15 Scary YA Books That Are Perfect For Halloween

Think Hocus Pocus but way darker, and you have Shea Ernshaw's The Wicked Deep. Two centuries ago, the citizens of the sleepy town of Willow accused three sisters of witchcraft and then sentenced them to death. Now, every Summer, the town pays for the sins of its past. The sisters return to steal the bodies of three "weak-hearted girls" and then they use them to lure young men to their death.

Technically, Victoria Schwab's City of Ghosts and its sequel, Tunnel of Bones, are classified as middle grade novels, but the atmospheric series is perfect for readers of all ages. The books center on a young girl named Cass who can pull back the veil between the living and the dead. Navigating her gift isn't always easy, and it gets a whole lot harder when her ghost-hunting parents move her to Edinburgh, Scotland — a city teaming with ghosts.

Stephanie Perkins is best known for her contemporary romance novels, but she took a big swing with There's Someone Inside Your House, and it paid off. Makani Young moves to her grandmother's small Nebraska town to escape her past, but her quest for anonymity is threatened when a murderer begins ritualistically killing students in her high school. (As an added bonus, Netflix is currently adapting the book into an original movie.)

Eireann Corrigan's Creep is all about the secrets lurking in the history of every old home. No one seems to stay in 16 Olcott Place for long, and Olivia, who lives next door, is about to find out why. She befriends the new neighbors just in time to witness them receiving a letter promising that their presence in the home won't be tolerated. Now she's determined to discover who sent the letter and why.

Stranger Things fans, prepare to be obsessed with Christine Lynn Herman's The Devouring Gray. Set in the small town of Four Paths, the book follows the children of the descendants' of the town's founding families. The teens possess powers that can protect the town from the monsters that lurk in a dimension called the Gray, but first they need to understand the complex and dark history that binds their families together.

Before she wrote the brilliant Three Dark Crowns fantasy series, Kendare Blake penned the engrossing horror novel Anna Dressed in Blood. Cas is a ghost hunter whose job is to protect the living from the dead, but his latest case proves to be more complicated. The ghost he's after, Anna, kills every person who enters her mansion, but she spares Cas — now he's determined to find out why.

Of all the books on this list, Emma Berquist's Devils Unto Dust may be the most terrifying. Part horror novel, part Western, the book is set in post-apocalyptic Texas where infected people called Shakes attack the living. When 17-year-old Willie's father steals from a notorious Shake hunter, she's forced to cross the perilous desert in order to pay off his debt.

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legend flips the typical horror narrative on its head. An unlikely trio of young women band together to take on the monster lurking at Sawkill Rock, a beautiful island with a dark history full of missing girls.

Sara Faring's The Tenth Girl has everything you could want from a ghost story: a Gothic mansion, a curse, and plenty of twists. Mavi comes to Vaccaro School in South America to start a new life as a teacher. Unfortunately, the isolated school is full of unsettling secrets that point to something supernatural haunting its mysterious halls.

Justina Ireland weaves an ingenious alternate history in Dread Nation. Jane lives in a world where the American Civil War was halted when the dead began to rise. Now the Native and Negro Education Act requires Jane to learn how to fight the undead in order to protect the wealthy, whether she wants to or not. However, as she's completing her training, an all too human conspiracy threatens to draw her in.

In The Women in the Walls, Amy Lukavics creates a modern Gothic story. Cousins Lucy and Margaret both lose their mothers at a young age, but what they don't know is that their losses could be connected to a curse that has plagued the women in their family for centuries.

Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None gets the YA treatment in Gretchen McNeil's intense Ten. Ten teens head to a secluded island for an epic three-day party. What they don't know is that there's a killer among them just waiting to kill the guests off one by one.

Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism is the perfect mix of '80s nostalgia and scares. Gretchen and Abby have been best friends since they were little, but lately Gretchen's been acting . . . well, possessed. And now it's up to Abby to save her friend from the devil's clutches.

Ann Dávila Cardinal's Five Midnights is based on the el Cuco myth and set in modern day Puerto Rico. Lupe is spending the Summer with her aunt and uncle when she finds herself becoming involved with one of her uncle's cases. The question is: are they looking for a killer or is there a monster to blame for the rash of grisly murders?

Kiersten White's The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein reimagines Frankenstein from a fresh perspective. Elizabeth is taken into the Frankenstein home to be a companion for Victor; unfortunately, he's prone to erratic behavior and dangerous ideas. However, Elizabeth's desire to survive is too strong to allow Victor's strange ways to displace her from her new home.