| Horror recommendations |
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Wicked
by Nancy Holder |
| Holly Cathers’s world shatters when her parents are killed in a rafting accident. She is wrenched from her home in San Francisco and sent to Seattle to live with her aunt, Marie-Claire, and her twin cousins, Amanda and Nicole.
But sorrow and grief soon give way to bewildered fascination as one by one, strange incidents begin to occur.
Holly, Amanda, and Nicole are about to be launched into a dark legacy of secrets, alliances, and machinations, where ancient magics yield dangerous results, where possession is commonplace, and where reincarnation is taken for granted -- and the three girls must take on roles in an intergenerational feud the likes of which they could never have imagined.... (Amazon.com product description) |
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City of the Dead
by Tony Abbott |
| Could the road to the afterlife be a two-way street?
Derek Stone just turned fourteen. He’s lived in the heart of New Orleans with his dad and older brother, Ronny, his whole life. He’s a little overweight. He can’t hear well out of his left ear.
Oh, and he’s on the run from the dead.
Derek never imagined that the dead could be anything but dead. But there’s no denying it. They’re back—and they’re after him.
He just doesn’t know why.
And he doesn’t have long to figure it out. (Amazon.com product description) |
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The Parliament of Blood
by Justin Richards |
| George Archer, Liz Oldfield and Eddie Hopkins have made a rather unfortunate discovery: vampires actually exist, and they really do feed on human blood. Using an underground labyrinth of tunnels beneath Victorian London, these sinister creatures intend on destroying the human race, and they’ll start by taking over the most powerful place in London: the House of Parliament. Through their research on ancient mysteries and a secret London Gentlemen’s Club, George, Liz and Eddie come up with a plan to beat the vampires at their own game. And they better do it soon, before they become the vampires’ next meal . . . (Amazon.com product description) |
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Bad Girls Don’t Die
by Katie Alender |
| Alexis thought she led a typically dysfunctional high school existence. Dysfunctional like her parents’ marriage; her doll-crazy twelve-year-old sister, Kasey; and even her own anti-social, anti-cheerleader attitude.
When a family fight results in some tearful sisterly bonding, Alexis realizes that her life is creeping from dysfunction into danger. Kasey is acting stranger than ever, and their old house is changing, too. Doors open and close by themselves; water boils on the unlit stove; and an unplugged air conditioner turns the house cold enough to see their breath in. Alexis wants to think that it’s all in her head, but soon, what she liked to think of as silly parlor tricks are becoming life-threatening. Alexis knows she’s the only person who can stop Kasey—but what if that green-eyed girl isn’t even Kasey anymore? (Amazon.com product description) |
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Stargazer
by Claudia Gray |
| Evernight Academy: an exclusive boarding school for the most beautiful, dangerous students of all—vampires. Bianca, born to two vampires, has always been told her destiny is to become one of them. But Bianca fell in love with Lucas—a vampire hunter sworn to destroy her kind. Although they may be separated, Bianca and Lucas will not give each other up. She will risk anything for the chance to see him again, even if it means coming face-to-face with the vampire hunters of Black Cross—or deceiving the powerful vampires of Evernight. Bianca’s secrets will force her to live a life of lies. Yet Bianca isn’t the only one keeping secrets. When Evernight is attacked by an evil force that seems to target her, she discovers the truth she thought she knew is only the beginning. . . (Amazon.com product description)
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Evernight
by Claudia Gray |
| Bianca wants to escape. At the eerily Gothic Evernight Academy, the other students are sleek, smart, and almost predatory. Bianca knows she doesn’t fit in. When she meets handsome, brooding Lucas, he warns her to be careful—even when it comes to caring about him. But the connection between them can’t be denied. Bianca will risk anything to be with Lucas, but dark secrets are fated to tear them apart . . . and to make Bianca question everything she’s ever believed. (Amazon.com product description)
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The Awakening
by Kelley Armstrong |
| If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl—someone normal. Now my life has changed forever and I'm as far away from normal as it gets. A living science experiment—not only can I see ghosts, but I was genetically altered by a sinister organization called the Edison Group. What does that mean? For starters, I'm a teenage necromancer whose powers are out of control; I raise the dead without even trying. Trust me, that is not a power you want to have. Ever.
