NINE YOUNG ADULT HORROR BOOKS TO SPOOK YOUR KIDS THIS OCTOBER

The Devil Makes Three cleverly swerves them and builds its supernatural story upon solid and grounded characterisation. Before long there is a very entertaining battle between the creature in the book and the two teenagers, which develops into a very believable and cute romance, whilst retaining a strong gothic feel.

It’s time for another trip into the world of YA and amongst the nine books we have this month are some absolute belters. Tori Bovalino, with her debut The Devil Makes Three blows it out of the park with what must be the coolest school library in existence, and the teen librarian who finds herself in a supernatural mess is a terrific lead. Not far behind is Diana Rodriguez Wallach’s Small Town Monsters, which takes in exorcisms and possessions with a quality Latinx flavour in a town where things always go bump in the night. I was a massive fan of Stephanie Perkins timely diversion into horror back in 2017 with There’s Someone Inside Your House and the teen queen is back with another beauty The Woods Are Always Watching, this one has some Hillbilly Horror scenes which will have the toughest horror fans wincing. The Taking of Jake Livingstone was another impressive debut, with Ryan Douglass passionately writing about a gay Black teenager who sees dead people, with a catchy blend of teen social commentary and the supernatural.


Although it is not particularly horror I just had to feature Naomi Gibson’s startling high concept debut Every Line Of You, in which an AI being called Henry becomes a lonely teens best friend and more in a twister which refuses to play by the rules. Elsewhere real-life TV ghost hunter Yvette Fielding tries her hand at kid’s books with The House in the Woods (Ghost Hunter Chronicles book 1), Kendare Blake returns with All These Bodies, Nina Laurin is inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray with The Last Beautiful Girl and gives it a social media and Instagram shake-around. Last, but not least, we feature Ruth Estevez’s strange tale of monsters, disappearances and underground waterways in The Monster Belt.


There is some fine reading to be had here and some terrific novels for school libraries or that favourite teenager in your life. They are presented alphabetically by author.

Kendare Blake – All These Bodies
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All These Bodies is an interesting change of direction for Kendare Blake, taking us back to the late 1950s Minnesota Midwest of America, with a story which has a true crime feel to it. Blake is best known for her terrific horror novel Anna Dressed in Blood and dark fantasy titles such as the Three Dark Crowns series. The main character is schoolboy, and aspiring journalist, Michael Jensen who dreams of escaping the small-town life of Black Deer Falls, go to college, meet a girl, and find excitement in the wider world. He has had the same friends his entire life and his father is the local sheriff. Nothing new ever happens, until a series of graphic murders, which the newspapers brand the ‘Bloodless Murders,’ seem to be heading in their direction. After multiple killings, where the victims are drained of blood, there is indeed a killing in their town. As Michael’s father is the sheriff, he finds himself in close proximity to the action and even closer to the only suspect, fifteen-year-old Marie Catherine Hale.

Although All These Bodies was a solid enough read, it was rather one paced and the author tried too hard to shoehorn an unconvincing supernatural angle into the plot. The story was inspired by real life murders and the true crime feel it had worked better than the misfiring attempt of convincing the reader there were vampires on the loose. Also, the way in which the author inserts the YA angle into the story lacked credibility: here we have is a woman implicated in 12-14 murders, but the only person she will speak to is a seventeen-year-old boy. Yeah, right, what utter rubbish. Although proceedings felt like an authentic 1950s America and the attention to detail was convincing, I felt that the story lacked suspense, as we were being repeatedly told (from Marie to Michael) after the fact what went on and after a while, I began to lose interest in who the anonymous killer truly was, human or something else. It had its moments, but I feel many teens will find this a rather frustrating and underwhelming read. AGE RANGE 13+  ​

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan Children's Books; 
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529052890
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529052893

