This year YABC has the perfect list of spooky books to really get excited about Halloween!
Check out our list of Spooktacular Stories of 2022 for YA below and then enter the awesome giveaway for a chance to win the books from the list!!
Ready for some creepily fun stories?
Go!
The Last Huntress
Author: Lenore Borja
Publisher: SparkPress
Release Date: November 1, 2022
Alice Daniels has a problem. Her reflection keeps misbehaving when she looks in the mirror—and the longer she ignores it, the harder it tries to get her attention. On her eighteenth birthday, she learns why: she is a huntress, someone gifted with the power to enter mirrors and the magical world that exists beyond. But with this power comes immense responsibility, for in the Mirror Realm lurks an evil that has infected the human race for centuries: demons. It is up to her and her three huntress sisters—with the help of one handsome and overbearing protector—to hunt and banish this evil one demon at a time, thereby keeping the chaos in check. But when an ancient god pays Alice a visit that turns deadly, it is clear the Mirror Realm is more than it seems, and she soon finds herself in a race against time to save the life—and soul—of the one man the gods are determined to never let her have.
The Last Huntress is a story of redemption and sacrifice, the bonds of true sisterhood, and the impossible, sometimes frightening, things we’ll do for love.
The Wolves are Watching
Author: Natalie Lund
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers / Viking Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 4, 2022
A fresh, compelling, and eerie exploration of small-town living, stolen children, and wolves that watch in the woods.
The night little Madison disappears from her crib, Luce sees a pair of eyes–two points of gold deep in the forest behind her house–and feels certain they belong to a wolf. Her town, Picnic, Illinois, is the kind of place where everyone knows one another and no one locks their doors. It’s not the kind of place where a toddler goes missing without a trace, where wolves lurk in the shadows.
In town, people are quick to blame Madison’s mom. But when Luce’s English teacher shares an original script about the disappearance of another little girl in Picnic back in 1870, Luce begins to notice similarities that she can’t ignore. Certain that something deeper is going on, Luce tracks the wolf she saw into the woods and uncovers the truth about her town: magical animal-women, who have remained hidden in shadows for centuries, have taken her cousin for their own purposes–and they have no intention of bringing her back.
A chilling mystery that weaves elements of magical realism, drama, and folklore into a story of one teen’s bravery as she confronts her town’s past and tries to save the future.
Mirror Bound
Author: Monica Sanz
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Release Date: September 9, 2019
Conspirator. Failure. Murderer.
Seraphina Dovetail is used to being called all these things. As the seventh-born daughter to a witch, and the cause of her mother losing both her powers and her life, Sera has always felt isolated. Until Nikolai Barrington.
The young professor not only took an interest in Sera—he took her into his home, hired her for his moonlighting detective agency, and gave her the one thing she’d always dreamed of: a chance. Under Barrington’s tutelage, Sera can finally take the School of Continuing Magic entrance exam to become an inspector and find her family. Now if only she could stop her growing attraction to her maddening boss—which is about as easy as this fiery elementalist quitting setting things on fire.
But when ghosts start dragging Sera into possessions so deep she can barely escape, and then the souls of lost witches and wizards appear trapped in mirrors, these two opposites will have to work together to uncover a much deeper secret that could destroy the Witchling world…
The Witchling Academy series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Seventh Born
Book #2 Mirror Bound
Pretty Dead Girls
Author: Monica Murphy
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Release Date: January 2, 2018
Beautiful. Perfect. Dead. In the peaceful seaside town of Cape Bonita, wicked secrets and lies are hidden just beneath the surface. But all it takes is one tragedy for them to be exposed. The most popular girls in school are turning up dead, and Penelope Malone is terrified she’s next. All the victims so far have been linked to Penelope—and to a boy from her physics class. The one she’s never really noticed before, with the rumored dark past and a brooding stare that cuts right through her. There’s something he isn’t telling her. But there’s something she’s not telling him, either. Everyone has secrets, and theirs might get them killed.
