Horror/ghost stories

Craven Manor: Daniel is desperate for a fresh start at life, so when someone slides a note under his door offering him the groundskeeper's position at an old estate, it seems too good to be true. Alarm bells start ringing when he arrives at Craven Manor. The mansion's front door hangs open, and leaves and cobwebs coat the marble foyer. It's clear no one has lived there in a long time...but he has nowhere else to go. Against his better judgment, he moves into the groundskeeper's cottage behind the crypt. But when a candle flickers to life in the abandoned tower window, Daniel realizes Craven Manor is hiding a terrible secret... one that threatens to bury him with it.  FIC COA

Liars' room:  Simon is a liar. Stella and Alex know this about their new stepbrother, so they aren't bothered by his stories about their new house. But Simon is getting harder and harder to ignore, as his cries for attention become increasingly dangerous and difficult to explain. Stella and Alex have to consider...could Simon actually be telling the truth? Will the three siblings be able to put aside their differences to save their family...before it's too late?  FIC POB

Vacancy:  When Jasmine moves to Gold River after her mother's death, she finds herself powerfully drawn to the Carlisle, an abandoned hotel on the edge of town. . . It's local tradition in Gold River for kids to try to stay a night in the Carlisle without being scared away. When Jasmine hears about this, she convinces her friends to join her. . . Only...The building isn't abandoned. There are plenty of people staying there--dead people. And once you walk into the hotel, they will do everything possible to stop you from checking out.  FIC ALE

Dark waters:  Stuck on a mysterious island, Ollie, Coco, and Brian must band together if they hope to escape the creature that haunts them on both land and sea.  (Book 3 in Small Spaces series)  FIC ARD

Ghost in the headlights:  When Brianna Jenson moves in with her uncle on Shadowrun Road, she doesn't expect to find herself in the center of a terrifying town legend. Every afternoon on her walk home from school, Brianna hears foot-steps-- but when she turns no is there. Then one terrifying night, a speeding car almost runs her over on the narrow country road! But when she looks past its blinding lights ... no one is driving.  FIC DUG

Thirteenth cat:  Unnerved by the overgrown forest near her aunt's house and the wild black cats that live there, Danni encounters a mean old woman who claims to be their owner and makes a discovery that places her life in danger.  FIC HAH

Red Rover:  When Amy sees a dog stranded on the side of the highway, she knows what she has to do. She tells her dad to stop the car. She can't understand why anyone would abandon a dog in such a way, tied up and blindfolded. Amy's parents say they'll only keep the dog until they can find it a permanent home. Amy's younger sister names the dog Rover. They take Rover into their house, their family. And once he's there...he doesn't want to leave. Amy loves dogs. But she starts to worry when strange things start happening in the house. Objects move. Lights go off. Accidents happen. Soon man's best friend has turned into Amy's worst nightmare. The problem isn't Rover's bark or his bite--it's even creepier than that. The dog's purpose is evil...and it's waiting to be unleashed.  FIC KRO

Ghost hunter's daughter: Claire doesn't believe in ghosts, even though her dad is a ghost hunter on TV. But then her dad disappears. And a strange boy in her class, Lucas, knows something about ghosts. One of them has a message for her: Her dad has been taken, and he's in grave danger. Together, Claire and Lucas set out for the town of Hush Falls, where her dad was last seen. Legend says that a tall man in a dark tattered coat lurks near the reservoir in town, and anyone who gets too lose to old Lemuel Hush is never heard from again. Claire and Lucas are determined to rescue Claire's father. But how can they save him from the ghost of Hush when everyone knows that seeing him means that you're destined to die. FIC POB

Coldest Girl in Coldtown: When seventeen-year-old Tana wakes up following a party, she finds herself in the aftermath of a violent vampire attack, and along with her ex-boyfriend and a mysterious vampire boy, the only other survivors, she travels to Coldtown, a quarantined Massachusetts city full of vampires.  FIC BLA

