My Review
This book gets a rare 5 stars from me, because it was just that absolutely fantastic that it has earned a special place on my “Will probably read again like 20 times this year” shelf. I haven’t seen much hype … Continue reading
Tag Archives: horror
Synopsis
From YouTube sensation Marzia “CutiePieMarzia” Bisognin comes a debut young adult paranormal thriller about a girl whose dream house quickly becomes a nightmare.When Amethyst stumbles upon the house of her dreams, she can’t help but be enchanted by it, even if there’s something a little…off about the place.
It’s everything she’s ever wanted in a home, so when the Blooms invite her to stay the night to avoid an impending storm, she instantly accepts.
Yet when she awakes the next morning, alone and unable to bring herself to leave, Amethyst comes face-to-face with unexpected twists and turns—like Alfred, the creepy gardener; Avery, the handsome but secretive neighbor, and a little girl who keeps appearing and vanishing within the house.
As Amethyst searches for the Blooms and tries to unravel the truth, her connection to the house only grows stronger. Will she be able to break free of the house’s allure, or will its secrets keep her trapped forever?
Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she's been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780's to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries.Or so she thought.
But nothing is as it seems, and the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths. . .
A genre-bending thriller from Stefan Bachmann for fans of The Maze Runner and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods.
You cannot escape the palace
You cannot guess its secrets.
My Review
This book was a tad bit…difficult for me to review. On one hand, I enjoyed it – the mystery, the creepy aspects of it, the way everything seemed to wrap up neatly. On the other hand, I spent the majority … Continue reading
Synopsis
Carrie meets American Horror Story meets The Shining in this terrifying YA horror novel from the author of Tweak and Schizo.Something’s not right in Beach Haven.
Jen Noonan’s father thinks a move to Harmony House is the key to salvation, but to everyone who has lived there before, it is a portal to pure horror.
After her alcoholic mother’s death, Jen’s father cracked. He dragged Jen to a dilapidated old manor on the shore of New Jersey to start their new lives—but Jen can tell that the place has an unhappy history. She can feel it the same way she can feel her anger flowing out of her, affecting the world in strange ways she can’t explain.
But Harmony House is more than just a creepy old estate. It’s got a chilling past—and the more Jen discovers its secrets, the more the house awakens. Visions of a strange boy who lived in the house long ago follow Jen wherever she goes, and her father’s already-fragile sanity disintegrates before her eyes. As the forces in the house join together to terrorize Jen, she must find a way to escape the past she didn’t know was haunting her—and the mysterious and terrible power she didn’t realize she had.
My Review
Harmony House was one of those books that I was so excited for that it felt like torture to wait for after I had heard about it. There just never seems to be enough good YA horror novels out for … Continue reading
Synopsis
Once upon a time, waiting for the mail was filled with warm anticipation, but the suicide of the local mailman has left the residents of this tiny Arizona town shell-shocked. Nothing this bad has ever happened here. But now it has and more bad things are on the way.Soon there's a new mail carrier in town, one who's delivering lethal letters stuffed with icy fear. He's bringing bad news and before too long the killing will begin.
Nothing — not even the most outstanding citizens or the most secret weaknesses — will be safe from The Mailman's sinister power...
My Review
I’m taking a break from my usual young adult genre reviews to review a book that has been a favorite of mine for years. Ever since I was little I had a strange obsession with horror movies, and as I … Continue reading
Synopsis
For fans of Holly Black and Nova Ren Suma, a gripping, hauntingly atmospheric novel about murder, revenge, and a world where monsters—human and otherwise—lurk at the fringes.When seventeen-year-old Breezy Lin wakes up in a shallow grave one year after her death, she doesn’t remember who killed her or why. All she knows is that she’s somehow conscious—and not only that, she’s able to sense who around her is hiding a murderous past. In life, Breezy was always drawn to the elegance of the universe and the mystery of the stars. Now she must set out to find answers and discover what is to become of her in the gritty, dangerous world to which she now belongs—where killers hide in plain sight, and a sinister cult is hunting for strange creatures like her. What she finds is at once empowering, redemptive, and dangerous.
Tense, complex, and wholly engaging, Shallow Graves is a stunning first novel from Kali Wallace.
My Review
Shallow Graves is an interesting little book about a girl who wakes up in a grave eighteen inches under the ground, a few houses down from her own house. She has been dead for a year, but doesn’t know this … Continue reading
Synopsis
Roxanne and Pepper are a teenage couple with problems. They leave their small town for a weekend to try and solve them. They don't really succeed, and when they return home they find their town empty.They call other towns.
They find the whole world empty.
But eventually they discover three other Kids their Age who are still alive in the town. They cannot imagine why the five of them seem to be the only ones left of the entire human race. They have only one thing in common. They were each directly or indirectly involved in the death of Betty Sue - the plain, shy girl who committed suicide only a short time ago. Betty Sue - the quiet, brilliant girl who wrote short stories about each of them. Stories of hate, of revenge, of death in a dead world.
It makes them wonder who Betty Sue really was.
Or what Betty Sue was.