Purchase a copy here 

Tori Bovalino - The Devil Makes Three
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If you’re after a terrific YA novel which is set in a haunted school library then look no further than Tori Bovalino’s fantastic debut The Devil Makes Three. I seriously loved the vibe of the book and the fact that both main characters were big library users, was such a positive message to put across in a YA horror novel! The creaking and atmospheric Jessop Library was such a cool location, the home of a large collection of grimoires (spell) books which teen library assistant Tess gets mixed up in, developing a love/hate relationship with Eliot who borrows 147 books on his dad’s (the unpleasant Headmaster) library ticket. No wonder Tess gets p-ed off, the staff have to retrieve the books from the closed stacks which give no direct access to pupils. The developing relationship between the two main characters, told via a split chapter narrative, was highly entertaining as Tess and Eliot were chalk and cheese, coming from very different backgrounds. Tess, a cello prodigy, holds down two jobs which trying to keep one step ahead of her financial problems whilst looking out for her troubled little sister Nat, in contrast Eliot is given everything he wants except the love of his dominating and unpleasant father.   


This was a great horror novel and has so much geeky library stuff in it I smiled a lot with much of the action set in the creepy old building. After discovering a strange book in a secret tunnel which looks like it might have been made out of skin, it begins to excerpt influence over both characters via visions and there are some great scenes when they believe they have killed friends or the way in which the being influences them via the cursed ink within the pages of the book. It would be easy to play to the standard demon stereotypes you often see in teen fiction, but The Devil Makes Three cleverly swerves them and builds its supernatural story upon solid and grounded characterisation. Before long there is a very entertaining battle between the creature in the book and the two teenagers, which develops into a very believable and cute romance, whilst retaining a strong gothic feel. The book is the perfect blend of dark humour with the sass of Tess, supernatural suspense with the backstory of Eliot, with rich and compelling characters, with the final result being an outstanding page-turner. AGE RANGE 13+

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Titan Books (UK) (14 Sept. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1789098130
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1789098136

Purchase a copy here 

Ryan Douglass – The Taking of Jake Livingstone
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The Taking of Jake Livingstone, the debut novel of Ryan Douglass, has attracted considerable attention in the USA, with its blending of a supernatural story and thriller with a strong social thriller which focuses on the every-day trials of a gay black sixteen-year-old boy. It was a very interesting novel and I could not decide whether it was Middle Grade or YA (perhaps it does not matter) and I found the social teen commentary to be more convincing than the horror side of the story which was slightly under-developed. Jake Livingstone sees dead people, being a type of medium who watches the dead play out their last moments over and over again, particularly if they were violent deaths. On the back of this, the local community is beginning to recover from a mass shooting from another teenager whose ghost Jake begins to see. However, the ghost of the teen murderer Sawyer Doon does not behave like a normal ghost and begins to target Jake. But what does this particular ghost want? Jake has enough problems of his own and the last thing he needs is to be stalked by a restless spirit. This supernatural part of the story lacked scares and was more Middle Grade than YA but was still a solid and engaging read.
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However, there was considerably more depth to the non-supernatural part of the story and I found this more thoughtful than what I described above and took the story into the realms of YA, as it touches on more challenging subjects such as rape and institutional racism. Jake is one of the very few Black pupils to attend St. Clair Prep. and is self-conscious, feeling he always sticks out, particularly in gym class and believes some of the teachers unfairly target him. Things look up when another Black boy joins the school and the pair hit it off. Before long we realise Jake is gay and this has caused problems within his family, also coming from a poor single parent family does not help his standing at school. Jake was a very engaging, well-drawn character, and the school scenes with Allister were very convincing, with the book working well as a high school teen drama. Jake is an unlikely hero, but he was very easy to like and teens should enjoy how his sexual identity is slowly revealed in the book and the moving way in which his brother reacts to it. Although Jake is the star of the novel, parts of the story are also seen from the point of view of the killer Sawyer Doon via a journal, which gives a more sympathetic view of the killer. The Taking of Jake Livingstone was an impressive debut and I will be very interested to see whether Ryan Douglass sticks with horror in his second novel. AGE RANGE 12+