Forgotten girl:  When eleven-year-old Iris sneaks out at night to make snow angels, she was not expecting to raise the ghost of Avery Moore, a girl her own age; but bringing to light the segregated and abandoned black cemetery seems like the perfect way to help Avery get the recognition she craves, and it will also be a good idea for the school project about the history of her small North Carolina town, where racial tensions are never far from the surface--only it seems that if Avery gets everything she wants Iris will join her as a ghost, best friends forever. FIC BRO

Small spaces: After eleven-year-old Ollie's school bus mysteriously breaks down on a field trip, she has to take a trip through scary woods, and must use all of her wits to survive. She must stick to small spaces.  FIC ARD

City of Ghosts:  Ever since her near-fatal drowning, Cassidy has been able to pull back the "Veil" that separates the living from the dead and see ghosts, not that she wants to, and she was really looking forward to a ghost-free summer at the beach; however her parents are going to start filming a TV series about the world's most haunted places, starting with Edinburgh with its graveyards, castles, and restless phantoms--and Cass and her personal ghost companion, Jacob, are about to find out that a city of old ghosts can be a very dangerous place indeed. FIC SCH

Revenant: Willie, having accepted a teaching job at the Cherokee Female Seminary under the name of a classmate, begins to question her belief in ghosts and is forced to face her past when strange things start happening at the school and she hears students discussing the death of a girl who is rumored to haunt the room in which Willie is staying.  FIC GEN

Darkdeep:  Middle-schoolers Nico, Tyler, Ella, and Opal discover a hidden island in a forbidden cove that appears uninhabited, but something ancient has awakened knowing their wishes, dreams, and darkest secrets. FIC CON

Ghost Road:  For the first time, Ruth is heading to Newfoundland to stay with family she's never met instead of spending the summer traveling with her dad. Ruth's cousin Ruby is also staying for the summer, and the two discover they have a lot in common: they both lost their moms when they were two years old, they're the same age and they even like the same food. But while Ruby believes in spirits and fairies, Ruth believes in science and cold, hard facts. When they find ominous information on some tombstones in the local cemetery, Ruth and Ruby start investigating their family's past and discover that twin girls are born in every generation, and every set of twins dies young, leaving their children without mothers. What's more, one of the twins always has The Sight and can see the Ghost Road that leads to the mysterious lost settlement of Slippers Cove.  FIC COT

The girl in the locked room:  Told in two voices, Jules, whose father is restoring an abandoned house, and a girl who lived there a century before begin to communicate and slowly, the girl's tragic story is revealed.  FIC HAH

Book of bad things:  Although twelve-year-old Cassidy Bean keeps a book of bad things, she did not expect her summer with the Tremont family in rural New Jersey to be one of them--but this year Ursula, a local hoarder, has died under mysterious circumstances, and Cassidy finds that there are a great many bad and dangerous things hidden in her house, including, perhaps, her vengeful ghost.  FIC POB

How to hang a witch:  Follows fifteen-year-old Samantha Mather, who has moved to Salem with her stepmother 300 years after her family hanged witches there, to find she is ostracized by the witchdescendants at school, as she unravels the lost secrets of the hangings and her family.  FIC MAT

Secret Grave:  Hannah believes she has finally found a friend in Cady, but soon Cady is copying Hannah's style to be more like her and begging her to break her parents' rules and venture into the forbidden woods behind Hannah's home.  FIC RUB

Door to January:  In this paranormal thriller, sixteen-year-old Natalie Payson has had nightmares since moving away from Bernier, Maine, her hometown. She goes back to Bernier in summer to face up to the reason she left in the first place. There's also a boy she's trying hard not to trust.  FIC FRE

House of Furies:  Soon after Louisa runs away from boarding school, she is offered a position as a maid, but as she begins to see the distortion and lies coming from inside the house, she's not quite sure whom to trust. FIC ROU

Asylum:  Three teens at a summer program for gifted students uncover shocking secrets in the sanatorium-turned-dorm where they're staying--secrets that link them all to the asylum's dark past.  FIC ROU