My Review
I have had multiple copies of this book throughout the years, and I have read it countless times. However, between moving from my parents’ house, to moving into an apartment, and finally into my house (and failing to ever completely … Continue reading
Synopsis
Stay Tonight. Stay Forever.When Audrey Casella arrives for an unplanned stay at the grand Hotel Ruby, she’s grateful for the detour. Just months after their mother’s death, Audrey and her brother, Daniel, are on their way to live with their grandmother, dumped on the doorstep of a DNA-matched stranger because their father is drowning in his grief.
Audrey and her family only plan to stay the night, but life in the Ruby can be intoxicating, extending their stay as it provides endless distractions—including handsome guest Elias Lange, who sends Audrey’s pulse racing. However, the hotel proves to be as strange as it is beautiful. Nightly fancy affairs in the ballroom are invitation only, and Audrey seems to be the one guest who doesn't have an invite. Instead, she joins the hotel staff on the rooftop, catching whispers about the hotel’s dark past.
The more Audrey learns about the new people she's met, the more her curiosity grows. She’s torn in different directions—the pull of her past with its overwhelming loss, the promise of a future that holds little joy, and an in-between life in a place that is so much more than it seems…
Welcome to the Ruby.
My Review
I’m going to start off with this: Hotel Ruby is by far the best book I have read this year. And I’ve read a ton of books this year. It’s so very rare when I find a book that I … Continue reading
Synopsis
When sixteen-year-old Amanda Verner's family decides to move from their small mountain cabin to the vast prairie, she hopes it is her chance for a fresh start. She can leave behind the memory of the past winter; of her sickly Ma giving birth to a baby sister who cries endlessly; of the terrifying visions she saw as her sanity began to slip, the victim of cabin fever; and most of all, the memories of the boy she has been secretly meeting with as a distraction from her pain. The boy whose baby she now carries.When the Verners arrive at their new home, a large cabin abandoned by its previous owners, they discover the inside covered in blood. And as the days pass, it is obvious to Amanda that something isn't right on the prairie. She's heard stories of lands being tainted by evil, of men losing their minds and killing their families, and there is something strange about the doctor and his son who live in the woods on the edge of the prairie. But with the guilt and shame of her sins weighing on her, Amanda can't be sure if the true evil lies in the land, or deep within her soul.
My Review
On the cover of this book, there is a quote from the lovely author, Cat Winters, which states: “Imagine Stephen King writing Little House on the Prairie.” This one statement can sum up this entire book. It’s a dark, disturbing … Continue reading
Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Bridget Sullivan is alone in Fall River, a city that sees Irish immigrants as nothing more than a drunken drain on society. To make matters worse, she's taken employment with the city’s most peculiar and gossip-laden family—the Bordens. But Bridget can’t afford to be picky—the pay surpasses any other job Bridget could ever secure and she desperately needs the money to buy her little sister, Cara, passage to the states. It doesn’t hurt that the job location is also close to her beau, Liam. As she enters the disturbing inner workings of the Borden household, Bridget clings to these advantages.However, what seemed like a straightforward situation soon turns into one that is untenable. Of course Bridget has heard the gossip around town about the Bordens, but what she encounters is far more unsettling. The erratic, paranoid behavior of Mr. Borden, the fearful silence of his wife, and worse still…the nightly whisperings Bridget hears that seem to come from the walls themselves.
The unexpected bright spot of the position is that Lizzie Borden is so friendly. At first, Bridget is surprised at how Lizzie seems to look out for her, how she takes a strong interest in Bridget’s life. Over time, a friendship grows between them. But when Mr. Borden’s behavior goes from paranoid to cruel, and the eerie occurrences in the house seem to be building momentum, Bridget makes the tough decision that she must leave the house—even if it means leaving behind Lizzie, her closest friend, alone with the madness. Something she swore she would not do.
But when Bridget makes a horrifying discovery in the home, all that she thought she knew about the Bordens is called into question…including if Lizzie is dangerous. And the choice she must make about Lizzie’s character could mean Bridget’s life or death.
Sweet Madnessis a retelling of the infamous Borden murders from the point of view of Lizzie’s Irish maid, Bridget Sullivan.
My Review
Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one. We all know this rhyme, right? We’ve all heard of Lizzie Borden, but no one really … Continue reading
Synopsis
Debut author Dawn Kurtagich is dead on in this terrifying psychological thriller!Over two decades have passed since the fire at Elmbridge High, an inferno that took the lives of three teenagers. Not much was known about the events leading up to the tragedy - only that one student, Carly Johnson, vanished without a trace...
...until a diary is found hidden in the ruins.
But the diary, badly scorched, does not belong to Carly Johnson. It belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, a girl who shouldn't exist Who was Kaitlyn? Why did she come out only at night? What is her connection to Carly?
The case has been reopened. Police records are being reexamined: psychiatric reports, video footage, text messages, e-mails. And the diary.
The diary that paints a much more sinister version of events than was ever made publicly known.
My Review
Right now I’m going through a “horror and thriller” phase when it comes to books – I just want to read creepy stuff (yeah, and then comes the problem of not being able to sleep at night, but hey, small … Continue reading