The Afterlife of the Party
Author: Marlene Perez
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Release Date: February 2, 2021
I didn’t even want to go to the party. I just wanted to stay home with my librarian-witch grandmother and her mystical book club. But my best friend Skyler begged me. So I went.
Not only was it the worst party of my life, it was the last party of my life.
I should have known there was something really strange about the band—especially when the lead singer bit me afterwards and then took off with my best friend.
Now I’m chasing down a band of dangerous vamps with my best guy friend, Vaughn. Who also happens to be the boy I’ve been secretly crushing on forever. And out on the road, anything can happen.
All I ever wanted was for things to change with Vaughn. For him to finally see the real me. But this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.
So be it.
Let the afterlife begin.
The Afterlife series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 The Afterlife of the Party
Book #2 I’m with the Banned
Book #3 A Sucker for You
Freaks: A Novel
Author: Brett Riley
Publisher: Imbrifex Books
Release Date: March 1, 2022
Hunted by monsters. Wanted for questioning. Late for class.
Four high-school friends suffer daily humiliation at the hands of three bullies. When the friends accidentally open a portal to another dimension, they unintentionally allow terrifying, other-worldly creatures to invade their small Arkansas town. Discovering that they are now endowed with strange superpowers, the four teens dub themselves “Freaks,” the very name their tormentors used to ridicule them. The Freaks must fight to save the lives of family and friends now in mortal peril and thwart a secret government task force that appears to be hunting them.
TRAVELERS: A FREAKS Novel
Author: Brett Riley
Publisher: Imbrifex Books
Release Date: February 8, 2022
Falling in love. Evading the authorities. Chasing the rabbits.
Now high school sophomores, the self-styled “Freaks” are back in class in quiet Quapaw City, Arkansas. They grapple with the ordinary challenges of everyday teen life: cliques, cars, and crushes. While everything appears normal on the surface, looks have rarely been more deceiving. A secret government task force—fully aware of the unusual powers the Freaks have acquired—is determined to capture them. Even as the mysterious Baltar Sterne shares ancient wisdom and offers hope, a new menace silently emerges in the woods outside of town. Clever, inexorable, and far more lethal than the Freaks’ first superhuman foe, this traveler from another world possesses powers that can only be described as godlike. The Freaks and their town will be tested in horrific ways they are powerless to predict or even imagine.
The Ravens
Authors: Danielle Paige and Kass Morgan
Publisher: HarperCollins/Clarion Books
Release Date: 11/3/20
From New York Times best-selling authors Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige comes a thrilling, dark contemporary fantasy about a prestigious sorority of witches and two girls caught up in its world of sinister magic and betrayals.
At first glance, the sisters of ultra-exclusive Kappa Rho Nu—the Ravens—seem like typical sorority girls. Ambitious, beautiful, and smart, they’re the most powerful girls on Westerly College’s Savannah, Georgia, campus.
But the Ravens aren’t just regular sorority girls. They’re witches.
Scarlett Winter has always known she’s a witch—and she’s determined to be the sorority’s president, just like her mother and sister before her. But if a painful secret from her past ever comes to light, she could lose absolutely everything . . .
Vivi Devereaux has no idea she’s a witch and she’s never lived in one place long enough to make a friend. So when she gets a coveted bid to pledge the Ravens, she vows to do whatever it takes to be part of the magical sisterhood. The only thing standing in her way is Scarlett, who doesn’t think Vivi is Ravens material.
But when a dark power rises on campus, the girls will have to put their rivalry aside to save their fellow sisters. Someone has discovered the Ravens’ secret. And that someone will do anything to see these witches burn . . .
The Restless Dark
Author: Erica Waters
Publisher: HarperCollins/HarperTeen
Release Date: 10/4/22
Enter Cloudkiss Canyon at your own risk.
