They’re thrilling, chilling and should not be started after dark. Otherwise, you’ll be up all night with these mysterious, murderous nail biters! There’s no monsters here, except the manipulative human kind. Even so, you may want to enjoy the stories below with the light on!
Fifteen-year-old Isabel, aka “Belly” has spent almost every summer of her life with her mom, her older brother Steven, her mom’s best friend Susannah, and Susannah’s two sons Conrad and Jeremiah. Susannah has always been like a second mom to Belly, and Conrad and Jeremiah like another set of brothers. Belly loves the weathered old beach house, all the silly traditions she and the boys have maintained over the years, and the fact that nothing ever changes. Until this summer. This is the summer when things get confusing. This is the summer when divorce, sickness, and hurt feelings turn sunny days dark. This is the summer of first loves, second kisses and Belly finally admitting to herself which boy she loves more than just as a family friend. Because this is the summer Belly turns pretty and the whole world turns upside down. “Every summer up to this one, I believed it’d be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was. I was.” It’s good to know I still retain my tender teenage heart, which ached terribly upon finishing Belly’s story, a bittersweetly familiar one for any girl who ever fell in love between June, July or August. More than just a cute candy beach book (although Han’s prose is as compulsively readable as the bag of Skittles one of her characters can’t stop popping), it has more in common with the multifaceted brand of chick lit penned by authors like Sarah Dessen, Justina Chen Headley
Seventeen-year-old football quarterback Cody Laredo never considered himself a good student. He maintained grades just high enough to keep his butt off the bench, hoping that a college football scholarship would be his ticket to the NFL. But now that he’s blown out his knee, lost his gorgeous upper-crust girlfriend Clea to boarding school and missed so many classes that he has no idea what is going on, he’s decided to drop out. Which is why he’s free to skip town and head east when he hears on the local news that Clea’s gone missing. When her beloved horse Bud comes back rider-less, the local authorities assume Clea was thrown in the woods and a search party is quickly assembled. Cody quietly joins their ranks, initially concealing his identity from the townies. But when Clea isn’t found in a few days, the search is called off and Cody begins to conduct his own investigation, based on little more than commonsense and intuition. As he begins to collect clues about Clea’s disappearance, Cody struggles with who to suspect and who to trust. Among the possible perpetrators are: Ike, the crabby old stable hand at Clea’s fancy school who seems to know more than he’s letting on; Sergeant Orton, the local fuzz who appears to be playing Cody just as much as Cody is playing him; and finally Townes, the rich boy who stole Clea’s heart—and maybe more. One of these men know what happened to his best girl. And it’s up to Cody to find out who before it’s too late. Reality Check is a solid, satisfying mystery with an earnest, blue-collar teen sleuth at it’s center. I love how Cody, who readily admits he’s not the biggest intellectual in the world, operates from the heart and realistically struggles with putting the pieces of the puzzle together, instead of snapping his fingers and solving it all in one fell swoop. This is the first book I’ve read by mystery author Peter Abrahams, but you can bet it won’t be the last!
Micah is a liar. That is a fact. And the only thing you can be absolutely sure of in this dark, sexy thriller from Aussie author Larbalestier. For Micah, lying has become second nature, a way to distract herself from her outsider status, her parents’ indifference, the tiny NYC apartment that feels too small for her restless spirit. For Micah, there is only one truth. But it’s buried so deeply beneath all her lies she isn’t sure anyone would believe her if she ever found the courage to tell. “I am often in trouble. Mostly for things I have not done. I can’t expect to be believed. I am the girl who cried wolf.” Only two things calm her—running and spending time with her secret love Zach. Secret because he’s popular and she’s not. Secret because he has a real girlfriend who proudly calls him her own. But when Zach goes missing and later turns up dead, he and Micah’s relationship comes to unwelcome light. Suddenly Micah finds herself at the center of a storm of malicious gossip, unsubstantiated rumors and chilly silences. No one wants to find out what happened to Zach more than Micah, but to do so she’ll have to face some hard truths about herself, some of which are quite nasty indeed. Micah is a liar. That is a fact. But everything else in this suspenseful page-turner could be the truth or could be a lie, and it’s up to you, dear reader, to figure out which is which. With a surprise twist smack in the middle and a delightfully unreliable narrator, Liar is a delectably disturbing story from start to finish. My only complaint is the cover–the girl shown here looks nothing like the way Micah is described: half black and half white with short, curly hair. However, that’s small potatoes compared to how much I enjoyed this roller-coaster of a chill ride. (Editor’s Note: Shortly after this review and others were written, Justine’s publisher Bloomsbury decided to change the cover to more accurately reflect the narrator’s race.)
