Book picks similar to
Bloodchild by Tim Bowler


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Museum of Thieves


Lian Tanner - 2010
    Like every child in the city, she wears a silver guardchain and is forced to obey the dreaded Blessed Guardians. She has never done anything by herself and won’t be allowed out on the streets unchained until Separation Day.When Separation Day is canceled, Goldie, who has always been both impatient and bold, runs away, risking not only her own life but also the lives of those she has left behind. In the chaos that follows, she is lured to the mysterious Museum of Dunt, where she meets the boy Toadspit and discovers terrible secrets. Only the cunning mind of a thief can understand the museum’s strange, shifting rooms. Fortunately, Goldie has a talent for thieving.Which is just as well, because the leader of the Blessed Guardians has his own plans for the museum—plans that threaten the lives of everyone Goldie loves. And it will take a daring thief to stop him. . . .Museum of Thieves is a thrilling tale of destiny and danger, and of a courageous girl who has never been allowed to grow up—until now.

Skulduggery Pleasant


Derek Landy - 2007
    Meet Skulduggery PleasantAce DetectiveSnappy DresserRazor–tongued WitCrackerjack SorcererandWalking, Talking, Fire-throwing Skeleton—as well as ally, protector, and mentor of Stephanie Edgley, a very unusual and darkly talented twelve-year-old.These two alone must defeat an all-consuming ancient evil.The end of the world?Over his dead body.

May Bird and the Ever After


Jodi Lynn Anderson - 2005
    There, she is safe from school and the taunts and teases of kids who don't understand her. Hidden in the trees, May is a warrior princess, and her cat, Somber Kitty, is her brave guardian. Then May falls into the lake. When she crawls out, May finds herself in a world that most certainly does not feel like a fuzzy mitten. In fact it is a place few living people have ever seen. Here, towns glow blue beneath zipping stars and the people -- people? -- walk through walls. Here the Book of the Dead holds the answers to everything in the universe. And here, if May is discovered, the horrifyingly evil Bo Cleevil will turn her into nothing. May Bird must get out. Fast. Within these pages, Jodi Lynn Anderson shares with us the beginning of May Bird's daring journey into the Ever After, a haunting place where true friends -- and one terrible foe -- await her on every corner.

Breathe: A Ghost Story


Cliff McNish - 2006
    His asthma has nearly killed him more than once. But his new home has a danger he’s never known before - the spirits of the dead.They can’t breathe, but in Jack’s house they chase, hide, scream.Only Jack can see them. Only he can hear them. And only he can learn their secrets in time to save himself... and his mother...Winner of the Salford Book Award, the Calderdale Book Award and the Virginia Readers' Choice Award. In May 2013 Breathe was voted by the Schools Network of British Libraries as one of the top 100 adult and children's novels of all time.

The New Girl


R.L. Stine - 1989
    Cory Brooks hungers for Anna Corwin's kisses, drowns in her light blue eyes. He can't get her out of his mind. He has been losing sleep, ditching his friends...and everyone has noticed.Then as suddenly as she came to Shadyside High, Anna disappears. To find a cure for his obsession, Cory must go to Anna's house on Fear Street -- no matter what the consequences.Anna may be the love of his life ... but finding out her secret might mean his death.

Inside the Shadow City


Kirsten Miller - 2006
    A million rats, delinquent Girl Scouts out for revenge, and a secret city below the streets of Manhattan combine in this remarkable novel about a darker side of New York City you have only just begun to know about…

James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing


G. Norman Lippert - 2007
    As if it wasn’t enough dealing with the delegates from the American wizarding school and figuring out the mysteriously polite Slytherins, James and his new friends, Ralph and Zane, begin to uncover a secret plot that could pit the Muggle and the Magical worlds against each other in all-out war.Now, with the help of Ted Lupin and his band of merry mischief makers (The Gremlins), James must race to stop a war that could change the world forever. His only hope is to learn the difference between being a hero and being the son of a hero.

Flowers in the Attic/Petals on the Wind


V.C. Andrews - 1979
    C. Andrews, Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind.

The Secret of Nightingale Wood


Lucy Strange - 2016
    Mama is ill. Father has taken a job abroad. Nanny Jane is too busy to pay any attention to Henrietta and the things she sees -- or thinks she sees -- in the shadows of their new home, Hope House.All alone, with only stories for company, Henry discovers that Hope House is full of strange secrets: a forgotten attic, ghostly figures, mysterious firelight that flickers in the trees beyond the garden.One night she ventures into the darkness of Nightingale Wood. What she finds there will change her whole world...

The Forbidden Game


L.J. Smith - 1997
    There is something mysteriously alluring about Julian's pale eyes and bleached-blond hair. And when he places the Game into her hands, she knows their connection is something deeper.But as Jenny and her six friends begin to play the Game at Tom's birthday celebration, a night of friends and fun quickly turns into a night of terror and obsessive love. Because the Game isn't just a game - it's the seven friends' new reality, where Julian reigns as the Prince of the Shadows.One by one the friends must confront their phobias to win the Game. To lose the Game is to lose their lives. And that is only the beginning...

Lockdown


Alexander Gordon Smith - 2009
    Convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, sentenced to life without parole, “new fish” Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison. Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex’s actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon


Kelly Barnhill - 2016
    They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.  One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule--but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her--even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.

Disney After Dark


Ridley Pearson - 2004
    Finn Whitman and four other teens have been hired as Disney World guides, but with an odd twist: With cutting-edge technology, they have been transformed into hologram projections capable of leading guests around the park. What begins as an exciting theme park job turns into a virtual nightmare as Finn and his pals attempt to thwart an uprising by a menacing group of Disney villains.

The Accidental Hero


Matt Myklusch - 2010
    Barnaby’s Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten, and Lost, an orphanage that sinks further into the swampland of New Jersey with each passing year. His aptitude tests predict that he will spend a long, unhappy career as a toilet brush cleaner. His only chance at escape comes through the comic books donated years ago to the orphanage that he secretly reads in the dark corners of the library. Everything changes one icy gray morning when Jack receives two visitors that alter his life forever. The first is a deadly robot straight out of one of his comic books that tries its best to blow him up. The second is an emissary from a secret country called the Imagine Nation, an astonishing place where all the fantastic and unbelievable things in our world originate — including Jack. Jack soon discovers that he has an amazing ability — one that could make him the savior of the Imagine Nation and the world beyond, or the biggest threat they've ever faced.

The Devouring


Simon Holt - 2008
    But when her little brother, Henry, begins to act strangely, it's clear that these creatures exist beyond a madwoman's imagination, and Reggie finds out what happens when fears come to life.To save the people she loves, Reggie must learn to survive in a world of nightmares. Can she devour her own fears before they devour her?The Devouring is an engrossing tale of terror that will have you wondering: what if your worst fears became your living nightmare?