I figure you're already familiar with R. L. Stine, so you won't find his series books here, although you'll find other series. There are several different kinds of horror books, and I've tried to suggest a few of each. Remember, your mileage may vary! Some of these books will appeal more to younger teens while others were written with older teens and adults in mind.
| Featuring Creatures You Never Want to Meet | ||
|---|---|---|
| Title Of Book | Author | Call Number |
| Thirsty | M.T. Anderson | TEEN PPB ANDERSON |
| From the moment he knows that he is destined to be a vampire, Chris thirsts for the blood of people around him while also struggling to remain human. | ||
| In the Forests of the Night | Amelia Atwater-Rhodes | TEEN ATWATER-RHODES |
| Risika, a teenage vampire, wanders back in time to the year 1684 when, as a human, she died and was transformed against her will. (Atwater-Rhodes wrote this book when she was 13. She now has written several other books.) | ||
| Eighth Grade Bites | Heather Brewer | TEEN BREWER |
| For thirteen years, Vlad, aided by his aunt and best friend, has kept secret that he is half-vampire. But when his missing teacher is replaced by a sinister substitute, he learns that there is more to being a vampire, and to his parents' deaths, than he could have guessed. (First in a series. The last book is "Twelfth Grade Kills".) | ||
| Coraline | Neil Gaiman | TEEN GAIMAN |
| Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others. | ||
| Look for Me By Moonlight | Mary Downing Hahn | TEEN PPB HAHN |
| While staying at the remote and supposedly haunted Maine inn run by her father and pregnant stepmother, sixteen-year-old Cynda feels more and more isolated from her father's new family and more and more attracted to a charming but mysterious guest. | ||
| Sorcerers of the Nightwing | Geoffrey Huntington | TEEN HUNTINGTON |
| Every kid fears the monsters in the closet -- but for Devon March, the monsters are real. But Devon, though he doesn't know it, is a Sorcerer of the Nightwing. He'll need all the powers at his command when he is sent to live at Ravenscliff, where a Hellhole and a Nightwing gone bad await him. (Ravenscliff Series, Book 1) | ||
| Cujo | Stephen King | TEEN PPB KING |
| Cujo, a friendly, playful 200-pound Saint Bernard, chases a rabbit into an underground cavern. When he emerges from the darkness, he is something else. Something that the men, women, and children of Castle rock, Maine, do not suspect until is too late. | ||
| Blood and Chocolate | Annette Curtis Klause | TEEN KLAUSE/TEEN PPB KLAUSE |
| Having fallen for a human, a "meat boy", a beautiful teenage werewolf must battle both her packmates and the fear of the townspeople to decide where she belongs and with whom. | ||
| The Silver Kiss | Annette Curtis Klause | TEEN PPB KLAUSE |
| Meeting a mysterious, seductive boy helps Zoe come to terms with her mother's impending death from cancer, but he has secrets of his own. One of them is that he isn't human. | ||
| In the Land of the Lawn Weenies and Other Misadventures | David Lubar | TEEN LUBAR |
| This one will make you laugh and give you the creeps. What happens when you lose your father's detached hand? What happens when a substitute teacher doesn't listen to her students' warnings? Do you really want to know? (Yes!) | ||
| Vlad the Undead | Hanna Lutzen | TEEN LUTZEN |
| Written as a series of manuscripts, letters, and diary entries, Vlad the Undead brings to life a new story of Dracula and a contemporary young woman's fascination with him. | ||
| The Light | D.J. MacHale | TEEN MacHALE |
| Sixteen-year-old Marshall Seaver is expecting a boring summer when his best friend goes away, but instead he finds himself haunted--and hunted--by ghosts that want something from him which he cannot decipher. (First in the Morpheus Road trilogy. Sequels: The Black, TBA) | ||
| Twilight | Stephanie Meyer | TEEN MEYER |
| When Bella moves to Washington State and starts school, she can't understand why her lab partner Edward hates her so much. She soon discovers that hate isn't what he's feeling. She also discovers he isn't what he appears to be. (Sequels: New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn. Companion novel: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. | ||
| Night Terrors | Lois Duncan (editor) | TEEN NIGHT |
| "Stories of shadow and substance" by authors such as Alane Ferguson, Annette Curtis Klause, Chris Lynch, Harry and Norma Fox Mazer, Joan Lowery Nixon, Theodore Taylor, and Patricia Windsor | ||
| Darkangel | Meredith Pierce | TEEN PPB PIERCE |
| The servant girl Aeriel must choose between destroying her vampire master for his evil deeds or saving him for the sake of his beauty and the spark of goodness she has seen in him. ((First in a trilogy) | ||
