This list is for all the spooky people whose favorite holiday is Halloween!
Find Him Where You Left Him Dead by Kristen Simmons
Four years ago, five kids started a game. Not all of them survived. Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors–Owen, Madeline, Emerson, and Dax–have reunited for one strange and terrible reason: they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead. Together they return to the place where their friendship ended with one goal: find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished–an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions. As soon as they begin, they’re dragged out of their reality and into an eerie hellscape of Japanese underworlds, more horrifying than even the darkest folktales that Owen’s grandmother told him. There, they meet Shinigami, an old wise woman who explains the rules: They have one night to complete seven challenges or they’ll all be stuck in this world forever. Once inseparable, the survivors now can’t stand each other, but the challenges demand they work together, think quickly, and make sacrifices–blood, clothes, secrets, memories, and worse. And once again, not everyone will make it out alive.
The Grimmer by Naben Ruthnum
After his father returns from treatment for addiction, high schooler Vish — lover of metal music and literature — is uncertain what the future holds. It doesn’t help that everyone seems to know about the family’s troubles, and they stand out doubly as one of the only brown families in town. When Vish is mistaken for a relative of the weird local bookseller and attacked by an unsettling pale man who seems to be decaying, he is pulled into the world of the occult, where witches live in television sets, undead creatures can burn with a touch, and magic is mathematical. Vish must work with the bookstore owner and his mysterious teenage employee, Gisela, to stop an interdimensional invasion that would destroy their peaceful town.
House of Ash and Bone by Joel Sutherland
This is a story about a family that inherits a house in Vermont full of shadows, whispers and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger discovers that the house is haunted by a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, an impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them — then consume them — in order to rise from the grave and live again.
I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea
Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood. The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom. But even as undeniable as she is, Laure is not the only monster around. And her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate choice: continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is — monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first.
The Island by Natasha Preston
Jagged Island: a private amusement park for the very rich–or the very influential. Liam, James, Will, Ava, Harper, and Paisley–social media influencers with millions of followers–have been invited for an exclusive weekend before the park opens. They’ll make posts and videos for their channels and report every second of their VIP treatment. When the teens arrive, they’re stunned: the resort is even better than they’d imagined. Their hotel rooms are unreal, the park’s themed rides are incredible, and the island is hauntingly beautiful. They’re given a jam-packed itinerary for the weekend. But soon they’ll discover that something’s missing from their schedule: getting off the island alive.
The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst
Claire’s grown up triple-checking locks. Counting her steps. Second-guessing every decision. It’s just how she’s wired — her worst-case scenarios never actually come true. Until she arrives at an off-the-grid summer camp to find a blackened, burned husk instead of a lodge — and no survivors, except her and two other late arrivals: Reyva and Mariana. When the three girls find a dead body in the woods, they realize none of this is an accident. Someone, something, is hunting them. Something that hides in the shadows. Something that refuses to let them leave.
Sirens by Braden Cawthorn
In the wake of a massive power outage, an otherworldly siren begins to blare, changing all who listen to it for too long in frightening ways. Desperate to find his mother and little sister, Joel will have to survive in a world that is coming apart at its seams.
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam to visit her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised. But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don’t belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can’t ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves cryptic warnings: Don’t eat. Neither Ba nor her sweet sister, Lily, believe anything strange is happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade tries to expose the house’s rotten appetite. A home, after all, is only as powerful as those who breathe new life into its bones. And this one is determined never to be abandoned again.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
Set in an alternate Victorian England where mediums control the dead, sixteen-year-old autistic transgender boy Silas must expose a power-hungry secret society while confined to a cruel finishing school designed to turn him into the perfect wife.
There’s No Way I’d Die First by Lisa Springer
Seventeen-year-old Noelle Layne knows horror. Every trope, every warning sign, every survival tactic. She even leads a successful movie club dedicated to the genre. Who better to throw the ultimate, most exclusive Halloween party on all of Long Island? With some of the top influencers in her school on the guest list, including gorgeous singer-songwriter Archer Mitchell, her popularity is bound to spike. She could really use the social boost for an upcoming brand expansion. Nothing is going to ruin this party. Except…maybe the low budget It clown she hired for a stirring round of tag. He axes one of her classmates. From the looks of his devilish grin and bag full of killer tricks, he’s just getting started. A murderous clown is out for blood, but Noelle has been waiting her entire life to prove that she’s a Final Girl.