School of the dead: Everybody has a weird uncle. No big deal, then, that Tony Gilbert's great-uncle Charlie is a bit weird. That is, until he moves in with Tony and his family. Sure, Uncle Charlie is strange - constantly talking about ghosts and spirits - but Tony considers him just an oddball, and anyway, he is fun. The two become best friends. So when Uncle Charlie dies, Tony is beside himself.  FIC AVI

Nightfall:  On a distant island where day and night exist on fourteen-year cycles, and the islanders migrate south each sunset, three children get left behind and must find a way off the island before the Night finds them.  FIC HAL

The Murk:  Seeking a rare flower that might cure her baby sister's illness, fourteen-year-old Piper Canfield, her brother Creeper, friend Tad, and two guides go to the heart of the Okefenokee Swamp, where great danger awaits.  FIC LET

Shadow House:  Poppy Caldwell is an orphan who keeps seeing a figure standing behind her in the mirror at the group home where she lives, but she does not associate this ghost with the letter that mysteriously appears in her file, claiming to be from a long-lost aunt, and inviting her to Larkspur House--and she is just one of five children who find themselves gathered in this strange house with a deadly past, and apparently no intention of letting the children escape.  FIC POB

Wait till Helen Comes:  Molly and Michael dislike their spooky new stepsister Heather but realize that they must try to save her when she seems ready to follow a ghost child to her doom.  FIC HAH

Haunting of Sunshine Girl:  ​Sixteen-year-old Sunshine Griffith and her mother Kat move from Austin, Texas to Ridgemont, Washington into a house where Sunshine is followed by an icy breeze, a phantom wind slams her bedroom shut, and on her first night she hears laughter that turns into sobs. With her mother in danger, Sunshine must accept what she is to save her.  FIC MCK

Forbidden:  In early 19th century England, Josie, 16, finds herself in a sinister place with mysterious, hostile people, including her own relatives. Persistence and determination drive her to uncover the town's horrifying secret despite obstacles natural and supernatural.  FIC BUN

House on Stone's Throw Island:  Josie Sandoval and Eli Barker are the youngest of the wedding guests trapped on an island off the coast of Maine when a storm blows in--but this island is haunted by spirits seeking revenge, and the only clue that Josie and Eli have is a scrap of an old Nazi uniform and a voice crying out for help in German. FIC POB

Compulsion:  After the death of her disfigured, shut-in mother, Barrie Watson moves to her aunt's South Carolina plantation, which is guarded by an ancient spirit who cursed one of the island's three founding families and gave the others magical gifts that become compulsions.  FIC BOO

Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall:  Sixteen-year-old Cordelia and her family move into the house they just inherited in Pennsylvania, a former insane asylum the locals call Hysteria Hall--unfortunately the house does not want defiant girls like Delia, so it kills her, and as she wanders the house, meeting the other ghosts and learning the dark secrets of the Hall, she realizes that she has to find a way to save her sister, parents, and perhaps herself. FIC ALE

The House:  ​Told in their separate voices, Gavin, a loner outcast, and Delilah, back in small-town Kansas after years at a Massachusetts boarding school, reconnect their senior year, but as their relationship deepens, it is clear that the eerie house Gavin dwells in will do anything to keep the two apart.  FIC LAU

Dead upon a time:  A sinister kidnapper is on the loose in Kate Hood's world, and when her grandmother disappears from her cottage in the woods, leaving behind tapestries showing the torments being inflicted on the victims, Kate knows she will have to find the witch responsible on her own--that is until the King's daughter is also kidnapped. FIC PAU

Ghost Prison:  Fifteen-year-old Billy guards a castle prison. But it isn't just criminals he'll be guarding--the ghosts of executed prisoners haunt the place, too.  FIC DEL

Took:  A witch called Old Auntie is lurking near Dan's family's new home. He doesn't believe in her at first, but is forced to accept that she is real and take action when his little sister, Erica, is 'took' to become Auntie's slave for the next fifty years. FIC HAH

Of Monsters and Madness: In 1820s Philadelphia, a girl finds herself in the midst of a rash of gruesome murders in which her father and his alluring assistant might be implicated.  FIC VER  (Book 1)