Sadie meets Wilder Girls in this unnerving tale about the struggle for survival, the twisted satisfaction of revenge, and the darkness hiding in all of us. From Erica Waters, the acclaimed author of Ghost Wood Song and The River Has Teeth, this mystery will haunt you to the end.
The Cloudkiss Killer is dead. Now a true-crime podcast is hosting a contest to find his bones.
Lucy was almost the serial killer’s final victim. Carolina is a true-crime fan who fears her own rage. Maggie is a psychology student with a little too much to hide.
All of them are looking for answers, for a new identity, for a place to bury their secrets.
But there are more than bones hiding in the shadows…sometimes the darkness inside is more frightening than anything the dead leave behind.
ALL OF US VILLAINS
Author: Amanda Foody & Christine Lynn Herman
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group (Tor Teen)
Release Date: 11/09/2021
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
An Indie Bestseller!
An Indie Next Pick!
The blockbuster co-writing debut of Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman, All of Us Villains begins a dark tale of ambition and magick…
You Fell in Love with the Victors of the Hunger Games.
Now Prepare to Meet the Villains of the Blood Veil.
The Blood Moon rises. The Blood Veil falls. The Tournament begins.
Every generation, at the coming of the Blood Moon, seven families in the remote city of Ilvernath each name a champion to compete in a tournament to the death.
The prize? Exclusive control over a secret wellspring of high magick, the most powerful resource in the world—one thought long depleted.
But this year a scandalous tell-all book has exposed the tournament and thrust the seven new champions into the worldwide spotlight. The book also granted them valuable information previous champions never had—insight into the other families’ strategies, secrets, and weaknesses. And most important, it gave them a choice: accept their fate or rewrite their legacy.
Either way, this is a story that must be penned in blood.
The All of Us Villains Duology:
#1) All of Us Villains
#2) All of Our Demise
ALL OF OUR DEMISE
Author: Amanda Foody & Christine Lynn Herman
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group (Tor Teen)
Release Date: 8/30/2022
All of Our Demise is the epic conclusion to Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman’s New York Times bestselling All of Us Villains duology.
“I feel like I should warn you: this is going to be absolutely brutal.”
For the first time in this ancient, bloodstained story, the tournament is breaking. The boundaries between the city of Ilvernath and the arena have fallen. Reporters swarm the historic battlegrounds. A dead boy now lives again. And a new champion has entered the fray, one who seeks to break the curse for good… no matter how many lives are sacrificed in the process.
As the curse teeters closer and closer to collapse, the surviving champions each face a choice: dismantle the tournament piece by piece, or fight to the death as this story was always intended.
Long-held alliances will be severed. Hearts will break. Lives will end. Because a tale as wicked as this one was never destined for happily ever after.
The All of Us Villains Duology:
#1) All of Us Villains
#2) All of Our Demise
EACH OF US A DESERT
Author: Mark Oshiro
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group (Tor Teen)
Release Date: 11/09/2021 (Trade Paperback)
From award-winning author Mark Oshiro comes a powerful coming-of-age fantasy novel about finding home and falling in love amidst the dangers of a desert where stories come to life
Xochitl is destined to wander the desert alone, speaking her troubled village’s stories into its arid winds. Her only companions are the blessed stars above and enigmatic lines of poetry magically strewn across dusty dunes.
Her one desire: to share her heart with a kindred spirit.
One night, Xo’s wish is granted—in the form of Emilia, the cold and beautiful daughter of the town’s murderous conqueror. But when the two set out on a magical journey across the desert, they find their hearts could be a match… if only they can survive the nightmare-like terrors that arise when the sun goes down.
Fresh off of Anger Is a Gift‘s smashing success, Oshiro branches out into a fantastical direction with their new YA novel, Each of Us a Desert.
FIVE MIDNIGHTS
Author: Ann Dávila Cardinal
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group (Tor Teen)
Release Date: 6/04/2019
Ann Dávila Cardinal’s Five Midnights is a “wickedly thrilling” (William Alexander) and “flat-out unputdownable” (Paul Tremblay) novel based on the el Cuco myth set against the backdrop of modern day Puerto Rico.