Meet Bernie and Chet, the two hard-bitten P.I.’s of the Little Detective Agency. Though one has two legs and the other four, both are tough, not easily fooled dudes with hearts of gold. Bernie Little is a down-on-his-luck detective with a big debt and small checking account. Chet “the Jet” is his loyal-to-the-bone mongrel sidekick whose wandering nose and lack of impulse control often gets him into trouble. Chet is the star of this mystery-series opener, as he narrates Bernie’s life in an uber-realistic, easily distracted canine voice that often comes across as barkingly funny. In their first adventure together, Bernie and Chet are hired to find wealthy teen Madison Chambliss, whose divorced mother reports her missing. But there’s more to this apparent runaway case that meets the eye (or nose, in Chet’s case), and the dedicated partners soon dig up connections between Madison’s disappearance, a real estate development that’s gone bottoms up, and the Russian mafia. To make matters more complicated, both have recently become smitten: Bernie with local investigative reporter Suzie Sanchez and Chet with a mysterious furry female he only knows by her come-hither bark. Unlike some other best-selling doggerel, this book nails the dog’s-eye point of view perfectly and also serves as an excellent introduction to the detective genre if you haven’t had the pleasure of dipping into it before. A doggone good book that even a cat person can love. I can’t wait to go on a stake-out with Chet and Bernie again!
It’s 1947 and fifteen-year-old Evie is in a big hurry to grow up. She’s sick of her gorgeous mom Bev always stuffing her into little-girl dresses and making her wipe off her lipstick. So when her stepfather Joe proposes a family holiday to swanky Palm Beach, Evie jumps at the chance to recreate herself on vacation. Her opportunity to do so arises when she meets Peter, a dishy ex-G.I. friend of her stepfather’s who’s also staying in Palm Beach. Peter is a twenty-three-year-old Hottie McHotster and a total flirt. Though Evie’s mother seems to enjoy Peter’s company, Joe seems sullen and resentful anytime he’s around. Slowly it becomes clear to Evie that Peter wants something from her family—but what? Does he really like Evie, or is he just using her to get closer to beautiful Bev? Or maybe his true target is Joe, and Evie is just an afterthought in his pursuit of a business deal with her stepfather. The answer is revealed when a tragic accident forces Evie to choose between Peter and her parents, and the decision she makes surprises even Evie herself. Though it takes place almost fifteen years earlier than the 1960’s cable sensation, this slick hist. mystery reminded me of the glamorous yet repressed world of Mad Men, where no one shares their real feelings and family secrets are swept neatly under the rug. Judy Blundell’s sophisticated teen noir is not only one of the few true mysteries in YA Lit. Land, it’s also one of the best. But don’t just take my word for it—Blundell’s book was also crowned the winner of the 2008 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, despite some very tough competition.