Silver:  When the students at Mortingham Boarding Academy find a group of strange, silvery beetles on school grounds they are excited, but when the beetles attack them and a mysterious virus starts spreading, a group of mismatched students must work together to survive.  FIC WOO

Spider Ring:  Inheriting a spider-shaped ring from her grandmother, Maria discovers that she possesses a very useful ability to communicate with and control spiders before catching the attention of the magic-hungry 'Black Widow'. FIC HAR

Ghost HouseChloe Kennedy, who is dealing with the loss of her mother and seeing the same ghost that haunted her as a young girl, finds an escape in her grandmother's country estate, but when Alexander Reade who is 157 years dead, appears to her and they begin to become close, they awaken Alexander's past love, Isobel, a vengeful spirit, who will do anything to keep Alexander to herself.  FIC ADO

Sweet Unrest: When seventeen-year-old Lucy Aimes moves to New Orleans and meets Alex, a boy who behaves as if they've known each other forever, she becomes caught up in a centuries-old vendetta.  FIC MAX

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer:  Sam leads a pretty normal life. He may not have the most exciting job in the world, but he’s doing all right—until a fast food prank brings him to the attention of Douglas, a creepy guy with an intense violent streak.  Turns out Douglas is a necromancer who raises the dead for cash and sees potential in Sam. Then Sam discovers he’s a necromancer too, but with strangely latent powers. And his worst nightmare wants to join forces . . . or else.   FIC MCB

Dark Between:  Three teenagers in Victorian-era Cambridge spend the summer at a local college and soon discover that their hosts, the Metaphysical Society, may be conducting sinister experiments in an attempt to communicate with the dead.  FIC GEN

Something Strange and Deadly:  In an alternate nineteenth-century Philadelphia, Eleanor Fitt sets out to rescue her brother, who seems to have been captured by an evil necromancer in control of an army of Undead.  FIC DEN

Haunting of Gabriel Ashe:  Since eighth-grader Gabriel Ashe moved into his grandmother's house he has been spending a lot of time playing in the woods with his new friend Seth, but the games Seth invents involve a child-eating monster called the Hunter, and Gabriel is no longer sure how much is imagination and how much is real.  FIC POB

Dead and Buried:  New student Jade uncovers a murder mystery when she moves into a house haunted by the ghost of a beautiful, mean girl who ruled Jade's high school.  FIC HAR

Beyond:  Everyone thinks seventeen-year-old Jane has attempted suicide more than once, but Jane knows the truth: her shadow is trying to kill her.  FIC MCN

The Witching Game (Deadtime stories series):  When Lindsey and her friends play the wishing game "Bloody Mary" in front of a strange antique mirror, one by one their wishes start coming true, with horrifying results.  FIC CAS

Haunting Violet:  Sixteen-year-old Violet Willoughby has been part of her mother's Spiritualist scam since she was nine, but during an 1872 house party in Hampshire, England, she is horrified to learn that she can actually see ghosts, one of whom wants Violet to solve her murder.  FIC HAR

Dead of Winter:  In Victorian England an orphaned boy goes to stay with his strange guardian in a desolate, moated manor house during a cold and snowy Christmas, where he soon realizes that the house and its grounds harbor many secrets, dead and alive.  FIC PRI

Ghost of Graylock:  Staying with their aunts over the summer, Neil Cady, his sister Bree, and their new friends Wesley and Eric, set out to explore Greylock Hall, an abandoned psychiatric hospital which is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of Nurse Janet.  FIC POB

The Hallowed Ones:  Amish teen Katie smuggles a gravely injured young man, an outsider, into her family's barn despite the elders' ruling that no one can come in or out of the community while some mysterious and massive unrest is wreaking havoc in the "English" world.  FIC BIC

Ghosts of the Titanic:  Kevin and his family travel to Halifax after inheriting a home from a man they have never met, and, while exploring the estate, Kevin discovers some mysterious artifacts that transport him back in time to the deck of the "Titanic," where he races to save a young woman and her child from a tragic ending.  FIC LAW

