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Cynthia Murphy’s book The Midnight Game is nightmare fuel.  Although her novel may not reflect the same fear-factor as a Dean Koontz or Steven King work, it is certainly sinister.  A group of teens make the mistake of meeting up in real life with people they’ve met in internet chat rooms and through online threads. Ellie, Mei, Hugo, Callum, Toni, and Reece join in a terrifying game in which the Midnight Man comes to hunt. Classed as a pagan ritual, The Midnight Game was “a punishment for wrong-doers. . . . It was sort of a trial. . . . If the ‘player’ survived, theyRead More →

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Erica Waters explores intriguing questions in her psychological thriller, The Restless Dark: What is the lure of unknowable darkness? What draws some of us to such topics as horror and true crime? To explore this idea, she creates a trio of young women: Lucy Wilson, Carolina Cassels, and Maggie Rey. All three characters attend a Killer Quest event set in Cloudkiss Canyon, an oppressive and terrifying locale in North Georgia where the fog can disorient a person and where legends swirl: Is this a place where people come to dispose of unwanted shame or “to toss ill-gotten goods, murder weapons, bodies, and anything else theyRead More →

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Marigold (Mari) Anderson-Green is anxiety prone, and because of a drug overdose and a recent stay at Strawberry Pines Rehabilitation Center, her mother, Raquel, accepts a Grow Where You’re Planted (GWYP) Residency in a new midwestern city. The GWYP provides a free house for three years, and Mari feels guilty about the circumstances that have made money tight, so she doesn’t complain too much about this search for a “fresh start.” However, Mari will now be a resident of Cedarville during her junior year, and she has no marijuana supplier to provide the weed that helps her take the edge off her anxiety and makeRead More →

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Steve Watkins takes on the tough topic of the Holocaust in his book Stolen by Night. Inventing characters like Nicolette and Jules but staying true to the history of occupied Paris during World War II, Watkins tells his horror tale from the perspective of the French Resistance. Nicolette and Jules are two fourteen year old youth who love bicycling and hope to race someday as their fathers did. To live out her dream, Nicolette cuts her hair and plans to enter the upcoming thirty kilometer race disguised as a boy wearing her papa’s racing jersey. Watkins includes various scenes of Rollfast and Favor bicycles andRead More →

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A blend of horror, mystery, and thriller with a sprinkling of romance, Two Sides to Every Murder by Danielle Valentine will appeal to a wide variety of readers. Set in New York, the novel features Olivia D’Angeli and Reagan Karl. Both sixteen-year-olds have an origin story anchored at Camp Lost Lake, a youth camp owned by the D’Angeli family. Tired of running, Reagan is determined to solve the murder that has her mother in hiding. She and her best friend, Jack, are determined to exonerate Reagan’s mother Lori Knight, aka Lauren Karl, so that Reagan can live a normal life free from the accusations thatRead More →

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Middle-schooler Shane Johnson loves the sounds, action, and energy of basketball. On the court, he feels most whole and alive. After he is in a serious accident that leaves him in a coma for a month, Shane returns to basketball, but Travis Clark has taken over his position on the team. How will Shane regain that lost part of himself so that he no longer feels empty, helpless, and without a purpose? Now that he is on the road to full recovery, Shane is happy to be out from under the pain, anger, sadness, and stress that he thought would hover like a dark cloudRead More →

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As the title implies, a reader should be prepared to be confused when reading Katzenjammer by Francesca Zappia. The novel takes the reader down a nightmarish path of distress experienced by the main character, Cat. While it is clear that Cat suffers from depression and bewilderment in a world that makes no sense to her, the reason for that distress is not made clear until the novel’s conclusion. Through Cat, readers encounter a version of school that is unfortunately all too real for some students who experience bullying because of their differences. The dichotomy of us versus them is set out early in the novel.Read More →

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Although an important book about exploitation, genocide, and identity—one inspired by Yoruba-Nigerian mythology—Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye is difficult to read. Trapped in a world of monsters who will eat her alive should they realize she’s the enemy, Sloane Shade lives under Lucis rule and tyranny. Ten times more horrifying than the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the ruling class and its military are pitting children against children, training them to kill or be killed. Bound by the Lucis law regarding conscription, when a child turns fifteen, he or she reports for training for a war against the Shadow Rebels. Such is the fate ofRead More →

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To provide context and a back-story, Return to Fear Street by R.L. Stine begins in 1923 when phrases like “the bee’s knees” were popular, bobbed hair was vogue, the Yankees stadium opened in New York, and the stock market was booming. Two sisters—four years apart and as different from one another as possible—vie for attention and hope for happiness.  Rebecca, the favored daughter, is not only a princess in appearance but royalty in her father’s eyes, and Randolph Fear spares no expense when it comes to his eldest, more popular daughter. Propelled by both envy and resentment, Ruth-Ann Fear escapes into a little attic roomRead More →