Sarcastic, twenty-something amateur sleuth Madeline Dare, grown-up child of hippie parents, takes a job as a teacher at an elite, if fairly cult-ish private school for troubled teens. The head guru in charge, Santangelo, promises desperate parents results, no matter what technique he has to employ to get them, including isolation and humiliation. Madeline, who’s having nasty flashbacks about her own dad’s bizarre child-raising methods, is having serious doubts about whether she can continue to teach using Santangelo’s “unorthodox” techniques. Then, two of her fav students turn up dead and Madeline rejects the hypothesis that the kids offed themselves and instead begins to dig for evidence of corruption at the highest levels. Turns out that pseudo-suicides are the LEAST of what shady Santangelo has under his ridiculously pretentious opera cape. This bitterly funny mystery by Edgar Award-nominated author Cornelia Read has a great cast of teen characters, but the best voice is that of jaded, wickedly witty slacker sleuth Madeline Dare herself. This is one seriously dark comedic nailbiter.
Fifteen-year-old Meredith is trying to catch a criminal. This terrifying man abused the trust of his small community when he used his position as a school baseball coach to molest children. Sentenced to nine years in prison, he’s been paroled after only three years–and now he’s coming home. You see, Meredith knows him better than anyone, because he’s not just a face in the newspaper–he’s also her father. He may have fooled the parole board, but he hasn’t fooled her. Meredith has come to the awful conclusion that if she wants to make sure he never hurts anyone else ever again, she’s going to need proof of his continued sickness, even if she has to use herself as bait: “I know now that I’m the only one who really understands the threat and if I’m ever going to be free of him…then I will have to bite the bullet and spend time in his company. Stake out the sacrificial lamb. Uncoil the rope so he can hang himself.” I burned through this devastating read in one subway commute, and I’m still shaking from the impact. This chilling debut by Laura Wiess is horrifically real in its depiction of not only adults who abuse but also those who stand by and let it happen. But Wiess balances these descriptions with the angry, amazing Meredith, who’s character showcases the hidden strength of teens and their ability to heal in the face of overwhelming odds. While the transcendent ending makes the horror of getting there all worth it, don’t pick up this book unless you’re ready to travel with Meredith to the deepest, darkest corners of the human soul.
If you saw someone die right in front of you, what would you do? Run? Scream? Pull out your cell and dial 911? Or would you go home and pray no one ever found out you were there? The terrified narrator of Paranoid Park does exactly that—see, he wasn’t supposed to be hanging out at the notorious skate park, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to be hopping trains and joy-riding into the old freight yards. But he was and he did. So he was there when the freight yard security guard who tried to chase him tripped and fell under the deadly wheels of the train. Our boy takes one look and runs for the hills. Now he is consumed with fear and guilt. Did anyone see him? Will he be blamed for the man’s death? Has he ruined his life forever? As you read the choices the unnamed narrator makes, you can’t help but put yourself in his shoes: what would YOU do? Loosely based on the Russian classic Crime and Punishment, this white-knuckle nailbiter was an especially popular title with the 8th grade boys at my school this year. And don’t miss Paranoid Park: the movie, directed by Gus Van Sant, out in spring ‘08.
Even though fourteen-year-old Enola Holmes has grown up in Victorian England, where submission to the male patriachy and painful whalebone corsets are the norm, she is not your typical Victorian shrinking violet. For one thing, her older brother is the famed sleuth Sherlock Holmes, and Enola is determined to follow in his footsteps, even if she has to run away from home to do it! Using secret funds left to her by her eccentric mother, Enola starts her own detective agency in London, which she operates using a combination of subterfuge, a variety of disguises, and her own good common sense. Her first official case comes courtesy of a grieving upper-class mother, who’s well-heeled daughter seems to have run away with a scheming merchant’s son. But nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon Enola is knee-deep in a conspiracy that includes brainwashing, kidnapping, and a garrote-(a nasty weapon made of wire and wood, used to strangle unsuspecting victims from behind) wielding villain who makes Jack the Ripper seem like a pussycat! She’s also busy staying one step ahead of her relentless brother, who won’t be happy until Enola has been found and safely ensconced in a respectable, if incredibly tedious, boarding school. This second volume in the highly entertaining Enola Holmes series is one of the best mysteries I’ve read in a good long while. Enola is plucky and smart, and though she sometimes seems like a twenty-first century girl tooling around in a nineteenth century world, her ocassional bouts of insecurity keep her all-too real. Don’t be fooled by the small format and somewhat young cover–this is one read that is grittier than it looks. If you end up loving Enola as much as I do, make sure you investigate her first adventure, The Case of the Missing Marquess.