2019 Digital Book World Award Winner for best Suspense/Horror Book
Five friends cursed. Five deadly fates. Five nights of retribución.
If Lupe Dávila and Javier Utierre can survive each other’s company, together they can solve a series of grisly murders sweeping though Puerto Rico. But the clues lead them out of the real world and into the realm of myths and legends. And if they want to catch the killer, they’ll have to step into the shadows to see what’s lurking there—murderer, or monster?
“A frightening, fast-paced thriller.” —Julianna Baggott, Alex Award-winning author of Pure
Trespassers
Author: Claire McFall
Publisher: Walker Books US
Release Date: 10/2022
Tristan and Dylan have escaped the afterlife, defying fate: Dylan should have been killed in a horrific train crash, while Tristan should still be an immortal ferryman. Now, living in bodies they have no right to inhabit, they discover they’re connected by something stronger than love—their souls are bound together. Alone, they’ll die, but being together has its own difficulties. As they try to adjust to life in the real world, with Dylan slowly healing from her injuries and Tristan attending school for the first time, they realize that when they broke through the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead, they showed the way for others to escape. Now they must face the consequences. Dylan and Tristan’s beautifully told and richly imagined story—in development to be a major motion picture—continues in this sequel full of suspense, action, and intense emotion.
The Gifts That Bind Us
Author: Caroline O’Donoghue
Publisher: Walker Books US
Release Date: 6/2022
It’s senior year, and Maeve and her friends are practicing and strengthening their mystical powers, while Maeve’s new relationship with Roe is exhilarating. But as Roe’s rock star dreams start to take shape, and Fiona and Lily make plans for faraway colleges, Maeve, who struggles in school, worries about life without them—will she be selling incense here in Kilbeg, Ireland, until she’s fifty? Alarm bells sound for the coven when the Children of Brigid, a right-wing religious organization, quickly gains influence throughout the city—and when its charismatic front man starts visiting Maeve in her dreams. When Maeve’s power starts to wane, the friends realize that all the local magic is being drained—or rather, stolen. With lines increasingly blurred between friend and foe, the supernatural and the psychological, Maeve and the others must band together to protect the place, and the people, they love. A thrilling sequel to All Our Hidden Gifts.
The Lost Coast (Paperback edition!)
Author: A.R. Capetta
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Release Date: 5/2022
Danny didn’t know what she was looking for when she and her mother spread out a map of the United States and Danny put her finger down on Tempest, California. What she finds are the Grays: a group of friends who throw around terms like queer and witch like they’re ordinary, though they feel like an earthquake to Danny. But Danny didn’t just find the Grays. They cast a spell that called her halfway across the country because she can bring back Imogen, the most powerful of the Grays, missing since the summer night she wandered into the woods alone. But before Danny can find Imogen, she finds a dead boy with a redwood branch through his heart. Something is very wrong amid the trees and fog of the Lost Coast. Now in paperback with an appealing new cover, A. R. Capetta’s lush, eerie, and imaginative tale overflows with the perils and power of discovery—and what it means to find your home, yourself, and your way forward.
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*Giveaway Details*
One winner will receive the books from the Spooktacular Stories of 2022 YA Edition ~ (US Only)
*Click the Rafflecopter link to enter the giveaway*
these books look good
I’m really looking forward to some of these!
So many good looking books!
What a great collection of books. They would get me through the winter.
A perfect combo of books for halloween
These all sound fun to read.
This looks to be a great collections of books. I would love to have The Wolves are Watching to read this minute.
These all look amazing, I hope i get selected.
So many great books!!
I have written these down. All of them look really good.
I am very amazed by the beauty all of these covers. They jump out at me and I would definitely stop in a book store and read the synopsis. Love them.
I am in awe by the beauty all of these covers. They jump out at me and I would definitely stop in a book store and read the synopsis. Love them.