YOUNG BLOOD'S END OF SUMMER ROUND UP OF YOUNG ADULT FICTION.

By Tony Jones 

It seems to have been a quiet time for YA and kid’s horror and dark fiction this last few months. However, there are still some great nuggets out there which are well worth seeking out for your child, niece, nephew or even yourself. Here are some of my favourites, and in no particular order…

I’m going to start with AF Harrold, this colourful author has written two top-notch and decidedly creepy and highly imaginative novels aimed at the top end of primary school over the last couple of years. Although not strictly horror, he is strikingly creative and has very high levels of oddness which kids should find very engaging and fresh. I truly adored “The Imaginary” about a sinister bogeyman type creature that feasts on children’s imaginary friends. I wasn’t the only one to love it, and my eleven year old daughter devoured it also. Harrold followed this novel with another beauty “The Song from Somewhere Else”, a moving tale of a bullied schoolgirl Frank who makes friends with her would be saviour Nick, a classmate who has no friends. They bond, but Frank is intrigued by the weird but intriguing sounds coming from Nick’s basement once she visits his house… Again, it’s not really horror, but a supremely well told tale of loneliness, friendship and a totally enchanting out of this world experience.  (AGES 9-11 for both books)

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Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Childrens (23 Oct. 2014)

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I was totally blown over by David Owen’s “The Fallen Children” which is a very clever update of John Wyndham’s “The Midwich Cuckoos”. However, this superb revamp is not set in a quaint English village, the action takes place in a London estate aptly called Midwich Tower.  In a single night, many inhabitants of the Midwich tower block loses consciousness, when they wake up, four girls are pregnant. Answers are hard to come by - what happened to them? What does it mean? When the pregnancies start developing much faster than they should, time is short, and everything changes. It’s a great teen novel which meshes horror and science fiction with the troubles the girls face, the shame, the name-calling, and having to tell parents. In its own way it was pretty explicit for a teen novel, but the conceptions are handled really well. “The Fallen Children” pays considerable respect to the Wyndham novel, but it really does run on its own two feet and is no copy. Owen is one to watch and his previous novel, his debut “Panther” also set on a south London housing scheme about a teen with weight issues and an obsession with a creature stalking the night streets of his estate was also top notch. (AGES 12+)

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Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Atom (4 May 2017)

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We previously featured Peadar O'Guilin’s “The Call” in an earlier article, but it is now available in paperback, so we are giving it a fresh plug. Book two is coming in 2018, and I cannot wait! This is what our previous review said…  “The Call” was totally terrific on many levels and the finest mesh of horror and teen fantasy I’ve read in ages. It has a great plot: in this weird version of Ireland the country has been sealed off from the rest of the world by a supernatural barrier. In this Ireland teenagers can be ‘Called’, this means they are summoned to another realm where they do battle with the Aes Sidhe, the ancient rulers of Ireland before they were banished in a great war. These as very evil fairy creatures and down-right nasty creatures which are incredibly cruel and live to torture humans for sport. The way the ‘Calling’ works is really great, any teenager can disappear into thin air for three minutes and they reappear in the fairy world where they are hunted. Most are killed horribly, mutilated or tortured, only one in ten return unharmed. Although they are only gone for three minutes in the fairy world this is 24 hours or longer, so avoiding death is almost impossible. Kids no longer go to school, instead they go to battle schools where they are taught how to survive the ‘Calling’ which will happen sooner or later. The plot revolves around a girl called Nessa, who has polio, and so cannot run properly, so nobody gives her a sniff of survival, however she is one TOUGH cookie. (AGE 12+)

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Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: David Fickling Books (1 Jun. 2017)

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“Burning” is the debut novel of Daniella Rollins which has the catchphrase “Chilling new YA, perfect for fans of Orange is the New Black and Stephen King” and although this is a very decent teen read, those it is aimed at should really be graduating to the real thing, Stephen King! So if you forgive the fact that the plot is pretty similar to “Firestarter” you’re good to go, but most thirteen year old readers will not ever realise…  Angela has been in and out of juvenile prisons for stealing with some of the plot picks up her backstory. As we follow her daily prison routines and friendships she is intrigued by a much younger girl, Jessica, who arrives in her wing under seriously heavy guard. Why?  Eventually the two connect and you have a very readable paranormal horror thriller. (AGE 13+)

