Six Young Adult (YA) Horror Books To Chill The Spine

Wyatt Westlock wants nothing more than to make ruins of the farmhouse she inherited from her late father. It’s a decrepit place, haunted by some of the worst moments of her life. As she revisits its old bones, hoping for closure, she makes a shocking discovery.

Chained in the basement is Peter, her childhood best friend. Since he was a young boy, Peter has been trapped and ritualistically sacrificed for centuries at the hands of the Westlock family. The only way to free himself from the farm and his semi-immortal state—while also ending the ruthless cycle—is to end the Westlock line… by killing Wyatt.

Another terror starts to arise as the spell work keeping the farmhouse and property safe begins to wear off without Wyatt’s family there to take care of it. Peter is the only one who knows how to stop it, but he needs the help of Wyatt, who has a power rooted deep within her that she never knew of.

After a freediving accident, Addie Spencer should be as far away from the open sea as she can get. However, after being forced on her mother’s honeymoon with her stepfather, Addie finds herself trapped on Eulalie Island. She’s determined to take it easy yet finds herself longing to swim.

After sneaking away to the beach one night, she meets a mysterious boy who convinces her that being there isn’t so bad. However, after their first meeting, she finds the flowers begin to change from white to pink, the birds are calling her name, and there’s a strange little girl who leaves gifts, talks to few people, and enjoys playing hide-and-seek in the woods.

When Billie, the son of the island’s caretaker, tells her about the death of two girls on the island long before it became the resort she stayed in, she begins to think there’s more to Eulalie than meets the eye. Things may be more dangerous than they appear.

Growing up in Merilance School for Girls is not for the faint of heart. Olivia Prior knows that more than anyone. When she receives a letter inviting her to come home to Gallant, she goes armed with only her mother’s journal to build roots of her past with.

When she arrives, no one is prepared for her arrival. Still, Gallant is the first true home she has known outside of Merilance. She refuses to leave even when her cousin, Matthew, treats her terribly, and she begins seeing ghouls in Gallant’s halls.

As her mother’s journal entries start descending into madness, Olivia begins to uncover the secrets trapped within the walls–or through them. She finds herself in an alternate Gallant where the ghouls are real and the manor is falling to pieces. Every trip she makes provides her with more pieces of her past, but are they enough for her to choose whether to protect the world against the Master of the House or take her place beside him?

After Jane North-Robinson’s father died suddenly, she and her mother picked up their things and moved from the sunny skies of California to a dull house in Maine where her mother was raised.

As Jane attempts to settle into her new home, she begins to find her fresh start hindered by events that occurred in her mother’s childhood. She finds comfort in the new friends she makes, memories of her father, and old books.

When Jane notices her mother struggling to cope, things in her new home take on a strange feel. North Manor is hiding more secrets than Jane imagined. Especially when she finds out the “storage room” her mother had been keeping locked up was actually the room of a young girl who may or may not still be around.

When city girl Audre moves to rural Pennsylvania, she finds herself on the outside. She’s one of the only people in town who aren’t so sure there’s a Satanic cult practicing in the forest, and she’s also the lesbian in town.

When Elle, Audre’s crush and the preacher’s daughter, goes missing on Halloween night, the town begins to turn its attention towards Audre as a suspect. Even with eyes on her back and the harassment of the town, she realizes she’s the only one who can find Elle. And there may be more to this town than bigotry… something more wicked.

Cas Lowood is a ghost hunter. Not the EVP-collecting type of ghost hunter, but a kill-the-dead type. Following in his dead father's footsteps, who died at the undead hands of his target, Cas travels around the country with his mother and spirit-sniffing cat, fighting local lore that is more real than most would suspect.

When they catch wind of a spirit called Anna Dressed in Blood, he finds a young female ghost still dressed in her white 1950s dress soaked in blood. She’s never let anyone who tries to end her afterlife continue living… except Cas.