Thrillers - Fiction

Werewolves & Animals of Terror

Atwater-Rhodes, Amelia. In the Forests of the Night
Risika, a teenage vampire, wanders back in time to the year 1684 when, as a human, she died and was transformed against her will.

__________.  Demon in my View
Seventeen-year-old Jessica Allodola discovers that the vampire world of her fiction is real when she develops relationships with an alluring vampire named Aubrey and the teenage witch who is trying to save Jessica from his clutches.

__________.  Shattered Mirror
As seventeen-year-old Sarah, daughter of a powerful line of vampire-hunting witches, continues to pursue the ancient bloodsucker Nikolas, she finds herself in a dangerous friendship with two vampire siblings in her high school.

Hambly, Barbara. Those who hunt the night
A clever turnabout vampire yarn in which a professor is hired by a member of old London's undead to ferret out the fiend who is killing off his ghastly brethren.

King, Stephen.  Salem's Lot
A stranger with an evil secret harms the lives of many inhabitants of a small New England town.

Ladies of Horror:  two centuries of supernatural stories by the gentle sex.
Collection of stories that is remarkable for its insights into the development of the horror genre, and creates an awareness of women writers and the importance of their work. (813 MAN)

Niles, Steve.  30 Days of Night
A small town in Alaska is plunged into darkness and a group of vampires take over for thirty days, creating mayhem. (Graphic Novel)

Rice, Anne. The queen of the damned.
Akasha, mother of all vampires, has been awakened from her 6,000 year sleep and elevates herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of gods.

Rice, Anne.  Vampire Chronicles

Simmons, Dan. Children of the night.
Kate Neuman, a hematologist, adopts a Romanian baby boy who requires biweekly transfusions to survive.  She returns to Colorado and eventually comes face-to-face with Dracula.

Somtow, S.P.  The Vampire's beautiful daughter.
Life isn't easy for Johnny Shapiro, despite his mother's success as the author of a book about his Lakota grandfather. He finds it hard to "fit in" in his new school--until he meets Rebecca, a new student as well, and the half-human daughter of a vampire.

Stine, R. L. Goodnight kiss 2.
Billy's girlfriend was killed by vampires last summer.  So this summer, Billy is ready for revenge--he's going to beat the undead...or join them.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula.
A horror story set in 19th century Europe, recounting the exploits of the evil vampire, Count Dracula.

Velde, Vivian vande. Companions of the night.
Kerry never dreamed that vampires lived in her little town until she became involved with a handsome one named Ethan.

Patterson, James. Violets are blue.
 

Witches, Wizards & the Occult

Duncan, Lois. Gallows Hill.
A teenage girl who plays the role of a fortune-teller at a school fair begins to have visions of the Salem witchcraft trials.

Duncan, Lois.  Summer of Fear.
Rachel discovers that her cousin is a witch and saves her family from the sorceress.

Forbes, Esther. Mirror for witches.
Sets forth the tale of terror of the witch-hunt in a seventeenth century town near Salem, Massachusetts, and portrays the misery and isolation of the victim.

Gaiman, Neil.  Books of Magic.
A mesmerizing tale of the dangers and opportunities of youth - and its endless possibilities.

Jordan, Sheryl.  The Raging Quiet.
Suspicious of sixteen-year-old Marnie, a newcomer to their village, the residents accuse her of witchcraft when she discovers that the village madman is not crazy but deaf and she begins to communicate with him through hand gestures.

Lasky, Kathryn. Beyond the burning time.
The year is 1691, and Mary Chase is afraid. The Salem villagers are accusing people of witchcraft! Will they all turn against Mary and her   mother?.

Moon, Russell.  Dark Prince.
A young man struggles with the strange power he has been given after killing Jules, the only girl he could ever love.

Napoli, Donna Jo. Magic circle
After learning sorcery to become a healer, a good-hearted woman is turned into a witch by evil spirits, and she fights their power until her encounter with Hansel and Gretel years later.