What Stalks Among Us by Sarah Hollowell
The last thing they expect to come across is a giant, abandoned corn maze. But with a whole day of playing hooky unspooling before them, they make their second mistake. Or perhaps their third? Maybe even their fourth. Because Sadie and Logan have definitely entered this maze before. And again before that. They quickly realize they’ve not only entered this maze before, they’ve died in it too. A lot.
Death Is My BFF by Katarina E. Tonks
When Faith Williams almost loses her life during a robbery, Death is there. While he spares her soul, he makes a promise to return when she’s eighteen and collect it. Now it’s the eve of that special birthday, and Faith has no recollection of that fateful day. But echoes of Death appear in her art–his intense eyes, his intriguing demeanor—and she can’t get him out of her head. When he arrives in person, Faith is drawn into an epic supernatural battle where her very existence is questioned at every turn. To add angst to agony, she meets the infamous David Star at a Halloween party, and he begins to show an interest in her. He’s handsome, rich, ambitious, and every girl’s dream, but Faith doesn’t know if she can trust him. As Faith learns more about who David really is, and as Death pushes harder for her soul, an ancient prophecy emerges. When she discovers the secrets that bind all three together…all hell breaks loose.
Harvest House by Cynthia Smith
Halloween is coming up, and Hughie Wolfe is volunteering at a new rural attraction: Harvest House. He’s excited about working on a fun, spooky project…until he learns that an actor playing the vengeful spirit of an ‘Indian maiden’–a ghost inspired by a local legend–will be the star of the show. Local legend aside, unusual things have been happening late at night at the crossroads by Harvest House. Young women–particularly Indigenous women–are being followed by a creepy man; dogs are fretful and on edge; and wild animals are behaving strangely. When the big sister of Hughie’s best pal reports a disturbing encounter, Hughie and his friends decide to investigate, determined to find out if rumors of a looming supernatural threat are true.
Hollow by Shannon Watters
Isabel “Izzy” Crane and her family have just relocated to Sleepy Hollow, the town made famous by-and obsessed with-Washington Irving’s legend of the Headless Horseman. But city slicker-skeptic Izzy has no time for superstition as she navigates life at a new address, a new school, and, with any luck, with new friends. Ghost stories aren’t real, after all… Then Izzy is pulled into the orbit of the town’s teen royalty, Vicky Van Tassel (yes, that Van Tassel) and loveable varsity-level prankster Croc Byun. Vicky’s weariness with her family connection to the legend turns to terror when the trio begins to be haunted by the Horseman himself, uncovering a curse set on destroying the Van Tassel line. Now, they have only until Halloween night to break it-meaning it’s a totally inconvenient time for Izzy to develop a massive crush on the enigmatic Vicky. Can Izzy’s practical nature help her face the unknown-or only trip her up? As the calendar runs down to the 31st, Izzy will have to use all of her wits and work with her new friends to save Vicky and uncover the mystery of the legendary Horseman of Sleepy Hollow–before it’s too late.
Dead Flip by Sara Farizan
Growing up, Cori, Maz, and Sam were inseparable best friends, sharing their love for Halloween, arcade games, and one another. Now it’s 1992, Sam has been missing for five years, and Cori and Maz aren’t speaking anymore. How could they be, when Cori is sure Sam is dead and Maz thinks he may have been kidnapped by a supernatural pinball machine? These days, all Maz wants to do is party, buy CDs at Sam Goody, and run away from his past. Meanwhile, Cori is a homecoming queen, hiding her abiding love of horror movies and her queer self under the bubblegum veneer of a high school queen bee. But when Sam returns, still twelve years old while his best friends are now seventeen, Maz and Cori are thrown back together to solve the mystery of what really happened to Sam the night he went missing. Beneath the surface of that mystery lurk secrets the friends never told one another, then and now. And Sam’s is the darkest of all…