The Companion by Katie Alender

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Creepy, suspenseful fun!

Margot is the sole survivor of a tragic family car accident. She ends up at the Palmer orphanage until a rich family chooses her as their ward. When she first arrives at the mansion, Mr. and Mrs. Sutton are kind and treat her as if she’s special. Margot is soon told about their daughter Agatha who doesn’t speak or show emotion. Agatha used to be a normal teenager but then she became angry and eventually shut down. Mrs. Sutton tells Margot that doctors believe a brain infection caused damage to her frontal cortex and changed her personality. Margot meets Agatha’s brother, Barrett. He’s protective of his sister but eventually warms up to Margot. The longer she’s in the Sutton home, the more strange things she discovers and the foreboding keeps growing. I like Margot and rooted for her throughout the book. Creepy, suspenseful fun, 4 stars!

White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson

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High creepiness factor!

White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson opens as a family is arriving at their new home. They’ve moved away from problems and into a house with problems of its own. The family includes a teen girl, Marigold, her younger brother Sammy, and their stepsister Piper. Marigold’s and Sammy’s mother married Piper’s father. Mari has a past that she wants to forget. Sammy is an honest and loyal brother. Piper seems to be favored by her father. When weird things start happening in their new home, they don’t know what to think. Mari thinks she might be hallucinating when she’s sees a blackened hand reach into her shower but suspects Piper when items are misplaced. The neighborhood is odd and no one really will talk to them. They just stare. Creepy house, creepy neighborhood and something just feels off to Mari. This is a creepy read that I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend! 5 stars!

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

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Based on the tragically true story of the Donner Party.

Eerie prologue opens the story with a perfect creepy and ominous tone. This book is so much more than just a horror story! The author takes historical facts and mixes them with some historical fiction and then adds a touch of supernatural horror to create a scary tale out of a true horrific tragedy. The characters are many and we get to know each of them in turns as the author reveals their background stories and personal secrets. The characters range from timid, blustery, brave and to all out dangerous. The tragically true story of the Donner Party gives the perfect backdrop for a horror story and the author blends truth and fiction together seamlessly, 5 stars!

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

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Uniquely strange!

Seven-year-old Christopher is on the run with his mom. Her boyfriend Jerry was mean one too many times. They reach a new town and she finds a job cleaning at a nursing home. Christopher struggles with school until he reappears after missing in the woods for six days. He can’t remember anything about that time. Everything seems to get better for Christopher and his mom, Kate. Then Christopher sneaks out with his friends to build a treehouse in the forbidden woods. He gets sick and doesn’t sleep because of the nightmares he keeps having. His mother sees him falling apart and before she can fix anything their lives and whole world turn upside down. This story has an eerie, spooky feel. It’s part supernatural and part mystery with a Stephen King, albeit mellow, feel. Unique and strange, 4 stars!

When All the Girls Are Sleeping by Emily Arsenault

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A wonderfully spooky read!

The spookiness starts immediately with the opening of the book. The font in chapter one is perfectly ghostly! Haley’s best friend, Taylor, fell to her death last year. Haley receives an email with an attached video from Taylor’s oldest sibling. He asks Haley if she knows anything about the video and as she starts to watch it, she realizes she doesn’t know what’s happening in it and she’s never seen it before. It gives her the creeps. Haley wants to figure out the truth of what really happened to Taylor and she begins researching hauntings and school history to see if there’s anything that will help her. A paranormal investigator is mentioned in an alumni Facebook group and Haley finds his picture as a dorm supervisor from years earlier. Haley keeps reaching out to alumni and searching the school archives in hopes of digging up more information. She finds letters and interviews from decades ago describing the same thing Taylor experienced in the video. What Haley discovers is so unpredictable and complex that I would have never figured it out on my own and the answer is unexpected! A wonderfully spooky read, 5 stars!

The Photographer by Mary Dixie Carter

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Disturbingly creepy!

Delta is a professional photographer who assimilates quickly to her surroundings, especially when she decides she wants to be part of the group. She meets Natalie at her eleventh birthday party and meets her parents also. Delta decides she wants to befriend them. Little by little, she inserts herself into their lives, to the point of moving in. The problem with Delta is that she’s delusional and no one knows how far she’s going to go to belong. This mystery is tamer than I was expecting but still enough to be disturbingly creepy, 3 stars!

Small Town Monsters by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

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Wonderfully creepy!

Dedicated to Ed and Lorraine Warren, which opens up a feeling of foreboding. Vera’s parents are known far and wide as demon hunters and the other students and the entire community treat Vera like she’s a freak. One day at school, Vera notices the all-popular Max staring at her. She’s dumbfounded. Eventually, Max gets up enough nerve to catch Vera at her job working at a neighboring community’s hospital. He explains that he needs her parents’ help dealing with his mom, who is completely terrifying Max. He’s worried his mom will harm his little sister Chloe. Vera goes to Max’s house and immediately after calls her parents for help. They’re on a case in Barcelona and won’t be home for almost a week. It seems that Vera and Max might be on their own. This story became more interesting the longer I read and I didn’t want to put it down! The mystery and the paranormal build a wonderfully creepy young adult horror story, 5 stars!

Seven Dirty Secrets by Natalie Richards

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A fun, fantastic horror story!

Cleo gets done showering and sees a gift- wrapped package on the bathroom sink that wasn’t there before she got in the shower. She assumes it’s from a family member or friend but when she asks about it, no one has any idea about the package. This freaks Cleo out so she calls the police and the cop is respectful and helps her realize that she did the right thing by calling. No victim shaming. Her best friend Hope shows up in the meantime. The officer finds a few windows unlocked in her house but nothing else. After the officer leaves, the two friends find another box containing a scavenger hunt clue like the first package. The hunt grows creepier as the clues dredge up memories that Cleo would like to forget. This mystery gets more interesting as the creep factor cranks up! A fun, fantastic horror story, 5 stars!

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

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Infamous sisters, gruesome discoveries!

The Hollow sisters are infamous for disappearing for 31 days when they were children. There’s a big mystery surrounding their disappearance and Iris and Vivi don’t remember anything that happened to them or their whereabouts when they were gone but Grey seems to know more than she lets on. Ten years later and Grey is missing again, so Vivi and Iris go on a search for her. Along the way, they’re joined by Tyler, Grey’s boyfriend. Grey is a famous fashion designer and Tyler is a famous model. Vivi is a traveling musician and Iris is a seventeen year old in high school. During the search, Vivi and Iris make gruesome discoveries and a terrifying man wearing a bull skull chases them, trying to kill them. Once Tyler joins them, his life becomes endangered too. The mystery surrounding the sisters and their disappearance kept me interested and the more I read, the more I wanted to know. Tyler adds flair and humor and Vivi adds wild behavior while Grey adds darkness. I enjoyed every page of this supernatural fantasy, 5 stars!

The Unleashed by Danielle Vega

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Creepy and more complex than The Haunted!
Hendricks is trying to get past the loss of Eddie with the help of her friends. She thinks that Steele House is destroyed and when strange things start to happen again, she hopes that it’s Eddie trying to contact her. An evil has been set loose in Drearford that connects the murders that have occurred in town over the past several decades. New terror builds on top of what Hendricks has already uncovered, creating a complex string of horrible events. Suspense, hold your breath terror and an unexpected ending, 5 stars!