Margaret Lea leads a reading life in her father’s antiquarian bookstore, making a modest living writing short biographies of interesting, if little known, dead people. Then the famously reclusive author, Vida Winter, asks her to write Winter’s own biography. Margaret is puzzled by the invitation. The solitary woman is known for her habit of publishing conflicting accounts of her life, all of which have been proven to be utterly fictitious. Still, Margaret is intrigued, so she accepts the challenge of teasing the truth out of Vida. As Vida begins to spin a Gothic tale of an insane mother, a set of feral twins, a ghostly gardener, and a tragic fire, Margaret begins to question whether or not she’s being told the truth. She wants to believe Vida, but her own deep, dark secret, also having to do with damaged siblings, makes her question the writer’s every word. Can Margaret trust Vida’s story? And as the tale grows more grisly, does she even WANT to? This wonderfully chilling suspense novel, a 2007 Alex Award winner has a slow build and a stunning conclusion. This book reminded me of Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and of course, the now classic Flowers in the Attic. Go ahead, try and put it down after the first chapter–I dare you!
Seventh graders Alison, Aria, Hanna, Spencer and Emily are all best friends in the upper class suburb of Rosewood, Pennsylvania. They trade designer clothes and dish delicious secrets until the night Alison mysteriously disappears at a slumber party. Eventually, Alison is presumed dead, and though the girls are shaken, they each learn to move on with their lives. Though Alison was the unofficial leader of their group, she could be manipulative and mean, and she wasn’t above using the secrets she discovered about each of them against them. Now, three years later, the girls are shocked when each of them begins receiving menacing email and text messages from someone simply signed “A.” This person seems to know everything about them, including the dirty little secrets each girl believed that Alison took to the grave. Who is “A”? Has Alison really come back from the dead? And if so, is she going to use what she knows to ruin their lives? This completely addictive series sucked me in faster than an episode of Desperate Housewives. Don’t start this one unless you have the sequel, Flawless, on hand, or else the suspense just might kill you!
Murray doesn’t see dead people, but he does talk to them. A loner and a self-described loser, Murray has no friends unless you count the friendly dead folks he chats with everyday after school in Forest Grove Cemetery. There’s sweet Blessed Daughter, killed by a brain tumor when she was eleven, and perky Dearly Beloved, who died in a car accident when she was a teenager. There’s also James, but he lost the lower half of his jaw in an explosion during WWI, so he doesn’t have much to say. But lately, Murray’s been hearing another voice, a frantic, insistent voice that begs and cries to be understood. Who is this new voice and why is she so upset? Pearl, the daughter of Forest Grove’s groundskeeper Mr. Janochek, is sick of seeing that weird kid whispering to the graves everyday. Who is this guy, and who does he think he’s talking to? Meanwhile, Deputy Gates is working hard to uncover any clue he can in the Nikki Parker missing person case. Popular cheerleader Nikki disappeared over a month ago and the police have no leads. These three people will all play an important part in this supernatural murder mystery that contains more twists, turns, trap doors and dead ends than the very best episode of CSI. What happened to Nikki Parker? Only Murray has the power to find out, if only he’s brave enough to try!
