Haunted Houses for Young Adults Book List

Can't wait until Halloween to read a scary book? Then check out this book list...




1) "Amber House" by Kelly Moore

A deliciously creepy beginning to a projected trilogy.

As 16-year-old Seattle native Sarah Parsons arrives at her maternal grandmother's funeral, she learns that her family's historic Maryland home, Amber House, has more than its fair share of secrets, having housed her lineage for more than 10 generations. Sarah and her 5-year-old brother, Sammy, feel an immediate connection with the house, and she discovers that she can feel echoes of the past, seeing visions of her ancestors—both good and bad. Predictably, there is the requisite love triangle between Sarah and Richard, a dashing senator's son, and Jackson, the quiet, down-to-earth son of her late grandmother's nurse, and it is quickly obvious who is the right admirer for her. What is truly novel is the spin that the Reed sisters and Moore, their mother, give the direction of the romance, setting this apart from many of the cardboard triangles found in the genre. Those who think that this is a straightforward ghost story will be sorely mistaken: This is a complex, layered tale that bends time and imagination, demanding to be read with all the lights on. Move over Bella Swan: Sarah is a strong, admirable character who’d rather speak her mind than sulk and sigh over some hot guy.

Richly woven, with depth and swift plotting that will leave readers clamoring for the sequels.(Horror/romance. 13 & up)

County Cat

2) "Anna Dressed in Blood" by Kendare Blake

Life can get tough for a boy who kills ghosts.

Teeth-chattering suspense and suppressed chuckles might attack readers in this superior black comedy/adventure. Theseus Cassio Lowood has inherited his father’s athame, a magical knife that can slice and dice ghosts to bits. He only kills ghosts who kill humans, but plenty of those lurk everywhere, forcing Cas and his white-witch mother to move constantly. When he answers a call to dispatch Anna, a ghost that’s brutally dismembered dozens of ill-fated folks who stepped into her house, for the first time Cas makes some friends. These help him until one steals the athame, an unfortunate choice. Meanwhile, Cas learns that Anna won’t kill him, so he enlists her aid in tracking down the voodoo spirit that literally ate his father. Blake populates the story with a nice mixture of personalities, including Anna, and spices it with plenty of gallows humor, all the while keeping the suspense pounding. The comedy works even better when juxtaposed against serious suspense, as Cas quips such lines as “I hate it when they don’t have eyes.” Matter-of-fact Anna leavens the comedy even as the suspense boils into terror. (Don't go in the basement.)

Abundantly original, marvelously inventive and enormous fun, this can stand alongside the best horror fiction out there. We demand sequels. (Paranormal adventure. 12 & up)

County Cat

3) "Bad Girls Don't Die" by Katie Alender

A nasty ghost, a photography-savvy teen and her stressed, uncommunicative family form the backbone of this all-too-predictable, though at times engaging, mystery. Pink-haired high-school misfit Alexis has built up a shield of disdain to the point that she is essentially friendless. Her parents are so self-absorbed they haven’t noticed that their younger daughter, Kasey, is exhibiting increasingly bizarre behavior, including an obsession with dolls that has alienated her peers. Worried that her sibling is going mad, Alexis is moved to accept the help of two unlikely candidates—an unflappable cutie who continues his pursuit of her despite her initial rebuff and a cheerleader who has recognized that Kasey’s oddness is not mental illness, but a case of supernatural possession. Strong characterization will draw readers in. Despite their realistic shortcomings, both primary and secondary characters are unique and satisfyingly complex. The plotting, however, is less effective. A selection of horror tropes—from spooky dolls to small-town secrets—fails to come to life, and the final healing of rifts in the girls’ family seems contrived.(Supernatural thriller. 13 & up)

