area, they encounter some weird creatures whose lives are endangered. Grades 4-6
Beating Heart: A Ghost Story by A.M. Jenkins
She haunts his dreams. She is a momentary chill in warm sunlight, a shadow, and a memory of secret kisses and hidden passion. He is seventeen, and ever since he moved into this house he has dreamt of her . . . hot, wordless dreams that turn darker and more intense every night. Ghost and boy fascinate each other—until her memories and his desire collide in a moment that changes them both forever. Grades 9-Up
Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde
A sixteen-year-old will give anything to be with her true love--even though he died two hundred years ago. . . . A sopping-wet little dead girl stalks a teen who had nothing to do with her death--honest! . . . A heartless man dances with his wife--after she's passed away. From the hilarious to the horrific, master storyteller Vivian Vande Velde explores the world of the dead--and the undead--in this surprisingly moving collection of unnerving tales. Grades 7-Up
Bliss by Lauren Myracle
Openhearted Bliss desperately wants new friends, making her the perfect prey of a troubled girl whose obsession with a long-ago death puts Bliss, and anyone she’s kind to, in mortal danger. Grades 9-12
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
Having fallen for a human boy, a beautiful teenage werewolf must battle both her packmates and the fear of the townspeople to decide where she belongs and with whom. Grades 9-Up
The Blooding by Patricia Windsor
While spending the summer working as an au pair girl for a couple in England, Maris discovers that the husband is a werewolf intent on blooding her and making her one too. Grades 8-Up
Bonechiller by Grahame McNamee
Four high school students face off against a soul-stealing beast that has been making young people disappear their small Ontario, Canada, town for centuries. Grades 9-Up
The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgewick
With the help of his servant and an orphan girl, a magician named Valerian searches graveyards, churches, and underground waterways for a book he hopes will save him from a pact he made with evil. Grades 6-9
Breathe: A Ghost Story by Cliff McNish
When he and his mother move into an old farmhouse in the English countryside, asthmatic, twelve-year-old Jack discovers that he can communicate with the ghosts inhabiting the house and inadvertently establishes a relationship with a tormented, malevolents. Grades 4-8
The Chronicles of Vladmir Tod by Heather Brewer
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. And Vlad has a secret: his mother was human, but his father was a vampire. When a substitute teacher begins to question him a little too closely, Vlad worries that his cover is about to be blown. Grades 5-8
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Suddenly able to see demons and the Shadowhunters who are dedicated to returning them to their own dimension, fifteen-year-old Clary Fray is drawn into this bizarre world when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a monster. Grades 9-up
Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde
Kerry's got a tough night ahead of her. What begins as a simple lost-and-found trip to the Laundromat turns into a nightmarish odyssey of murder, vampires, and--quite possibly--true love. Vivian Vande Velde puts a terrifying spin on what should be a typical night in a small town. Grades 6-10
The Creek by Jennifer Holm
Caleb Devlin is a legend, the boy who terrorized an entire town before Penny and her family family moved there. Now he's back, older and more dangerous than ever, and terrible things have begun to happen again. The whole town knows he's responsible, but the police can't do anything without proof. So Penny and her friends try to stop him themselves. Except now he's after them. Grades 9-Up
Daemon Hall by Andrew Nance
Famous thriller writer Ian Tremblin holds a short-story writing contest with a prize that seems to be the opportunity of a lifetime: five finalists will get to spend the evening with Tremblin himself in the haunted mansion Daemon Hall, and the winner of the best short story will see publication. Wade Reilly and the other finalists could never have imagined what they find lurking in the shadows of this demonic mansion. Grades 9-Up
Darkness Creeping:Twenty Twisted Tales by Neal Shusterman
Imagine being trapped forever in someone elses nightmare, with no means of escape. Or caught on one of the most terrifying roller coasters of all time, when suddenly the tracks ahead just disappear. Enter the world of Darkness Creeping, where hollow-eyed skulls arrive in the mail and nothing is as it seems. Grades 5-Up
Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters by Gail Giles
Fourteen-year-old Sunny Reynolds is stunned when a total stranger shows up at her house posing as her older sister Jazz, who supposedly died out of town in a fire months earlier. Grades 12-Up
Dead High Yearbook by Ivan Velez
Eight intertwining tales about teenagers from the same school who die horrible deaths throughout the school year and come to rest somewhere between life and death. Grades 12-Up
The Demon Queen by Richard Lewis
Jesse is a boy with a mysterious past. In and out of foster homes his whole life, he believes he was abandoned in Los Angeles as a baby. When he comes under the scrutiny of Homeland Security in an incident involving a mistaken identity, he starts learning some unsettling facts about himself. Now he is living with the Mindells in a small Midwestern town, and for the first time he feels like he may have a real home -- until strange things start happening.