Imagine a monster terrorizes you and your younger sisters day and night. Not the kind of monster who lives under your bed or in your closet. You just wish it were that simple, that the monster could be waved away by turning on the light and dispelling the darkness. But this monster doesn’t disappear so easily. This monster locks you and sisters in a room when it goes out, this monster screams and throws things when its angry and while it doesn’t often hit you, the threat is always there. You’re sick of being scared of the monster. You wish there was a way to make it go away forever. So you start looking for someone to help save you from it, but that’s not so easy. Because the monster…is your mother. Matthew, Callie and Emmy hope that their mother’s new boyfriend, strong and gentle Murdock, is the one who will finally save them from the monster. But when the relationship goes sour, Matthew discovers that, even with Murdock’s help, Matthew is the one who must save himself and his sisters from the monster that is their mother. Gripping and disturbing, this nail biter will have you quickly turning pages to find out if Matthew can outwit and outrun his greatest fear—his beautiful, terrible, manipulative mother.
Keir Sarafian may or may not just have raped Gigi Boudakian. Told on Keir’s first person narration, the first thing he tells the reader is “The way it looks is not the way it is.” And it looks bad. Gigi is screaming and crying, Keir is pleading and sick. How did they come to be here, in this concrete room in the middle of nowhere with nothing…but a bed? Keir will be the first person to tell you, he’s a good guy. He has two sisters and a widowed father who worships the memory of his mother. He’s the last person who would hurt a girl, especially Gigi, someone he’s known since he was a kid. So why is Gigi accusing him? Is it because she’s confused? Or is it because Keir isn’t as good as a guy as he claims to be? Readers will have to decide for themselves who is telling the truth, and they only have Keir’s side of the story to help them figure out who the real victim is. As Keir explains how he and Gigi journeyed to this point, he leaves some very clear clues that point to his innocence…or guilt. Raw, emotional, and incredibly well written, this less than 200 page nailbiter will have you guessing until the last page, whereupon you will then go back and re-read certain passages…just to make sure!
Doug Hanson is an obsessed loner. Obsessed with his meticulous model train set, obsessed with watching the beautiful but uninterested Melissa Haverman, and obsessed with his best friend, Andy Morrow. Andy is everything Doug is not: popular, good looking, athletic. Yet strangely, Doug doesn’t mind that Andy hardly ever speaks to him at school or takes him to the jock parties on the weekend. Doug is happy enough just to have Andy’s undivided attention every night when they chat back and forth from their respective next-door windows. But when Doug gets in trouble with the jocks at school, his treasured friendship with Andy begins to unravel. Why doesn’t Andy stick up for him? Why does he suddenly seem so far away? Doug’s been hiding the truth about Andy and himself for so long that he’s not sure what the truth is anymore. And when the truth finally struggles to the surface of Doug’s mind, everything that Doug’s been trying to keep invisible for so long will suddenly and brutally come to light. Disturbing, shocking and oh-so-readable, the ending of Invisible will haunt you long after the last page is turned.
Paul Richmond is the new resident loser at the exclusive Gate-Brickell Christian prep school. Forced to go there by his freshly divorced mom, who is also the school secretary, Paul is miserable among his richer-than-God classmates who refuse to even acknowledge his existence. Then the mysterious and incredibly popular Charlie Good inexplicitly befriends him. Like anyone who finds himself on the bottom rung of the high school caste system, Paul doesn’t question his fabulous fortune–he’s just grateful for Charlie’s attention. But nothing is for free–especially popularity. Pretty soon, Charlie’s going to expect to be paid, and Paul has no idea how high the price is going be. After all, how can you calculate the cost of a human life? Utterly soul-less Charlie will give you chills in this nail biter that is reminiscent of Jawbreaker and Heathers.
The first three lines from Shattering Glass: “Simon Glass was easy to hate. I never knew exactly why, there was too much to pick from. I guess, really, we each hated him for a different reason, but we didn’t realize it until the day we killed him.” ‘Nuff said. If you don’t break the door off it’s hinges on the way to the library to check out this outstanding chiller thriller after reading that, then nothing else I say will be able to convince you!