County Cat

4) "The Ghost Sitter" by Peni R. Griffin

Griffin’s (Switching Well, 1993, etc.) worthy ghost story of the lost spirit of a ten-year-old is as thought-provoking as it is goosebump-inducing. Susie has been dead for 50 years but doesn’t know it. She vaguely remembers promising her little sister, Gloria, that she would never go away, and she feels bound by this vow even though Gloria and her parents have long since moved. While Susie awaits their return, a family has moved into the house she occupies. The new family includes Charlotte, Brandon, her toddler brother, and their parents. Susie feels compelled to help out with the babysitting by singing and playing with Brandon, who very much enjoys her company while everyone else, Susie feels, rudely acts as though she doesn’t exist. With the help of neighborhood legend and some odd occurrences Charlotte is soon given to understand that her house is haunted. The story moves along interestingly as Charlotte overcomes her fear in order to help Susie move on. This diverges from the average ghost story by giving dimension to Susie’s ghostliness. Trapped between then and now, life and death, Susie’s existence is a constant struggle. She must use great quantities of energy to concentrate as ideas and memories waft away like vapor and she is further frustrated that her attempts to communicate go unnoticed by most. This is entertaining fiction that doesn’t for a moment sacrifice solid writing for plot. (Fiction. 8-12)

County Cat

5) "Frost" by Marianna Baer

Boarding school turns from magical to deadly in this debut.

After discovering Frost House, the shabby-chic Victorian hidden on the edge of campus, and convincing the dean to let her and her best friends room in it, Leena returns to start senior year of Barcroft (a quintessential New England prep school) with an unexpected roommate, eccentric Celeste. When not photographing dead beetles, Celeste tries to cover up unexplained events at Frost, from a closet that smells like death to bruises all over her body. Instead of the idyllic year Leena planned, she begins hiding out in her own closet when she sinks into anxiety and experiences her own strange occurrences. After Leena dates Celeste’s older brother, David, who took a year off to care for their father, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder, the roommates, both vying for David’s attention, initiate cat-and-mouse games. It’s up to readers to figure out who—or what—is causing all the mental instability in Frost House among the plot twists and turns. Baer has a knack for dialogue and creating creepy situations that will intrigue teens. But because the story line is rather repetitive and drawn out, the surprise ending makes more of a whimper than a bang.

For those fans of Gail Giles and Nancy Werlin who don’t mind thrillers with a slower pace.(Thriller. 13 & up)

County Cat

6) "Daemon Hall" by Andrew Nance

Famous author Ian Tremblin has chosen five teenagers to spend the night in his haunted mansion. The young aspiring writers and Tremblin will tell each other horror stories all night, and Tremblin will select the best storyteller, who will have a horror novel published. The motley crew of young writers is a veritable Breakfast Club lineup: Chris, the unexpectedly sensitive jock; Chelsea, the freaky Goth girl; Kara, the shy girl who doesn’t like horror; Demarius, the black adolescent whose main personality trait is being less dysfunctional than the others; and Wade, the panic-attack–plagued narrator. As the night progresses, the teens learn that spending the night in a haunted house is not as easy as they might have suspected. The short stories Tremblin and his protégés tell are of indifferent quality, appropriate as campfire tales more than short stories. The framing narrative, however, builds predictable but enjoyable tension as the characters’ fear and danger grow. An unexpectedly optimistic ending concludes this gentle horror tale. (Fiction. 12-14)

County Cat

7) "The Fall" by Bethany Griffin

A girl struggles to fight the haunted family house that binds her to it in this reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

Madeline and her brother, Roderick, come from a long line of Ushers cursed to live and die within the haunted walls of the House of Usher. Beloved by the house itself, Madeline can sense its feelings and for a long while trusts it to protect her. However, just like her mother before her, Madeline begins suffering fits. The house will do anything to keep her from leaving. And with her brother away at school and only sinister doctors remaining for company, Madeline must plot to escape before the house has its way with her, keeping her trapped forever. Griffin creates a thick, murky atmosphere within the walls of the House of Usher from the start, layering in chilling details as Madeline’s situation becomes ever more dire. Though only appearing intermittently, Roderick and her parents all cast long shadows, and the house is populated with compelling characters among the ghosts of Ushers past. Readers will be swept away immediately by the eerie setting, but it’s Madeline’s fighting will to survive that will keep them turning pages late into the night.

A standout take on the classic haunted-house tale replete with surprises around every shadowy corner. (Fantasy. 14-18)

County Cat