Nightfrights:  occult stories for all ages.
Collection of short stories about strange occurances and the occult. (SC NIG)

Rees, Celia.  Sorceress
Eighteen-year-old Agnes, a Mohawk Indian who is descended from a line of shamanic healers, uses her own newly-discovered powers to uncover the story of her ancestor, a seventeen-century New England English healer who fled charges of witchcraft to make her life with the local Indians.

Rees, Celia.  Witch Child
In 1659, fourteen-year-old Mary Newbury keeps a journal of her voyage from England to the New World and her experiences living as a witch in a community of Puritans near Salem, Massachusetts.

Speare, Elizabeth George.  The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
In Connecticut, in 1687, Kit Tyler, feeling out of place in the Puritan household of her aunt, befriends an old woman considered a witch by the community and suddenly finds herself standing trial for witchcraft.

Wrede, Patricia C. Calling on dragons.
A queen.  A fire-witch.  A search for a magic sword.  A sequel to "Dealing with Dragons" and "Searching for Dragons".

 
Mummies & Zombies

King, Stephen.  Pet Sematary.
The Creeds family just moved in next door to a place that children built with broken dreams, the Pet Semetary. It's a tiny patch of land that hides a mysterious Indian burial ground with the powers of resurrection.

Pike, Christopher.  Bury me deep
Mike's sudden death is a shock, but the fact he wasn't buried deep enough is worse.

_________.  Chain letter 2: the ancient evil
The perpetrator of the original chain letter is dead and buried when another evil chain letter arrives. Who will be the next person to break the chain and satisfy the blood hunger of the chain letter murderer?

Pullman, Phillip.  Clockwork -or all wound up- .
Long ago in Germany, a storyteller's story and an apprentice clockwork-maker's nightmare meet in a menacing, lifelike figure created by the strange Dr. Kalmenius.

Simmons, Dan.  Summer of Night.
A monstrous evil is stalking the children of the small town of Elm Haven, IL.  A group of young boys decides to investigate the disappearance of one of their schoolmates only to discover they must destroy the sinister creature before they become its next victims.

Stoker, Bram.  Jewel of the Seven Stars.
After an Egyptologist mistakenly disturbs an ancient mummy, his beautiful daughter becomes possessed by its' awakened soul.  Bringing the mummy back to life is the only way to save her.

Ghosts & Haunted Houses

Avi. Something upstairs : a tale of ghosts.
When he moves from Los Angeles to Providence, Rhode Island, Kenny discovers that his new house is haunted by the spirit of a black slave boy who asks Kenny to return with him to the early nineteenth century and prevent his murder by slave traders.

Boyd, Donna.  The Awakening.
Paul and Penny Mason and their teenage daughter Elsie become caught up in a frightening mystery when they go to their family lake house for the summer in an effort to patch up their marriage and help Elsie recover from a past trauma, and find the once idyllic home is being haunted by a woman who needs their help to move on.

Brooks, Terry.  The Sword of Shannara.
The Warlock Lord is plotting to destroy the world and the sole weapon against his power is the sword of Shannara.

Cabot, Meg.  Haunted.
Sixteen-year-old Susannah Simon is a mediator, one who communicates with the dead, and she also happens to be in love with Jesse, a nineteenth-century ghost.

Ingold, Jeanette. Window.
When she comes to live with relatives on a Texas farm, fifteen-year-old Mandy encounters the grandmother she never knew and begins to come to terms with her blindness caused by the automobile accident that killed her mother.

Jackson, Shirley.  The Haunting of Hill House.
Four people go to the ugly, abandoned old mansion, Hill House, looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting.

James, Henry.  Turn of the Screw (and other stories).
In this story collection, most of the action takes place within the minds of the characters.  James draws his readers into this electric inner atmosphere, asking much of the imagination. (SC JAM)

Jones, Diana Wynne.  The time of the ghost.
A ghost, uncertain of her identity, watches the four Melford sisters hatch a plan to get their parents' attention  and slowly becomes aware of the danger from a supernatural power unleashed by the girls and their friends from the boys boarding school run by the Melfords.

King, Stephen.  The Shining.
Chilling story of a little boy with special powers and his family's winter in a sinister hotel filled with ancient evil.