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Andersen Press (3 Mar. 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1839132507
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1839132506

Pre-order a copy here 

Ruth Estevez - The Monster Belt
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Ruth Estevez’s The Monster Belt was an odd blend of fantasy, mystery and horror which although has some interesting elements I found it slightly bland, and even though it was not a long book it struggled to hold my attention. The ‘monsters’ referenced in the title failed to fire the imagination and I wonder whether the targeted audience might find these creatures to be rather underwhelming when they finally appear from the shadows? The story starts on a small Spanish island where most people avoid swimming in a particular area due to old local legends which say something nasty lives in the water and over the years there have been enough disappearances to back this fact up. The action is set over two different time periods, with the main characters aging a few years into older teens along the way but struggling to escape the shadow of the ‘Monster Belt’. One of the main character’s lost his best friend when he was a kid and since then developed an obsession with this mysterious location which he believes was responsible for the death of his friend and has been searching for proof of its existence ever since.
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The book heads into a combination of X-Files and Area 51 territory as main characters Harris White and Dee Winter search for proof that there is some sort of undiscovered underwater network where there are unknown creatures and tunnel shortcuts which allow them to move around the world and stay hidden. The two leads were interesting enough, taking in coming-of-age elements, relationships and the battle to overcome traumas from the past. However, much of The Monster Belt felt too low-key to make any significant splash in a very competitive YA marketplace. Perhaps it tried to blend too many genres, mystery, thriller, horror and fantasy, and might struggle to fire the imagination of the intended audience, however, it was also a thoughtful read and cleverly avoided the stereotypes associated with louder monster or creature novels. AGE RANGE 12+

Publisher ‏ : ‎ UCLan Publishing (2 Sept. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 193 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1912979586
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1912979585

Purchase a copy here 

Yvette Fielding - The House in the Woods (Ghost Hunter Chronicles book 1)
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​In the UK Yvette Fielding is a popular television personality best known for her Most Haunted series which has run for almost two decades and over three hundred episodes, as well as a host of other documentaries and programmes with a supernatural theme. If the endnotes Fielding notes having many genuine run-ins with ghosts and the supernatural, should this be the case then it’s a pity her debut children’s novel The House in the Woods does not feature some of these scares. However, it was a very solid and readable debut, but considering it was written by somebody connected with the supernatural for so many years it came across as safe, with a very familiar story. In a nutshell, three best friends mess around with a Ouija board on Halloween night and then something bad comes knocking. Interestingly, Amazon lists this as an 11+ book, I would pitch it a bit lower and it should not be mistaken for YA horror and would be good for children at the top end of primary and is a solid Middle Grade read.
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The blurb notes “Stranger Things meets Point Horror” but this is an easier read than most of those and I would pitch it slightly above the Goosebumps series. I enjoyed the fact that the story was set in East London, with a nicely diverse group of three best friends, Clovis, Eve and Tom, who are all very different but stick together. Eve lost her parents the previous year and lives with her uncle, Clovis comes from a Caribbean family, whilst Tom is very sporty but does not get on with his dad. Combined the three characters carry the story nicely, ably supported by the eccentric inventor uncle and a dog called Boris which farts all the time. After fooling around with the board, the kids quickly realise whatever they summoned has followed them home and there were some nice poltergeist style scenes when they realise something is trying to contact them from the other side which is both distressed and determined, perhaps not necessarily trying to harm them.  This novel is being billed as the Ghost Hunter Chronicles book 1 and I would suggest that if it is going to succeed then Yvette Fielding needs to ramp up the fear factor and draw upon all those real hauntings. Children enjoy being scared and although this was an enjoyable first effort from the “First Lady of the Paranormal” older kids might find it slightly mild, but the story moves along at a nice pace and catches the imagination. Scare us Yvette; I dare you! AGE RANGE 10-12.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Andersen Press (30 Sept. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1839131144
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1839131141