| Interview with a Vampire | Anne Rice | TEEN PPB RICE |
| Most of Anne Rice's books are in the adult fiction area, but if you're really into vampires and you want to bite into the steamy stuff, she's the one to sink your teeth into. | ||
| Cirque du Freak | Darren Shan | TEEN SHAN |
| Two boys who are best friends visit an illegal freak show, where an encounter with a vampire and a deadly spider forces them to make life-changing choices. (First in a series) | ||
| Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | TEEN PPB SHELLEY |
| A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator. This classic is one of the first true horror stories. | ||
| Full Tilt | Neil Shusterman | TEEN PPB SHUSTERMAN |
| When sixteen-year-old Blake goes to a mysterious, by-invitation-only carnival, he somehow knows that it could save his comatose brother. He soon learns that much more is at stake if he fails to meet the challenge presented to him there by the beautiful Cassandra. | ||
| The Forbidden Game | L.J. Smith | TEEN SMITH |
| When Jenny Thornton and her six friends open the white box given to her by the mysterious Julian, they discover a strange game and enter a house of horrors full of their worst nightmares, where they must triumph or die. (This book compiles The Hunter, The Chase, and The Kill into one novel.) | ||
| Dangerous Girls | R.L. Stine | TEEN STINE |
| Destiny Weller and her twin sister, Livvy, were as close as two sisters could be -- until Livvy chose to become a vampire. Now Destiny will do anything to bring Livvy back to the family. But Livvy knows there is only one way she and Destiny can be reunited -- Destiny must become a vampire too... Which sister will win in the end? | Dracula | Bram Stoker | TEEN STOKER/ TEEN PPB STOKER |
| Count Dracula is not only a nobleman, he is also the vampire who is terrorizing Transylvania and seducing young women. Jonathan Harker and Dr. van Helsing are determined to destroy him. | ||
| Companions of the Night | Vivian Vande Velde | TEEN VANDE VELDE |
| Kerry Nowicki helps a young man escape from three other men who claim he is a vampire and, when her father and little brother are kidnapped, Kerry joins forces--and falls in love with--the accused vampire. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. | ||
| The Blooding | Patricia Windsor | TEEN WINDSOR/TEEN PPB WINDSOR |
| While spending the summer working as an au pair girl for a couple in England, Maris discovers that the husband is a werewolf intent on blooding her and making her one too. | ||
| When Hell is Other People | ||
|---|---|---|
| Title Of Book | Author | Call Number |
| Grounding of Group 6 | Julian Thompson | TEEN THOMPSON |
| Arriving at what they believe is an exclusive school, five sixteen-year olds are unaware that they have been sent there to be exterminated and that their teacher is a murderer for hire. | ||
| Tenderness | Robert Cormier | TEEN CORMIER |
| A psychological thriller told from the points of view of a teenage serial killer and the runaway girl who falls in love with him. | ||
| Stranger With My Face | Lois Duncan | TEEN DUNCAN/TEEN PPB DUNCAN |
| A seventeen-year-old senses she is being spied on and probably impersonated, but when she discovers what actually is occurring, it is more unbelievable than she ever imagined. | ||
| Jekel Loves Hyde | Beth Fantaskey | TEEN FANTASKEY |
| As seventeen-year-old Jill Jekel and classmate Tristen Hyde work together on a chemistry project, hoping to win a scholarship for her and a cure for his curse, they also uncover family secrets and a chemistry of their own. (Familiarity with Robert Louis Stevenson's story isn't required, but it adds resonance.) | ||
| What Happened to Cass McBride | Gail Giles | TEEN GILES |
| After his younger brother commits suicide, Kyle Kirby decides to exact revenge on the person he holds responsible. | ||
| Carrie | Stephen King | TEEN PPB KING |
| Sixteen-year-old Carrie is teased and abused by everyone from her classmates to her mother and teachers. But you shouldn't mess with a girl with telekinetic powers. One day she's going to get really, really angry. And when she does... | ||
| Girl in the Box | Ouida Sebestyen | TEEN PPB SEBESTYEN |
| Kidnapped and left in an underground room, Jackie must try to stay sane as she tries to make contact with the outside world. | ||
| Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde | Robert Louis Stevenson | TEEN PPB STEVENSON |
| A kind and well-respected doctor can turn himself into a murderous madman by taking a secret drug he's created. | ||
| Fall of the House of Usher & Other Tales | Edgar Allen Poe | TEEN PPB POE |
| Poe is not only credited as the author of the first mystery, he was a master of tales of horror. This is a collection of some of his mystery and horror short stories. | ||
Updated April 2011