New kid Lani Garver is a freak. First of all, no one can figure out if he is a she or a he. And he’s about to bring bodily harm upon himself for refusing to follow the unwritten rules of small town Hackett Island High’s ruling elite, the muscle-bound boys of the local fisherman known as the “fish frat.” But the weirdest thing about Lani is that he doesn’t even seem to care. His peaceful manner draws popular, yet introspective Claire to him, and soon they are both marked as untouchables by the fish frat. But how far will these guys go to break Lani’s spirit and punish Claire for associating with him? It’s not like they could kill him…could they? Nothing is as it seems in this strange and foggy nail biter by the author of the equally mysterious and creepy Body of Christopher Creed.
While on their way to a science camp for teen geniuses, Semi, Miranda and Arnie’s plane crashes. The only ones left alive, they struggle to survive via Tom Hanks Castaway style on a small deserted island. But they’re not exactly alone. Hidden at the island’s center is the compound of mad scientist Dr. Franklin. And let’s just say that nowhere in his plans for our three heroes does the word “rescue” appear. Dr. Franklin is obsessed with gene therapy, especially the kind where he splices together human and animal DNA. While this may sound like a Dr. Moreau rip-off (for those late on the lit. scene, The Island of Dr. Moreau is a classic novel NOT just a TERRIBLE movie starring Val Kilmer and a bloated, pasty Marlon Brando) it’s not at all. Semi and Miranda’s incredibly rendered friendship, stretched to it’s breaking point while they try not to allow themselves the comfort of insanity as Franklin decides what animals they will become, is what carries this book over from simply science fiction to probing, deep psychological thriller.
They all have a reason to be angry. Gabriel lost his beloved brother when a gang of kids murdered him for his leather jacket on the subway. Lydia’s father never lets her do a single solitary thing without his consent–and that means dates, friends, trips, ANYTHING. Alec bitterly blames everyone in authority at his former high school for turning him into a dropout drug addict. Hollis is short, fat and brilliant, not to mention pissed at all the people who discount his intelligence based on his appearance. And he knows a way to channel all of their rage into a single act that will not only make an explosive statement, but get back at all those people who hurt them once and for all. Gabe, Lydia, and Alec are resolved to follow Hollis’s plan to the end. But then innocent Gem accidentally gets involved in the group when she and Gabe fall for each other. Suddenly, Gabe is having a change of heart. But Hollis won’t let anyone leave the group until their plan is complete. And he will use any means necessary to protect the plan…even murder.
Leo is letting off steam on the anniversary of his sister’s murder by driving around and trying to forget. But the more he tries to forget, the more he is haunted by the gruesome images of his sister’s last moments. So in a moment of sheer anger and pain, he does something incredibly stupid–he kidnaps a girl on the street who has the gall to be alive while his sister is dead. Once his fury passes, he can’t believe what he’s done. And what’s worse, he has no idea how to fix it… Bree is terrified. Looking for a little excitement, she took a stroll on the wrong side of the tracks and suddenly finds herself blindfolded in the basement of this crazy guy who forced her into his car. But if she can get him talking, maybe she’ll get out of this thing alive. Listen in on the long night of Leo and Bree and decide for yourself if Bree is in danger of losing her life–or just her heart.
There was this teacher, see, who everyone hated because he actually, like, made you earn your grades. So like, these four kids decided to pull this prank on this teacher to get back at him for all the crap he put them through. It was a great idea, see, they were going to blindfold him and tie him up so that he would think he was being kidnapped, but like, they would just scare him, then let him go. Only they didn’t know Mr. Griffin had a weak heart. And that he took medication for it. So like, they were really screwed when Mr. Griffin kind of, well, died. Now four friends have a terrible secret and a body to hide. Ever tried to keep a secret in high school? It’s pretty much impossible, and pretty soon, somebody’s going to find out about Mr. Griffin. This nail biter was written before most of you reading this were born. But it still has the power to make your heart pound and bring your most hated teacher a bright, shiny apple.
