Adult Horror Thriller

Fed up with her wild behavior, 16-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business. She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next.

A host of the smartest young adult authors come together in this collection of scary stories and psychological thrillers curated by Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea's April Genevieve Tucholke. Each story draws from a classic tale or two - sometimes of the horror genre, sometimes not - to inspire something new and fresh and terrifying. There are no superficial scares here; these are stories that will make you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat.

Brooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream. A terrifying tale in the tradition of Carrie and The Exorcist.

Ricky Desmond has been through this all before. If he could just get through to his mother, he could convince her that he doesn't belong at Brookline. From the man who thinks he can fly to the woman who killed her husband, the other patients are nothing like him; all he did was lose his temper just a little bit, just the once. But when Ricky is selected by the sinister Warden Crawford for a very special program - a program that the warden claims will not cure him but perfect him - Ricky realizes that he may not be able to wait for his mom a second longer.

Thrown into solitary confinement for his failed escape attempt from furnace prison, Alex Sawyer struggles not to let the hellish pitch-black silence overwhelm him. Before another escape attempt is even possible, he must first survive the nightmare that now haunts his endless nights. Because the hole doesn’t need monsters to do its dirty work — not the usual brutes in black suits and their silver-eyed, fleshless hounds, or wheezing freaks with filthy syringes.

Stunned by the loss of her sister, Ryan determines to keep the secret they shared right before Marissa died. But Ryan soon finds herself caught in a web of growing terror as a series of "coincidences" make Ryan doubt her own sanity. Can she discover the truth before she shares her sister's fate?

It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into the light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road....

No phones. No internet. No social media at all. That's what it's going to take to finally get serious about school and focus on exams. Noah, Jaye, and Ella even rented a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere so they won't get distracted. After that, everything can go back to normal. But they aren't alone. Someone is watching them from the forest. Someone who knows their secrets. Someone who wants revenge. And things will never be the same again.

It's the summer before her 16th birthday, and Sabrina Spellman knows her world is about to change. She's always studied magic and spells with her aunts, Hilda and Zelda. But she's also lived a normal mortal life - attending Baxter High, hanging out with her friends Susie and Roz, and going to the movies with her boyfriend, Harvey Kinkle.

You have been given access to secret files buried deep within the archives. Disturbing stories never meant for the light of day. Stories of evil grandparents and unsettling homework. A string of deaths, seemingly unrelated. Walls squirm, as if alive. A cursed wish comes true. Ordinary people behave oddly, even family and your closest friends. These stories share a common fate. All the children are met with tragedy. Coincidence? Or could these nightmares be connected by something more sinister than you dare to imagine? A dark and chilling mystery awaits.

Two sisters, divided by time. Each with a terrible resentment she can barely contain. Two Fear family weddings, decades apart.... Each bride will find that the ancient curse that haunts the Fears lives on. It feeds off the evil that courses through their blood. It takes its toll in unexpected ways, and allows dark history to repeat itself.

Jay is living his best life at Karloff Country, one of the world's most famous resorts. He's got his family, his crew, and an incredible after-school job at the property's main theme park. Life isn't so great for the rest of the world, but when people come here to vacation, it's to get away from all that. As things outside get worse, trouble starts seeping into Karloff. First, Jay's friend Connie and her family disappear in the middle of the night and no one will talk about it. Then the richest and most powerful families start arriving, only... they aren't leaving.

When Stefan Salvatore's first love turned him into a vampire, his world - and his soul - were destroyed. Now he and his brother, Damon, must flee their hometown, where they risk being discovered...and killed. The brothers head to New Orleans, looking for safe haven. But the city is more dangerous than they ever imagined, full of other vampires and vampire hunters. Will Stefan's eternal life be forever damned?

It's Darcy Thomas' summer home: the Dungeon of Horrors, owned by Jake, the gorgeous green-eyed uncle she's just met. But the gory fun turns to terror when real bodies are found with the mark of a vampire on their throats - and Darcy is targeted as the next victim.

All Bram wanted was to disappear - from her old life, her family's past, and from the scandal that continues to haunt her. The only place left to go is Louth, the tiny town on the Hudson River where her uncle, James, has been renovating an old mansion. But James is haunted by his own ghosts. Months earlier, his beloved wife died in a fire that people say was set by her daughter. The tragedy left James a shell of the man Bram knew - and destroyed half the house he'd so lovingly restored. The manor is creepy, and so are the locals.

If you move around enough, every new school starts to look the same. But it doesn’t take an hour for Marlee Fleming to realize that Edison, Missouri, has a sinister secret. There’s something strange about Marlee, a power she doesn’t quite understand. Certain objects make her hear and see things no one else can. This power makes her feel sick, and she wishes she knew how to make it stop. But when she opens her new locker on her first day in Edison, she hears screaming so loud she nearly passes out.

Two years ago, four friends went into the abandoned religious reform school Dominic House. Only three came out. Riley still bears horrific scars from that night. He doesn’t speak to his friends anymore. And he’s haunted by the truth: Riley’s boyfriend, Ethan, didn’t disappear...Something in that house took him. Now, alongside TV’s most famous ghost hunter, Jordan Jones, Riley is returning, determined to find out what happened to Ethan.

Thunder bellows as Jenny and her father pull up to the gate of Worthington Hall. As they inch onto the grounds of the ancient estate, a disheveled young woman thrusts her head through the open window. "Leave!" she yells. "Before it's too late! He'll kill you. I swear." Jenny is terrified, but her dad laughs it off. The girl is just an actress - part of the medieval fair being held on the castle grounds. But it's not long before Jenny wishes they'd heeded the warning.

Alex's second attempt to break out has failed. This time his punishment will be much worse than before. Because in the hidden, bloodstained laboratories beneath the prison, he will be made into a monster. As the warden pumps something evil into his veins - a sinisterly dark nectar - Alex becomes what he most fears: a superpowered minion of Furnace. How can he escape when the darkness is inside him?

It's never been safe for Fern, Jaq, or Mallory to come out to their families. As kids their emerging identities drove them into friendship but also forced them into the woods to hide in an old, abandoned house when they needed safety. But one night when the girls sought refuge, Mallory never made it back home. Fern and Jaq did, but neither survivor remembered what happened or the secrets they were so desperate to keep. Five years later, a spirit who looks like Mallory begins to appear, seeking revenge for her death, and the part Fern and Jaq played in it.