Book picks similar to
Deadly Stranger by M.C. Sumner
horror
ya
young-adult
thriller
Spirit Seeker
Joan Lowery Nixon - 1995
Stine comes Spirit Seeker from four-time Edgar Allen Poe Young Adult Mystery Award winner Joan Lowery Nixon. Holly Campbell’s life has suddenly become a newspaper-headline nightmare. The parents of her friend Cody Garnett have just been found in their home, brutally murdered, and Cody is the main suspect. Holly’s father is the police detective in charge of the investigation, and even he thinks the evidence points right at Cody. Holly knows it’s up to her to prove what she believes it the truth: Cody is innocent. Against her father’s wishes, secretly crossing the barrier of police tape and television reporters that surrounds the Garnetts’ house, she begins her own investigation. Computer files, an odd neighbor, and a mysterious psychic—each might have the evidence Holly needs to help Cody. Or they could all be red herrings that will waste Holly’s precious time. A teenager seeking justice and her interactions with the spirit world make this spine-tingling new novel from the only four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award a surefire winner for mystery fans. “Tightly plotted.” –
School Library Journal
“Enriched with family troubles, guilty secrets, and a whiff of the supernatural, this page-turner will please.” –
Kirkus Reviews
“Readers will enjoy.” –
Booklist
The Perfect Place to Die
Bryce Moore - 2021
In order to save her sister, Zuretta takes a job at a notorious house of horrors—but she might never escape.
Zuretta never thought she’d encounter a monster—one of the world’s most notorious serial killers. She had resigned herself to a quiet life in Utah. But when her younger sister, Ruby, travels to Chicago during the World’s Fair, and disappears, Zuretta leaves home to find her.But 1890s Chicago is more dangerous and chaotic than she imagined. She doesn’t know where to start until she learns of her sister’s last place of employment…a mysterious hotel known as The Castle.Zuretta takes a job there hoping to learn more. And before long she realizes the hotel isn’t what it seems. Women disappear at an alarming rate, she hears crying from the walls, and terrifying whispers follow her at night. In the end, she finds herself up against one of the most infamous mass murderers in American history—and his custom-built death trap.
There's Someone Inside Your House
Stephanie Perkins - 2017
She's found new friends and has even started to fall for mysterious outsider Ollie Larsson. But her past isn't far behind.Then, one by one, the students of Osborne Hugh begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasingly grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and her feelings for Ollie intensify, Makani is forced to confront her own dark secrets.
The Leaving
Tara Altebrando - 2016
Eleven years later, five come back--with no idea of where they've been.Eleven years ago, six kindergarteners went missing without a trace. After all that time, the people left behind moved on, or tried to.Until today. Today five of those kids return. They're sixteen, and they are . . . fine. Scarlett comes home and finds a mom she barely recognizes, and doesn't really recognize the person she's supposed to be, either. But she thinks she remembers Lucas. Lucas remembers Scarlett, too, except they're entirely unable to recall where they've been or what happened to them. Neither of them remember the sixth victim, Max. He doesn't come back. Everyone wants answers. Most of all Max's sister Avery, who needs to find her brother--dead or alive--and isn't buying this whole memory-loss story.
Rotters
Daniel Kraus - 2011
What kind of monster would do such a thing? It's true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey's life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school. Everything changes when Joey's mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey's father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey's life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating. Daniel Kraus's masterful plotting and unforgettable characters make Rotters a moving, terrifying, and unconventional epic about fathers and sons, complex family ties, taboos, and the ever-present specter of mortality.
Overkill
Alane Ferguson - 1992
Skillfully weaving character relationships, Edgar Award winner Alane Ferguson applies a keen knowledge of our legal system to this taut psychological thriller. She has readers suspecting everyone before Lacey finds the murderer--at the point that she's in the killer's grasp. Young adult.
Living Dead Girl
Elizabeth Scott - 2008
Once upon a time, my name was not Alice. Once upon a time, I didn't know how lucky I was. When Alice was ten, Ray took her away from her family, her friends -- her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure all pain. She waited for the nightmare to be over. Now Alice is fifteen and Ray still has her, but he speaks more and more of her death. He does not know it is what she longs for. She does not know he has something more terrifying than death in mind for her. This is Alice's story. It is one you have never heard, and one you will never, ever forget.
