Scary Mysteries For Teens

At 16, Ronald Earl is no longer the boy-wonder preacher known to the faithful as Little Texas. But on the tent-revival circuit, his adoring followers still roar and praise his name. Another small town, another revival, and the same girl appears in that same blue dress. A day later, on the fringe of the believers - a flash of blue. Is she just another of the grateful and devoted? Or is she something else? And is she not following but haunting him?

Anne Green can't move a muscle, can't open her eyes, can't scream. She lies paralyzed in absolute darkness, terrified by her final memory - being hanged. Is she in purgatory? Hell? Was she buried alive? An innocent woman caught up in a nightmare, Anne Green is trapped with her racing thoughts, her burning need to revisit the events - and the man - that led her to the scaffold.

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.

It's senior year at St. Joan's Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys' texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can't. First it's the school's queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: Seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan's buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Gilda Joyce is a zany 13-year-old psychic who's always trying to contact her dead father. But while visiting relatives in San Francisco, she encounters a different ghost.

Acclaimed author Jennifer Allison's Gilda Joyce: Psychic Investigator was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. In this sequel, 13-year-old psychic investigator Gilda is not happy about the scholarship she won to attend Our Lady of Sorrows private school. Time to wear a uniform and hang out with a bunch of debutantes, she figures. But then Gilda learns a drowned student's ghost may be haunting the grounds. Now it's time to investigate!

Shortly before Halloween, Lucely and her best friend, Syd, cast a spell that accidentally awakens malicious spirits, wreaking havoc throughout St. Augustine. Together, they must join forces with Syd's witch grandmother, Babette, and her tubby tabby, Chunk, to fight the haunting head-on and reverse the curse to save the town and Lucely's firefly spirits before it's too late.

Harper doesn’t trust her new home from the moment she steps inside, and the rumors are that the Raine family’s new house is haunted. Harper isn’t sure she believes those rumors, until her younger brother, Michael, starts acting strangely. The whole atmosphere gives Harper a sense of déjà vu, but she can’t remember why. She knows that the memories she’s blocking will help make sense of her brother’s behavior and the strange and threatening sensations she feels in this house, but will she be able to put the pieces together in time?

Working at the mall is supposed to be fun. Trish’s job at Muffin-Mania is hardly intellectually challenging and her boss is a piece of work, but it’s worth it to have a job in the same building as her two best friends, the Hanson twins. And the hot guys who hang out there are an added bonus. But something isn’t right about this mall. It’s the oldest mall in the state, remodeled over a dozen times without rhyme or reason, and there are many strange nooks and secret passages behind the bright gleaming storefronts. Someone has been stealing housewares, furniture, and food, and now a mysterious man with ash-gray hair and a whisper-soft voice has started harassing Trish on the phone.

When the old woman died, she left her grandchild Nancy with the extraordinary gift of magic. Nancy can read people's minds, know their thoughts, and make them do what she wants. Will she use her gift for good, or satisfy her own selfish desire? Lois Duncan presents a paranormal rollercoaster ride with goose bumps at every turn.

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.

Jackson Donnelly battles a recurring, escalating nightmare from the time he is 10. The nightly encounters weaken his body and spirit by incorporating his daytime struggles with bullies, girls, and grief. The boy resigns himself to a lifetime of exhaustion and torment. Until the dream goes after his little brother. Will Jackson be able to protect his family or will both boys be lost to within the nightmare forever?

Harper Raine faces new challenges ahead when her parents take the whole family to a remote tropical island for vacation. As Harper starts to have visions of the resort's history of disappearances and discovers more about the island's dark and fabled past, she must use her newly acquired spirit hunting talents to save everyone on the island from murderous spirits on the attack.

Fourteen-year-old Susan Backstrom seems to have a charmed life - she's smart and beautiful, the only child of wealthy, attentive parents. But there are secrets inside her expensive house that Susan would never tell. One day, at the library, she overhears their housekeeper's son talking with some friends about sneaking into a nearby abandoned house. Much to her own surprise, Susan very much wants to join them - and soon, she's part of the best secret of all. The house has a resident teenage ghost. More important than that, the house itself is a living, supernatural thing.

There's something strange about Martin, and Tess can't work out what it is. He's a Switcher, with the same amazing powers that she has, but there's a sinister side to him. As Tess begins to unravel the awful secret Martin is hiding, she is dragged into the dark night-time world in which he lurks. And there she is faced with the most terrifying choice of her life.

The second volume in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading is chock-full of mystery, intrigue, and nefarious activity. Featuring some of the best writers around, and compiled by certified guy Jon Scieszka, Guys Read: Thriller is a pulse-pounding collection of brand-new short stories, each one guaranteed to keep you riveted until the final page.

When Daisy Fitzjohn's mother leaves their crumbling Gothic home early one morning and doesn't return, Daisy, with no one to help her but her imaginary friends, must fight to save her home and her life from a dangerous and mysterious stranger.

Thruppence and Tim don't know what to expect when they ring the bell at the house with dusty windows. The Ministry of Ghosts has been given three months to prove the existence of ghosts! As it seems that children are particularly magnetic to ghosts, Thruppence and Tim are added to their ghost-catching team. And although neither of them are scared by talk of ghosts or monsters, they could never have imagined what happens next....

When 13-year-old Eric Parrish comes across glowing mushrooms in the woods behind his house, he's sure there's a scientific explanation. But when they start encroaching on the town - covering the football field and popping up from beneath the floorboards - Eric knows something's seriously wrong. Not that much else is going right.... Then a runaway girl from a nearby boarding school warns Eric that the fungus could portend doom.

Jack is spending the summer on a private island far from modern conveniences. No Wi-Fi, no cell service, no one else on the island but a housekeeper and the two very peculiar children in his care. The first time Jack sees the huge black mansion atop a windswept hill, he senses something cold, something more sinister than even the dark house itself. Soon, he feels terribly isolated and alone. Yet he is not alone. The house has visitors - peering in the windows, staring from across the shore. But why doesn't anyone else see them...? And what do they want?