Purchase a copy here 

Naomi Gibson – Every Line Of You

Naomi Gibson’s Every Line Of You is an impressive debut which silkily blends a tecky thriller with a disillusioned and lonely teenage girl struggling to cope with life at school. Cleverly, although the story is built around AI technology the author completely glosses over the intricate details of how the computer ‘Henry’ is developed. The story is all the better for it, instead developing a complex and believable teen character and the odd (almost co-dependent) relationship with the computer programme created by Lydia, which starts on her home PC, before accompanying her to school via her mobile phone. Lydia was a great lead character, dealing with the tragedy of the death of her brother and the loss of her best friend who now bullies her, she struggles to cope with everyday school life, but is super-intelligent and skipped a year. I loved one of the quotes used to hype the novel “Frankenstein meets Heathers. Bonnie and Clyde for the digital age” although I’m not sure whether your average fourteen-year-old will recognise more than one of those for names!
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In a nutshell Lydia builds an AI which in a very short time becomes incredibly sophisticated and is able to hack into her school and alter grades and even break into banks and cause international security alerts. Obviously Lydia is going to get into hot water, the strength of Every Line of You is the fact that by the time you’ve sped into the second half of the story it takes a significantly darker turn and ends up a million miles away from being the story of a teenage girl with a few personal problems. It very smoothly provides a fresh twist on the intensity of first love and the feeling of loss when Henry is offline. I thought it was terrifically inventive how Naomi Gibson (literally) brings Henry to life and the dangers of AI are engagingly explored through what was a very entertaining and high concept read. I would not call Every Line of You a science fiction novel, but it is definitely a novel which can be enjoyed by teens who DO NOT read SF or horror. I highly recommend this dark thriller which has scary echoes of Black Mirror and is one of the craziest versions of young love I have read in a good while. AGE RANGE 12+

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chicken House; 1st edition (5 Aug. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1913322017
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1913322014

Purchase a copy here 

Nina Laurin – The Last Beautiful Girl
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The last Beautiful Girl is Nina Lauren’s fifth novel and I believe her first aimed at a YA audience. The blurb sells the book as “Black Mirror meets Darcy Coates” which will do nothing to impress teens of 2021 as although many will be familiar with the TV show, Coates will be completely unknown to them. Although I enjoyed The Last Beautiful Girl, I found that not enough happened in to truly engage with the YA age group, especially those who might be expecting a full-blown horror novel, which this most certainly is not. In sticking with the Black Mirror vibe, the plot has the underlying message that social media is scary, dangerous, obsessive and can lead to death or worse. Also, there were numerous references to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, which gave fairly blunt spoilers to where the plot was heading, which included little in the way of twists or surprises. Of course, genuine teen readers would not find the plot direction quite so telegraphed.
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Much of the solid was a solid teen drama which worked very well, with the supernatural element kept on the backfoot until well into the story. Sixteen-year-old Izzy, who is a promising drama student, family relocate from Brooklyn to a tiny town where her mother is going to be working. However, a major perk is the house they are given to live in, a stylish mansion which was once owned by a famous socialite, who was also the muse of a distinguished artist. She died mysteriously in a fire, but her image lives on in the many paintings of her scattered around the house. Izzy’s new friends know much more about the building than they are saying and soon she is involved in a very successful Instagram account, with any photo taken in the house coming out amazing. Technically it’s a ghost story, without too many ghosts, and if you’re familiar with Dorian Gray you have a good idea where the plot is heading, but with a lot of social media thrown in as an alternative to scares. It would probably appeal to teenage girls who are not traditional horror fans but enjoy a darker read with a modern angsty twist. AGE RANGE 14+

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sourcebooks Fire (7 Sept. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1728229081
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1728229089