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Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children's Books (5 April 2016)

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Red Eye continue to be the only publishing group seriously dedicated to horror and Sharon Gosling’s “Fir” is a decent addition to their catalogue.   A teenage girl is disgruntled to be uprooted from Stockholm to remote northern Sweden – especially when never ending fierce storms cut the family off from civilisation. Hints of classic horror, full of creepy children, a housekeeper who the family ‘inherit’ when they move it, coupled with atmospheric snow scenes make this new take on the Scandinavian werewolf legend a solid and engrossing read. (AGE 12+)

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Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Stripes Publishing (9 Feb. 2017)
 ISBN-10: 1847158234 ISBN-13: 978-1847158239

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I read “13 Minutes” a while ago and tapped the author Sarah Pinborough for a potential visit to my school, sadly she was too busy preparing for the release of her adult thriller “Behind Her Eyes” and she turned me down! However, she very kindly sent me three signed copies of this really great psychological thriller which is just as hair-raising as any horror, mainly as it deals with a clique of really bitchy, often unpleasant, teenage girls. The very clever plot revolves around a near-death experience after a girl falls in a freezing cold river stops breathing for 13 minutes before being revived. When Natasha wakes up, she can’t remember events that led her to be there. The novel moves to Becca, and the plot explores how she used to be best friends with Natasha but then they drifted apart. But after Natasha’s near death experience their friendship once again thickens. It tackles very mature themes, has a fair bit of sex, and has a great twist and is one of the best novels I’ve read in a while which explores the complicated relationships girls have with each other. Of course Pinborough also wrote “The Death House” one of my favourite ever teen novels and one of these days I will entice her to my school… (AGE 13/14+)

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432 PAGES
PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ (21 JULY 2016)

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Robin Jarvis has recently released “Time of Blood” which is book three of the “Witching Legacy” series and if a fine return to form for one most successful kids writers of the 1990s. Some of you may even have read his “Deptford Mice” series or the “Whitby Witches” books when you were kids yourselves. The new series is a fast paced mix of fantasy and horror, which of course, is set in Whitby… Magic is afoot right from the outset when the local witches realise that an ancient curse has been revived by a magical artefact. All three books are interconnected by the sinister bad guy “Mr Dark” as children, supernatural beings and friends try to fight the darkness threatening Whitby. I’ve always liked the way Jarvis fuses ancient Whitby myths with his own stories and this new series also moves with the times with new characters connected to newer cultural references such as steampunk. Make sure you read the books in order, with book one being “The Power of Dark”. (AGE 10+)

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Paperback: 256 pages
 Publisher: Egmont

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 “Gwendy’s Button Box” by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar probably sounds like a weird selection for this roundup… Not so, this is a short, punchy, non-violent easy to read and assessable introduction to Stephen King. Gwendy is a slightly chubby and self-conscious girl who wants to lose weight before starting Middle School, so she daily runs up a set of very steep steps known as the Suicide Stairs. One morning she meets a strange man called Richard Farris who gives her a button box, she knows she shouldn’t take it but Farris nevertheless convinces her. It looks a bit like a jewellery box, but has properties which are far from normal and in their own spooky way help Gwendy. The buttons and levers on the box have different functions, pull one lever and it produces a tiny piece of chocolate. The chocolate tastes beautiful and has properties I will not go into….. A further lever gives Gwendy a valuable silver Dollar from 1891. There are other buttons which are perhaps much more sinister and a crucial part of a story which many children may find to be a gripping and slightly sinister read. (AGE 12+)

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Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

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Suzanne Young’s “The Program” series started way back in 2013, but in the time since then has picked up some legs, with two sequels and a couple of novellas and a further book due in 2018. It starts with a very clever idea, teen suicide is an epidemic levels though some unknown illness which the government has named ”the sadness”. If any teens show any likely signs of depression they are entered into ”The Program” which is a type of brainwashing and characteristic killing process. So no matter what teens are feeling, they have to hide it, any side of twitchiness and “The Program” awaits… The novels are all interconnected, with the novellas introducing new characters and the origins of ‘The Program’. It’s a terrific teen read, which is more dystopian thriller than horror, which deserves to be much better known in the UK.  (AGE 12+)

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Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Simon Pulse

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