13 Tales of Horror (Point Horror, #12)
T. PinesCaroline B. Cooney - 1991
do you? The masters of horror are waiting to take you on a terrifying ride, and there are 13 stops.Meet the new guy in town, very handsome, very sexy, and very deadly. Dine on sweet and wonderfully inviting confections - they're good to the last breath. Learn that some spells can never be broken...Inside you'll find the works of 13 masters of horror. Let Christopher Pike, R.L. Stine and the rest of our macabre crew show you the beauty in your worst nightmares - and the terror in your most exquisite dreams.... * viii • Introduction (Thirteen) • (1991) • essay by T. Pines * 1 • Collect Call: The Black Walker: Part I • (1991) • novella by Christopher Pike * 49 • Lucinda • (1991) • novelette by Lael Littke * 73 • The Guiccioli Miniature • (1991) • shortstory by Jay Bennett * 83 • Blood Kiss • (1991) • novelette by D. E. Athkins * 103 • A Little Taste of Death • (1991) • novelette by Patricia Windsor * 127 • The Doll • (1991) • novelette by Carol Ellis * 149 • House of Horrors • (1991) • shortstory by J. B. Stamper * 165 • Where the Deer Are • (1991) • novelette by Caroline B. Cooney * 183 • The Spell • (1991) • novelette by R. L. Stine * 205 • Dedicated to the One I Love • (1991) • novelette by Diane Hoh * 231 • Hacker • (1991) • novelette by Sinclair Smith * 257 • Deathflash • (1991) • novelette by A. Bates * 279 • The Boy Next Door • (1991) • novelette by Ellen Emerson White * 305 • Collect Call: The Black Walker: Part II • (1991) • novella by Christopher Pike * 331 • About the Authors (Thirteen) • (1991) • essay by uncredited
The Vanished
Celia Rees - 1997
They make entertaining copy for the school newspaper, then Fraser begins to wonder if some of them might be true.
Insanity
Cameron Jace - 2013
No one doubts her insanity. Only a hookah-smoking professor believes otherwise; that he can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis Carroll's paintings, photographs, and find Wonderland's real whereabouts. Professor Caterpillar persuades the asylum that Alice can save lives and catch the wonderland monsters now reincarnated in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice leads a double life: an Oxford university student by day, a mad girl in an asylum by night. The line between sanity and insanity thins when she meets Jack Diamond, an arrogant college student who believes that nonsense is an actual science.
The Haunting of Sunshine Girl
Paige McKenzie - 2015
there's the chill that wraps itself around her bones, the giggling she can hear in the dead of night, and then the strange shadows that lurk in her photographs. But the more weird stuff that happens, the less her mom believes her. Sunshine's always had a quirky affiliation with the past, but this time, history is getting much too close for comfort...If there is something, or someone, haunting her house, what do they want? And what will they do if Sunshine can't help them?As things become more frightening and dangerous, and the giggles she hears turn to sobs and screams, Sunshine has no choice but to accept what she is, face the test before her and save her mother from a fate worse than death.The first in a frighteningly good new series based on the popular YouTube sensation The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Network, created by Paige McKenzie.
Pretty Girl-13
Liz Coley - 2013
Angie has no memory of the past three years, years in which she was lost to the authorities, lost to her family and friends, lost even to herself. Where has she been, who has been living her life, and what is hiding behind the terrible blankness? There are secrets you can’t even tell yourself.With a tremendous amount of courage and support from unexpected friends, Angie embarks on a journey into the darkest corners of her mind. As she unearths more and more about her past, she discovers a terrifying secret and must decide: when you remember things you wish you could forget, do you destroy the people responsible, or is there another way to feel whole again?Liz Coley’s alarming and fascinating psychological mystery is a disturbing—and ultimately empowering—page turner about accepting our whole selves, and the healing power of courage, hope, and love.
The Silent Room
Walter Sorrells - 2006
But nothing prepares Oz for getting framed for drug possession. Or being abducted as his mother looks on. Oz soon learns the dark truth: his stepfather is behind it all. But why?
The Mary Shelley Club
Goldy Moldavsky - 2021
But as one of the few scholarship kids, Rachel struggles to fit in, and when she gets caught up in a prank gone awry, she ends up with more enemies than friends.To her surprise, however, the prank attracts the attention of the Mary Shelley Club, a secret club of students with one objective: come up with the scariest prank to orchestrate real fear. But as the pranks escalate, the competition turns cutthroat and takes on a life of its own.When the tables are turned and someone targets the club itself, Rachel must track down the real-life monster in their midst . . . even if it means finally confronting the dark secrets from her past.