Dollhouse Murders:  A dollhouse filled with a ghostly light in the middle of the night, and dolls that have moved from where she last left them, lead Amy and her mentally handicapped sister to unravel the mystery surrounding grisly murders that took place years ago.  FIC WRI

Daemon Hall:  Famous horror story writer R. U. Tremblin comes to the town of Maplewood to hold a short story writing contest, offering the five finalists the chance to spend what turns out to be a terrifying--and deadly--night with him in a haunted house.  FIC NAN

Christina's Ghost:  Christina's summer in a spooky, isolated Victorian house with her grumpy uncle turns into a ghostly adventure.  FIC WRI

Vampire Crush:  Sixteen-year-old journalist Sophie McGee finds her junior year filled with the unexpected as a strange, new group of students show up adorned in nineteenth-century clothing and eager to stay at school until sundown, and James Hallowell, the boy from her childhood who teased her endlessly, comes back into her life.  FIC ROB

Nightmarys:  Seventh-grader Timothy July and his new friend Abigail try to break a curse that is causing them and others to be tormented by their greatest fears brought to life.  FIC POB

DeceptionWhen seventeen-year-old Emma's antique-collector parents vanish and her brother's college roommate shows up to become her guardian, he takes her from San Francisco to Boston, where she discovers that she is a powerful "ghostkeeper," which both explains troubling incidents from her past and presents difficult new dilemmas.  (Haunting Emma series)  FIC NIC

Dark Souls:  Miranda Tennant, hiding a tragic secret, hopes to lose herself in York, England, and avoid the ghosts said to haunt the quaint city, and meeting Nick, a mysterious and intense boy, proves a welcome distraction until her interest is captured by another, even more handsome boy, in a house across from hers, who seems to be trying to give her a message.  FIC MOR

Vampire Plagues : Jack Harkett meets Benedict Cole, a stowaway on a mysterious ship that sails into a London port, and they find themselves on the same side of deadly battle.  (series) FIC ROO

The Dead Boys:  Timid twelve-year-old Teddy Mathews and his mother move to a small, remote desert town in eastern Washington, where the tree next door, mutated by nuclear waste, eats children and the friends Teddy makes turn out to be dead.  FIC BUC

Locked in Time : Nore arrives at her stepmother's Louisiana plantation to find her new family odd and an aura of evil and mystery about the place.  FIC DUN

The Old Willis Place : Tired of the rules that have bound them ever since "the bad thing happened," twelve-year-old Diana ignores her brother's warnings and befriends the daughter of the new caretaker, setting in motion events that lead to the release of the spirit of an evil, crazy woman who once ruled the old Willis place.  FIC HAH

Sweet Miss Honeywell's Revenge : Just before her mother is to remarry and her stepfamily is set to move in, twelve-year-old Zibby gradually realizes that her antique dollhouse is haunted by ghosts, one of whom is out for revenge.� FIC REI

All the Lovely Bad Ones : Travis and his sister Corey decide to boost business at their grandmother's Vermont inn by staging a few "hauntings" that soon draw tourists from across the country, but when their antics awaken a dark force, they must find a way to put to rest the ghosts they have disturbed.  FIC HAH

Jade Green : 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.  FIC NAY

The Doll in the Garden : After Ashley and Kristi find an antique doll buried in old Miss Cooper's garden, they discover that they can enter a ghostly turn-of-the-century world by going through a hole in the hedge.  FIC HAH

Breathe: a ghost story : 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, malevolent spirit that threatens to destroy both his mother and himself.  FIC MCN

Lily Dale: Awakening : When seventeen-year-old Calla’s mother suddenly dies, she goes to stay with her psychic grandmother in Lily Dale, a spiritualist community in western New York, where she discovers some disconcerting secrets about her practical, down-to-earth mother, and realizes that she herself may also have some psychic abilities.  (series)  FIC STA

Shadowed Summer:  In the small town of Ondine, Louisiana, fourteen-year-old Iris uncovers family secrets when she conjures up the ghost of a boy missing for decades and decides to solve the mystery of his disappearance.  FIC MIT