Now I'm running for my life with three of my supernatural friends—a charming sorcerer, a cynical werewolf, and a disgruntled witch—and we have to find someone who can help us before the Edison Group finds us first. Or die trying. (Amazon.com product description) |
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The Summoning
by Kelley Armstrong |
| My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.
All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don’t even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost—and the ghost saw me.
Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won’t leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a “special home” for troubled teens. Yet the home isn’t what it seems. Don’t tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It’s up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House . . . before its skeletons come back to haunt me. (Amazon.com product description) |
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Twilight (and others in the series)
by Stephenie Meyer |
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| Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward’s sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst. (Amazon.com product description) |
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House of Night series
by P.C. & Kristin Cast |
| Book 1: Marked. 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. It’s tough to begin a new life, away from her parents and friends, and on top of that, Zoey finds she is no average fledgling. She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess, Nyx. When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school’s most elite club, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny. (Amazon.com product description)
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Cirque Du Freak series
by Darren Shan |
| In the tradition of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, Cirque Du Freak is the frightening saga of a young boy whose visit to a mysterious freak show leads him on a journey into a dark world of vampires. Filled with grotesque creatures, murderous vampires, and a petrifying ending, Cirque Du Freak will chill, thrill, and leave readers begging for more. (Amazon.com product description) |
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Eternal
by Cynthia Leitich Smith |
| At last, Miranda is the life of the party: all she had to do was die. Elevated and adopted by none other than the reigning King of the Mantle of Dracul, Miranda goes from high-school theater wannabe to glamorous royal fiend overnight. Meanwhile, her reckless and adoring guardian angel, Zachary, demoted to human guise as the princess’s personal assistant, has his work cut out for him trying to save his girl’s soul and plan the Master’s fast-approaching Death Day gala. In alternating points of view, Miranda and Zachary navigate a cut-throat eternal aristocracy as they play out a dangerous and darkly hilarious love story for the ages. (Amazon.com product description) |
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The Devouring
by Simon Holt |
| “When dark creeps in and eats the light,
Bury your fears on Sorry Night.
For in the winter's blackest hours,
Comes the feasting of the Vours,
No one can see it, the life they stole,
Your body’s here but not your soul...” THE VOURS: Evil, demonic beings that inhabit human bodies on Sorry Night, 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 fears before they devour her? (Amazon.com product description) |
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Blue Bloods series
by Melissa De La Cruz |
| Schuyler Van Alen is confused about what is happening to her. Her veins are starting to turn blue, and she’s starting to crave raw meat. Soon, her world is thrust into an intricate maze of secret societies and bitter intrigue. Schuyler has never been a part of the trendy crowd at her prestigious New York private school. Now, all of a sudden, Jack Force, the most popular guy in school, is showing an interest in her. And when one of the popular girls is found dead, Schuyler and Jack are determined to get to the bottom of it. Schuyler wants to find out the secrets of the mysterious Blue Bloods. But is she putting herself in danger? (Amazon.com product description) |
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Vampire Academy series
by Richelle Mead |
| St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger. . . .
Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever. (Amazon.com product description) |
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The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman |
| Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.
He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.
There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy—an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.
But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod’s family. . . . (Amazon.com product description) |
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City of Bones (and others in the series)
by Cassandra Clare |
| When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder. Clary knows she should call the police, but it’s hard to explain a murder when the body disappears into thin air and the murderers are invisible to everyone but Clary. The murderers explain themselves as Shadowhunters: a secret tribe of warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. Within twenty-four hours, Clary’s mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a grotesque demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know.... (Amazon.com product description) |