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon.
A novel of the black experience in America with an amazing collection of losers and fighters, innocents and murderers, followers of ghosts and followers of money, and laden with cunningly wrought mysteries.

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Jade green : a ghost story
While living with her uncle in a house haunted by the ghost of a young woman, recently orphaned Judith Sparrow wonders if her one small   transgression causes mysterious happenings.

Nixon, Joan Lowery.  Whispers from the dead
After making contact with the spirit world during a near-death experience, Sarah moves to Houston with her parents and receives otherworldly messages about a murder committed in her house.

Robinson, James.  Leave it to chance.
Fourteen-year-old Chance Falconer has only one goal in life: to follow in her father's footsteps and become a paranormal investigator, but her father doesn't approve and does his best to convince her to choose another path.

Stine, R. L. Babysitter IV.
Jenny is being stalked by two evil ghosts in the Warsaw house.

Summer, M. C.  Night terrors.
Spooky book about the paranormal where your nightmares become reality.

Tan, Amy. The bonesetter's daughter
San Francisco ghostwriter Ruth Young finally begins to understand her
Alzheimer's-afflicted mother LuLing's preoccupation with ghosts and curses when she reads Luling's writings of her dark backwoods childhood in 1920s China--where LuLing's mute, disfigured nursemaid committed suicide, and a nearby cave held what may have been the bones of the lost ancient hominid Peking Man.

Wallace, Rich.  Restless.
Frank, a teenaged ghost who has not been able to move on to a higher realm in the afterlife, tries to connect with his younger brother Herbie, a high school senior who was eight years old when Frank died.

Westall, Robert. Ghost abbey.
When her father's new job takes the entire family to a dilapidated old abbey in England, twelve-year-old Maggi discovers that both she and the building are haunted by ghosts from their pasts.

 
Maniacs and Other Monsters

Crichton, Michael.  Congo.
Deep in the heart of the darkest region of the Congo, near the legendary ruins of the Lost City of Zinj, an eight-person field expedition dies mysteriously and brutally in a matter of minutes.

Gaiman, Neil.  Neverwhere.
A new job takes Richard Mayhew to England where he stumbles across an injured young girl and into the horrifying subculture of the London underground.

Harris, Thomas.  Silence of the lambs.
FBI traniee Clarice Starling is assigned to interview a brilliant, imprisoned psychopathic killer for what she thinks is a standard Bureau profile.  But the FBI has another reason for sending Clarice to Dr. Hannibal Lecter.Someone is kidnapping young women and committing an unspeakable kind of murder--and Lecter just may have a clue to whom the killer is.

King, Stephen.  Carrie.
Carrie was not quite aware that she was possessed of a terrifying power.  But it was enough to transform a small quiet New England town into a holocaust of destruction beyond the imagination of man.

Pike, Christopher.  The Cold One.
Chilling story about a villain whose soft touch can wither a person's soul, whose great beauty conceals a black heart, and whose breath carries death in every exhalation.

Preston, Douglass & Lincoln Child.  Still life with crows.
FBI Special Agent Pendergast investigates the latest work of a serial killer in a small Kansas town whose inhabitants believe it denotes the return of a legendary curse.

_____________.  The Cabinet of curiosities.
FBI Special Agent Pendergast needs the talents of Nora Kelly, an archaeologist, and William Smithback, Jr., a researcher and reporter, to track down a serial killer whom he is sure has been stalking his prey since the late-19th century. When a real-estate developer demolishes a building and finds victims of a murderer who killed by tearing out their spinal columns, the three team up to pursue the evil behind the acts.

Saul, John.  Black lightning
For five years Seattle journalist Anne Jeffers has pursued the horrifying story of a sadistic serial killer's bloody reign, capture, trial, and appeal, crusading to keep the wheels of justice churning toward the electric chair.  Now the day of execution has come.  A convicted killer will meet his end.  Anne believes her long nightmare is over.  But she's dead wrong.

Shelley, Mary.  Frankenstein.
The horror story of a monster fashioned by a mad scientist and the curse of destruction and death wrought by its creation.