Purchase a copy here 

Stephanie Perkins - The Woods Are Always Watching
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​Stephanie Perkins is best known for the bestselling Anna and the French Kiss trilogy published between 2010 and 2014, however in 2017 made a fascinating diversion into YA horror with There's Someone Inside Your House. This was an excellent slasher high school read which we have featured on Ginger Nuts in the past and is currently being developed by Netflix. Stephanie is a fine addition to the YA horror scene, and I was delighted to hear she was sticking with horror with The Woods Are Always Watching. Like its predecessor, this latest novel is a non-supernatural story with a plot which is more akin to adult horror, rather than YA. If this were an adult novel it would undoubtedly fit into the ‘Hillbilly Horror’ subgenre, something we rarely come across in YA. It really was a book of two halves, the first intricately sets the scene with clever and convincing character development and the second half ramps up the horror, which includes some truly bone-crunching scenes, with real menace and gore. Some of these sequences would not have been out of place in an eighties backwater horror movie where the victims are picked off one by one.

This does not exactly happen in The Woods Are Always Watching as there are only two major characters, Neema and Josie who are going on a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest, which is part of the Appalachian mountain range which stretches through numerous American states, with the action taking place in North Carolina. The girls are inexperienced walkers, slightly naive, and are looking for an exciting trip to mark the end of high school. In a horror setting the pair have ‘victim’ targets on their backs. In the background there is tension in the air as one of the pair will be leaving to attend college and this is the last opportunity for the two high school outsiders to bond before moving on with their lives. Things do not pan out that way and the characters, who are obviously not the outdoor type, struggle with the terrain and begin to find problems with each other as stress levels increase. The two halves truly were widely different, and I struggled to decide who to pitch this novel at: the first part was harmless teen survival fun, the second features the threat of rape, murder and rather cliched killers, characters which could have been lifted straight out of a thousand ‘Hillbilly Horror’ films. However, the girls fight for survival was very realistic and, if anything, Perkins was perhaps too cruel on one of the characters who were naive beyond belief. Riveting stuff and young teens who tackle this must surely be ready to make the jump to adult horror. AGE RANGE 13+

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan Children's Books; Main Market edition (2 Sept. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1509860320
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1509860326

Purchase a copy here 

Diana Rodriguez Wallach – Small Town Monsters
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Billed as “The Conjuring meets The Vow!” was an interesting by-line for a YA horror novel, as I’m not sure how many thirteen or fourteen-year-olds would know either of those productions. To be honest, even I had to look The Vow up and although I can see the relevance the blurb really needs to be more teen friendly to attract those who like cults, the supernatural and exorcisms. Small Town Monsters was an outstanding read and the split chapter narratives between ‘Vera’ and ‘Max’ was perfectly balanced, engaging and played a big part in creating a convincing horror novel which should be attractive to both boys and girls. Vera is the daughter of a family who have supernatural powers and operate as exorcists however, the ‘gift’ seems to have jumped a generation and Vera is just a normal teenager. Max has his own problems, and his mother is a recovering alcoholic who is very disconnected, and he is worried that she might hurt his little sister. Max’s dad died in a fire a few years earlier and he has had to grow up fast, working in the family restaurant and dealing with his school friends, who lack his maturity.

The setting of the novel is terrific and lots of bad things routinely happen in the town of Roaring Creek, with Max suspecting something supernatural is wrong with his mother, approaches Vera for help. The problem is the two have been in the same classes since primary school but have never ever spoken to each other and the developing dynamics between the two teens is a real strength of the novel. I loved both characters and their contrasts, Vera was an outsider and Max was popular, but leads a complicated life because of his family.  There is more than one angle to the supernatural which has a real Latin American feel to it, taking in Santa Muerte (Saint Death), aspects of exorcisms, demon possession and a sinister cult which begins to infiltrate the people of the town.  Small Town Monsters was a terrific blend of horror, thriller, spooky small-town secrets and a convincing slow burning romance. Highly recommended. AGE RANGE 12+

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Inc (7 Sept. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593427513
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593427514

Purchase a copy here 

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