Demon Thief by Darren Shan
Kernel Fleck has always known he's weird. He sees lights. Strange, multi-colored patches of light, swirling through the air. But it's not until a window opens into a demon world, with horrific consequences, that Kernel discovers his powers. Grades 7-Up
The Devouring by Simon Holt
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. Grades 9-Up
The Doom Stone by Paul Zindel
When fifteen-year-old Jackson visits his aunt in England, he becomes caught up in a chase to capture an unknown creature who is stalking and killing people on the plains surrounding ancient Stonehenge. Grades 6-10
Dr. Sigmundus: The Hollow People by Brian Keaney
On an island that houses the asylum where law-breakers are imprisoned, two teenagers rebel against a rigidly controlled society where dreams are considered antisocial and all citizens over the age of fourteen take a drug to control their behavior. Grades 6-9
Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King
Cursed to live the lives of 100 dogs, a seventeenth-century pirate finally returns to life as a human being and has only one thing on her mind--to recover the treasure she had buried in Jamaica three hundred years before. Grades 10-12
Gallows Hill by Lois Duncan
17-year-old Sarah, who is posing as a fortune-teller for a school fair, begins to see actual visions that can predict the future. Frightened, the other students brand her a witch, setting off a chain of events that mirror the centuries-old Salem witch trials in more ways than one. Grades 6-9
The Ghost Sitter by Peni R. Griffin
When she realizes that her new house is haunted by the ghost of a ten-year-old girl who used to live there, Charlotte tries to help her find peace. Grades 4-6
Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales ed. By Deborah Noyes
A celebration of the literary form made famous by such writers as Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe, including a lovesick count and the ghost of his brutalized servant, a serial killer who defies death, a house with a violent mind of its own and another that holds a grotesque secret within its peeling walls, witches who feast on faces, changeling rites of passage, a venerable vampire contemplating his end, and a fanged brat who drains the patience of a bumbling teenage boy. Grades 9-Up
Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding
As Thaniel, a wych-hunter, and Cathaline, his friend and mentor, try to rid the alleys of London's Old Quarter of the terrible creatures that infest them, their lives become entwined with that of a woman who may be either mad or possessed. Grades 7-Up
The Hollow series by Christopher Golden
When a string of grisly decapitation murders occurs in the famed village of Sleepy Hollow, newcomers Aimee and Shane Lancaster suspect a supernatural killer. Grades 7-Up
The Horrors: Terrifying Tales by Peter Carver
Some of these stories explore the most traditional of horror themes - the visitation of vampires, fear of the dark corners of the basement - with a nod to that master of horror, Edgar Allen Poe. Others take readers into less familiar territory: the terror of a babysitter with a too-vivid imagination, the dangers of compulsive attention paid to a pet fighting-fish, the claustrophobia of a cruise ship where nasty plots abound, and the subtle tension between the discipline of intellect and the boisterous yearning of creativity as it is played out in the minds of teens. Grades 9-Up
The House on Hackman’s Hill by Joan Lowery Nixon
A $10,000 reward for a missing mummy lures cousins Jeff and Debbie into an old mansion. But a raging snow storm forces them to spend the night -- and an evil ancient spirit might not let them see the dawn. Grades 6-8
Immortal: Love Stories with Bite, ed. by P.C. Cast
Seven of today’s most popular YA vampire and contemporary fantasy authors offer new short stories that prove when you’re immortal, true love really is forever. Grades 9-Up
Jade Green by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
While living with her uncle in a house haunted by the ghost of a young woman, recently orphaned Judith Sparrow wonders if her one small transgression causes mysterious happenings. Grades 5-8
Lily’s Ghosts by Laura Ruby
Strange goings-on at her great-uncle's summer home in Cape May, New Jersey, draw Lily and a new friend into a mystery involving lost treasure, a fake medium, and ghosts of all sizes, shapes, and dispositions. Grades 5-8
Look for Me By Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn
While staying at the remote and reputedly haunted Maine inn run by her father and pregnant stepmother, sixteen-year-old Cynda feels increasingly isolated from her father's new family and finds solace in the attentions of a charming but mysterious guest. Grades 6-10
Marked by P.C. Cast
The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampyres have always existed. In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampire--that is, if she makes it through the Change. Grades 9-Up
Master of Murder by Christopher Pike
High-school senior Marvin is a bestselling author of teen fiction. When Marvin becomes caught in a web of mystery more complex and horrifying than any of his books, he realizes the tales he's spinning are all too frighteningly true. Grades 4-6
My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgewick
In the dangerous dark of winter in an Eastern European village during the early seventeenth century, Peter learns from a gypsy girl that the Shadow Queen is behind the recent murders and reanimations, and his father's secret past may hold the key to stopping them. Grades 9-Up
Night World by L.J. Smith
Presents a collection of novels about teenage girls who are drawn into the Night World, a dark society of vampires, witches, shapeshifters, and other dark creatures. Grades 9-Up
Over and Over You by Amy McAuley
After visiting a psychic, seventeen-year-old Penny begins having unsettling dreams about past lives in which she repeatedly causes the deaths of her best friend, Diana, and Diana's boyfriend, Rick. Grades 7-10
The Pack by Elisa Carbone
Becky is convinced that Akhil Vyas is the weirdest person on earth when he shows up in her English class. He refuses to sit in chairs, stares at her with spooky eyes, and has scar-covered skin. But soon Becky's revulsion turns to fascination. Suddenly Becky isn't sure what's more shocking-Akhil's secret, or the chilling reason why he must reveal it. Grades 6-9