Stevenson, Robert Louis.  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
A gentle doctor turns into a hideous madman . . . a magic bottle holds incredible riches-and a terrible curse. . . a traveling corpse haunts its murderers.  The famous classic horror story of good and evil plus three more chilling tales of the bizarre and supernatural.

Demonic Posession

Bachman, Richard.  Thinner.
In this, Stephen King's best-known work writing as Bachman, an overweight attorney accidentally kills a gypsy woman.  Although he manages to wrangle himself out of a legal conviction, the gypsy's husband places a curse on him, causing the attorney to continuously lose weight.

Card, Orson Scott.  Treasure Box.
A brilliant loner finds love only to discover there is indelible evil in the heart of even the most perfect woman.

Cormier, Robert.  Fade.
Paul Moreaux, the thirteen-year-old son of French Canadian immigrants, inherits the ability to become invisible, but this power soon leads to death and destruction.

Crichton, Michael.  The Terminal man.
A computer implant in a programmer's brain turns the hatcher into a homicidal maniac

Dickinson, Peter.  The lion tamer's daughter and other stories.
Each of these stories touches on the idea of a twin, ghostly double of a live person, or a secret self. (SC DIC)

Etchemendy, Nancy.  Cat in glass, and other tales of the unnatural.
Contains eight stories of the supernatural for young adult readers, including the title work about a woman who is driven to madness by an evil glass sculpture of a cat.

Hillerman, Tony.  Listening woman.
Lt. Joe Leaphorn knew that on the old man's lips was a secret.  And now that secret, free on the winds of death, was moving toward its ancient homelong, a cave of magic paintings, of Standing Medicine's century-old legacy, and of the explosive dreams of the young angry Navajos.

__________.  Blessing way.
 When Lt. Leaphorn discovers a corpse with a mouth full of sand, he is ready to suspect a supernatural killer.

King, Stephen.  Christine.
A high school senior's excitement over buying and repairing a 1958 Plymouth Fury turns into a deadly obsession when the car, Christine, takes on a life of her own.

Koontz, Dean R.   Cold Fire.
When teacher Jim Ironheart is sent by forces unknown to save chosen people from life-threatening situations, he is joined, by chance, with a young reporter.

Michaels, Barbara.  The Dark on the other side.
Weird, terrifying things were happening.  Or was it all in Linda Randolph's mind?  Her husband, Gordon, was convinced that it was.

Shusterman, Neal.  Scorpion shards
Six teenagers, each tormented by what seems to be an exaggerated adolescent affliction, come together to try to stop the "beasts" that threaten to destroy them and the world.

Sniegoski, Thomas E.  The Fallen.
Orphaned since birth, Aaron is, at eighteen-years-old, is discovering newfound--and sometimes--supernatural talents and his role as a liaison between angels, mortals, good and evil.

Scientific & Biomedical Horror

Cook, Robin.  Mutation.
On the line of surrogate parenting and genetic research, it is the tale of a brilliant doctor who sought to create the child of their dreams, but invented a living nightmare instead.

_________.  Contagion
The story of a deadly epidemic spread not merely by microbes but by sinister sabotage.

_________.  Invasion.
Explores a sudden outbreak of strange new symptoms that defy diagnosis.  The cause is unknown, and unknowable, because it is unlike anything humankind has ever seen.

_________.  Vector.
A disgruntled Russian emigre' is poised to lash out at America with the ultimate terror:  a modern bioweapon.  But he must test it first.

_________.  Toxin.
A doctor must battle with red tape and corruption in the medical community and the meat industry after his daughter is infected with E.coli.

_________.  Coma.
They call it "minor surgery", but Nancy Greenly, Sean-Berman, and a dozen others, all admitted to Memorial Hospital for routine procedures, are victims of the same inexplicable, hideous tragedy on the operating table.  They never wake up again.

Crichton, Michael.  The Andromeda Strain.
Five day history of a major American scientific crisis.

__________.  Prey: a novel.

__________.  Sphere
Four scientists confront a terrible power one thousand feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

King, Stephen.  The Stand.
The few survivors of a world-wide fatal virus epidemic pit good against evil.

