If Halloween has put you in the mood
for books that offer suspense, thrills and chills, or just good old-fashioned
murder and mayhem, here are a few terrifying titles currently shelved in PWPL’s
New Teen section.
The
Wrong Train, by British author Jeremy de Quidt, is more than just a random
collection of creepy short stories. A young boy barely manages to catch his
train and then realizes it’s the wrong one. Hoping to catch a train back the
way he came, he gets off at the next station only to find it empty. An aged
stranger arrives with a dog by his side and begins to tell the boy stories to
pass the time…stories that turn out to be the spine-tingling stuff of
nightmares.
Popular teen romance author Stephanie Perkins has switched
gears to scare us silly with her new slasher novel, There’s Someone Inside Your House. Makani Young is adjusting to
life with her grandma in landlocked Nebraska but is haunted by her dark past in
Hawaii. When students at her new high school begin to die in a series of brutal
murders, terror rules the school. The setting is creepy: a high school
performance of the bloody musical “Sweeney Todd”, dilapidated porches that
creak and groan, and those vast Nebraska corn fields. As the body count rises
and each murder becomes increasingly grotesque, the search for the serial
killer intensifies – but the burning question is not so much “Who?” as “Why?”
Whose stories are more terrifying than the master of horror,
Edgar Allan Poe? In Poe: Stories and
Poems: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Gareth Hinds, the acclaimed
adaptor/illustrator enhances Poe’s most popular works with haunting
illustrations of anguished faces and disturbing scenes. Hinds salutes Poe’s
dark genius through pictures, historical and thematic notes, and faithfulness
to the author’s original words and language.
Kerri Maniscalco offers delightfully
creepy history along with mystery in Stalking
Jack the Ripper. Audrey Rose’s parents expect her to behave like a fine
young Victorian lady, but she prefers hanging out in the morgue dissecting corpses
under her uncle’s tutelage. Forensic science is infinitely more interesting to
Audrey than needlepoint. Drawn into the investigation of Jack the Ripper,
Audrey’s sleuthing takes her frighteningly close to her own sheltered home.
Readers who enjoy this atmospheric tale of horror, starring a decidedly strong
heroine and her cheeky male sidekick, will want to check out its
hot-off-the-press sequel, Hunting Prince
Dracula.
Fans of thrillers with a dose of
romance might enjoy Breaker by Kat
Ellis. After Kyle Henry’s father, a convicted serial killer nicknamed the
Bonebreaker, is executed, Kyle and his mother move to a new state and establish
brand new identities in an attempt to escape the stigma. Starting over at his
new boarding school fills Kyle with hope, until he recognizes a girl in his
homeroom. Naomi Steadman feels an immediate connection to Kyle, not realizing
he is the son of the man who murdered her mother. Soon the death count at
school begins to rise and items tied to the Bonebreaker appear, forcing Kyle
and Naomi to relive the horrors of their past.
--Mary Schneeberger, Teen Services Coordinator
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