Pemba's Song - a ghost story:  As fifteen-year-old Pemba adjusts to leaving her Brooklyn, New York, home for small-town Connecticut, a history researcher helps her understand the paranormal experiences drawing her into the life of a girl who was once a slave in her house.  FIC HEG

Night Wings:  After being taken captive by a band of treasure seekers, thirteen-year-old Paul and his Abenaki grandfather must face a legendary Native American monster at the top of Mount Washington.  FIC BRU

Ruined:  Rebecca moves to New Orleans to stay with her aunt in a scary old house while her father is traveling, and while most kids at school treat her poorly, a mysterious girl named Lisette shows her the hidden nooks of the city and reveals shocking truths about Rebecca's own history.  FIC MOR

Killer Pizza:  While working as summer employees in a local pizza parlor, three teenagers are recruited by an underground organization of monster hunters.  (series) FIC TAY

The Ghost's Grave:  Apprehensive about spending the summer in Washington State with his Aunt Ethel when his parents get an overseas job, twelve-year-old Josh soon finds adventure when he meets the ghost of a coal miner.  FIC KEH

Distant Waves:  Four sisters embark on the journey of their lives aboard the Titanic.  One is getting married, one is involved in scientific intrigue that could alter history.  All feel out of place and at least one may soon find herself out of time.  FIC WEY

Hunt for the Seventh:  With every step he takes around Minerva Hall, Jim is haunted by the ghosts of children, long dead, whom no one else can see.  Urging him to "find the seventh," the children leave him cryptic clues pointing to a devastating ancient prophecy that only he can stop from being fulfilled.  FIC MOR

The Haunting of Derek Stone series:  City of the Dead, Bayou Dogs, The Red House, & The Ghost Road:  When Derek, his father, and brother, Ronny, are involved in a horrific train wreck, he begins hearing the dead.  Now the dead are after him and he must find a way to defeat the Legion before the dead take over the world.   FIC ABB

Bad Girls Don't Die:  When fifteen-year-old Lexi's younger sister Kasey begins behaving strangely and their old Victorian house seems to take on a life of its own, Lexi investigates and discovers some frightening facts about previous occupants of the house, leading her to believe that many lives are in danger.  (series) FIC ALE

From Bad to Cursed (Bad  Girls Don't Die series):  After taking an oath to a seemingly benevolent spirit, a high school girl finds herself changing in frightening ways.  FIC ALE

Past Midnight:  Charlotte Silver has always been skeptical of her parents' experiences on their ghost-hunting reality television show, but after a research trip to Charleston, Charlotte is tormented by angry spirits who want her to help them reconnect with the physical world.  (series) FIC PUR

Morpheus Road-the light:  Sixteen-year-old Marshall Seaver is expecting a boring summer when his best friend goes away, but instead he finds himself haunted--and hunted--by ghosts that want something from him which he cannot decipher.  (series) FIC MAC

Three Quarters Dead:  Kerry, a member of one of the coolest cliques at school, believes her popular days are over when three of the group are killed in an automobile accident, so she can hardly believe it is possible when she receives a text saying the girls are alive and want her to meet them in the city.  FIC PEC

Ghost of Crutchfield Hall:  In the nineteenth century, ten-year-old Florence Crutchfield leaves a London orphanage to live with her great-uncle, great-aunt, and sickly cousin James, but she soon realizes the home has another resident, who means to do her and James harm.  FIC HAH

Picture the Dead:  A young woman communicates with her brother who died in 1864 in order to find out what happened to her fiance, Will, whom the army said died in battle; and with the help of a spiritualist photographer and the spirit of Will, she attempts to piece together the mystery of what happened.  FIC GRI

Prince of Mist:  Max and Alicia Carver enlist the help of their friend Roland to explore the circumstances surrounding the mysterious haunting of a spirit named Jacob, the previous owner's son who drowned; but their search uncovers a sinister character who returns from beyond in order to collect a debt from the past.  (series) FIC RUI

First Kill (Slayer Chronicles):  The summer before ninth grade, when Joss sets off to meet his uncle and hunt down the beast that murdered his younger sister three years earlier, he learns he is destined to join the Slayer Society.  FIC BRE