Koontz, Dean R.  Mr. Murder.
Mystery writer Marty Stillwater's lifestyle is shattered when a stranger breaks into his house claiming to be the real Marty Stillwater.

__________.  The Watchers.
Nora and Travis must become violent to protect themselves from a horrendous evil.

Saul, John.  Creature
When Mark Tanner signs up for a training program at an experimental sports center, the results are terrifying.

Shelley, Mary.  Frankenstein.
A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator.

Wells, H. G.  The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Science fiction about a shipwrecked man who lands on an island inhabited by a mad scientist and creatures he has created.

Psychological Horror

Andrews, V.C.  Flowers in the attic.
Four children are hidden in an attic by their mother so she will not be disinherited.  Book one of the story of the Dollanganger family.

Cusik, Richie Tankersley.  Overdue.
It was after hours.  Kathleen was preparing to close the library when somebody returned five grisly books about death.  One was slashed.  All were overdue.  Then Kathleen found the bookmark with the deadly warning.

_________.  Lifeguard.
A summer of sun, sand, and gorgeous lifeguards.  Kelsey's summer should have been paradise.  But it is just the opposite, starting with a note under her pillow from a girl who's missing.  And there's the crazy man in the lighthouse who won't leave Kelsey alone.

du Maurier, Daphne.  Rebecca.
The young second wife of Maxim de Winter senses some evil surrounding the death of Rebecca, his first wife.

Ellis, Carol.  Silent witness.
When Lucy Monroe's friend Allen dies, his mother sadly gives her some of his belongings. A few CDs, a couple of posters and a videotape that reveals a crime.  A deadly crime.  And someone will do anything to make sure Lucy never sees it.

__________.  Camp Fear.
Almost everyone at Camp Silverlake is afraid of something:  bugs, snakes, swimming in the lake.  But there's a deeper, darker fear some of the counselors share.  The fear that their terrible secret will be discovered.

Goldberg, Leonard.  Brainwaves.
After a research doctor is found dead, Joanna Blalock and Jake Sinclair attempt to use the dead doctor's research to discover the killer.

Hoh, Diane.  Blindfolded.
Maggie's about to find out there's a terrible secret buried in the basement and a cold-blooded killer nearby determined to keep it that way!

__________.  Last breath.
High on a hillside overlooking Salem University, hidden in shadows and shrouded in silence, sits Nightingale Hall.  Nightmare Hall, the students call it.  Because that's where the terror began.

Kellerman, Jonathan.  Self-defense.
Dr. Alex Delaware doesn't see many private patients anymore, but the young woman called Lucy is an exception.  So is her dream.  When Lucy's dream starts to control her emotions, Alex suspects that it may be more than a nightmare.  It may be the repressed childhood memory of something very real.  Something like murder.

King, Stephen.  It.
A malevolent force takes the shape of a clown and terrifies children with their innermost fears and brings them to untimely doom.

Koontz, Dean R.  Strangers.
Eight strangers with eight different fears share only one thing in common -- a weekend at the Block Motel.

Lessing, Doris.  The Fifth Child
An upper-middle-class couple face a frightening dilemma in the form of their fifth child.

Patterson, James.  The Lake House.
Out in the world for the first time since escaping horrifying government experiments, six children make their way toward the Lake House in the hope of being reunited with Kit and Frannie, a couple who once saved their lives.

Poe, Edgar Allan.  The Collected Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
Enter the realms of mystery, horror and suspense. (813 POE)

Wilhelm, Kate.  The Good Children.
The McNair children, Kevin, Amy, Liz, and Brian, have been raised to believe that family is the most important thing in the world, and when both of their parents die unexpectedly, they take whatever steps necessary to stay together, and become trapped in their own web of lies.

________.  Desperate Measures.
Attorney Barbara Holloway agrees to defend a man who has been accused of killing his neighbor, and in the course of her defense she learns that there are many suspects the police are ignoring.

And the Scaring Continues:  Thrillers in Series

Holder, Nancy and Debbie Viguie.  WICKED

Isobel Bird.   CIRCLE of THREE

J.K.Rowling.   Harry Potter and...

R.L.Stein  Fear Street

Cate Tiernan   Sweep