Bookish Ghosts To Look Out For This Halloween

Halloween is right around the corner!

And you’ll have to make sure you keep an eye out while trick-or-treating. You never know who may be haunting the next house.

But you can begin to prepare yourself for the next ghostly encounter while reading these EIGHT YA books!

Haunted (The Horror Diaries #1-5) by Heather Beck

“When darkness falls and the air turns cold, ghosts come out to play.

Heather Beck presents Haunted, an anthology of ghostly encounters and paranormal events.

Ghost Park
After discovering a mysterious playground in the woods, Chase is stalked by angry ghost children.

A Haunting Past
Truce’s class trip to an old native reserve turns deadly when Bear, an infamous chief who died two hundred years ago, blames him for the tribe’s extinction.

The Manor On The Rocks
Grey, damp and surrounded by jagged rocks, Calla Lily’s new home isn’t only unpleasant, it’s also haunted by the world’s most evil boy.

A Medieval Nightmare
When Ellie and Brandon get trapped in a medieval museum that’s a bit too real, they fall under a spell and become pivotal players in a ghostly regime.

A Watery Grave
A camping trip becomes a heart-pounding race for survival when Justine meets a ghost who’s determined to change her fate by trading bodies with a living entity.”

Published: 1 September 2014

Publisher: Treasure Cove Books

Genre: Young Adult Horror / Anthology

Pages: 127

Click HERE for my book review!

The Girl from the Well #1 (The Girl from the Well #1) by Rin Chupeco

“You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night.

A dead girl walks the streets.

She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.

And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.

Because the boy has a terrifying secret – one that would just kill to get out.

The Girl from the Well is A YA Horror novel pitched as “Dexter” meets “The Grudge”, based on a well-loved Japanese ghost story.”

Published: 5 August 2014

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Genre: Young Adult Horror / Paranormal

Pages: 267

Click HERE for my book review!

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

“Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act…different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favorite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?”

Published: 17 May 2016

Publisher: Quirk Books

Genre: Young Adult Horror

Pages: 336

Click HERE for my book review!

The Women in the Walls by Amy Lukavics

“Lucy Acosta’s mother died when she was three. Growing up in a Victorian mansion in the middle of the woods with her cold, distant father, she explored the dark hallways of the estate with her cousin, Margaret. They’re inseparable—a family.

When her aunt Penelope, the only mother she’s ever known, tragically disappears while walking in the woods surrounding their estate, Lucy finds herself devastated and alone. Margaret has been spending a lot of time in the attic. She claims she can hear her dead mother’s voice whispering from the walls. Emotionally shut out by her father, Lucy watches helplessly as her cousin’s sanity slowly unravels. But when she begins hearing voices herself, Lucy finds herself confronting an ancient and deadly legacy that has marked the women in her family for generations.”

Published: 27 September 2016

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Genre: Young Adult Horror

Pages: 278

Click HERE for my book review!

And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich

“Stay away from the woods…

When Silla and Nori arrive at their aunt’s home, it’s immediately clear that the manor is cursed. The endless creaking of the house at night and the eerie stillness of the woods surrounding them would be enough of a sign, but there are secrets too—questions that Silla can’t ignore: Why does it seem that, ever since they arrived, the trees have been creeping closer? Who is the beautiful boy who’s appeared from the woods? And who is the tall man with no eyes who Nori plays with in the basement at night… a man no one else can see?”

Published: 6 September 2016

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Genre: Young Adult Horror

Pages: 352

Click HERE for my review!

Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna #1) by Kendare Blake

“Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

Yet she spares Cas’s life.”

Published: 17 October 2011

Publisher: Tor Teen

Genre: Young Adult Horror

Pages: 316

Click HERE for my book review!

Harmony House by Nic Sheff

“Jen Noonan’s father thinks a move to Harmony House is the key to salvation, but to everyone who has lived there before, it is a portal to pure horror.

After Jen’s alcoholic mother’s death, her father cracked. He dragged Jen to this dilapidated old manor on the shore of New Jersey to “start their new lives”—but Harmony House is more than just a creepy old estate. It’s got a chilling past—and the more Jen discovers its secrets, the more the house awakens. Strange visions follow Jen wherever she goes, and her father’s already-fragile sanity disintegrates before her eyes. As the forces in the house join together to terrorize Jen, she must find a way to escape the past she didn’t know was haunting her—and the mysterious and terrible power she didn’t realize she had.”

Published: 22 March 2016

Publisher: HarperTeen

Genre: Young Adult Horror

Pages: 304

MARY: The Summoning (Bloody Mary #1) by Hillary Monahan

“There is a right way and a wrong way to summon her.

Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them–Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna–must link hands, follow the rules . . . and never let go.

A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: “Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY.” A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror.

Once is not enough, though–at least not for Jess. Mary is called again. And again. But when their summoning circle is broken, Bloody Mary slips through the glass with a taste for revenge on her lips. As the girls struggle to escape Mary’s wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are forever altered.

A haunting trail of clues leads Shauna on a desperate search to uncover the legacy of Mary Worth. What she finds will change everything, but will it be enough to stop Mary–and Jess–before it’s too late?”

Published: 2 September 2014

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Genre: Young Adult Horror

Pages: 245

Who are your favorite ghosts or ghost stories?? Let me know in the comments!

Stay tuned for more Bookish YA posts every Monday! Want to be in the know when new posts are released?? Hit that subscribe button below for email notifications!