HALLOWEEN BOOKTALK
ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD
BY KENDARE BLAKE
“I’s the old boy-meets-girl story, if the boy is a wry,
self-destructive ghost hunter bent on avenging his
father’s death and the girl is a homicidal ghost .”
Cas Lowood, armed with his late father’s mysterious
athame, set out to kill a ghost known as Anna
Dressed in Blood, but what he believes will be a
routine task turns deadly when he discovers Anna is
unlike any ghost he has ever encountered before.
DA R K S E C R E T S : N O T I M E T O D I E
BY ELIZABETH CHANDLER
Message from a dead girl... It's too late to call back. Jenny will never speak to Liza again.
But it seems that even from beyond the grave, Liza is begging her sister for help....
They say it's a serial killer. Is it? Jenny can't afford to trust anyone. Now she's here, in
Wisteria, anonymously registered at the Chase College theater camp where her sister died.
The daughter of a famous theatrical family, Jenny distrusts actors, loathes acting. Yet here
in the college's darkened theatre, Liza seems to be speaking to her. Suddenly Jenny is
mouthing Liza's last lines, sharing Liza's last days, a drama starring Brian, the stage
manager, who seems to follow her everywhere...dangerously attractive Mike...Paul, who
was obsessed with Liza...motherly, suffocating assistant director Maggie...and Walker, the
director, bristling with hostility and resentment against Liza and Jenny's famous father.
Does he suspect Jenny's true identity? How can anyone know the visions that may be
driving Jenny straight into the killer's arms?
BIRTH OF A KILLER BY
DARREN SHAN
Prequel to: Cirque du Freak series. As a child laborer many
centuries ago, Larten Crepsley did his job well and
without complaint, until the day the foreman killed his
cousin as an example to the other children. In that
moment, young Larten flies into a rage that the
foreman wouldn't survive. Forced on the run, he sleeps
in crypts and eats cobwebs to get by. And when a
vampire named Seba offers him protection and training
as a vampire's assistant, Larten takes it. This is his story.
BLOODY HOROWITZ BY
ANTHONY HOROWITZ
A teen gang leader taken for a deadly ride by a car
with a mind of its own. A boy haunted by a phantom
cobra. A reality TV show pitting teens against grownups-with only one survivor. Includes “Why Horror
has no Place in Children’s Books,” “Bet your Life,”
“The Man Who Killed Darren Shan,” and 11 other
short horror stories by Anthony Horowitz.
SKELETON CREEK, BOOK 4 OF THE
R AV E N S E R I E S B Y PA T R I C K C A R M A N
Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek . . . and
Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after
an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to
see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records
everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to
search things out. . .and then emails the clips for Ryan to
see. The story is broken into two parts -- Ryan's text in the
book, and Sarah's videos on a special website, with links and
passwords given throughout the book.
CRYER’S CROSS BY LISA
MCMANN
PLEASE. SAVE ME. She traces the letters and
wonders again why she hadn’t seen them before. And then
she hears a whisper. “Please. Save me. Like wind in
leaves, so faint that Kendall is sure she made a mistake.
Her body tingles, and she feels the back of her neck
prickle. She jerks her hand away and looks around the
room. “Who’s there?”
ROT & RUIN BY JONATHAN
MABERRY
In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America
where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a
job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations
cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a
zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but
he has no choice. He expects a dull job, whacking
zombies for cash. What he discovers is a vocation
that we teach him what it really means to be human.
POSSESS BY GRETCHEN
MCNEIL
Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone.
Instead, she is enlisted to help in dangerous cases of
demonic possession, and just as she is starting to come to
terms with her freakish new role, Bridget receives a startling
message from one of the demons. And when one of her
oldest friends is killed, she realizes she’s in deeper than she
ever thought possible. Now she must unlock the secret to
the demons’ plan before someone else close to her winds up
dead- or worse, the human vessel for a demon king.
NEVERMORE BY KELLY
CREAGH
Isabel,
This was the only way I knew how to reach you. After tonight
it will all go away. I never meant for you to be pulled into any
of this- ever. Please believe that. Somehow I’ve lost control of
everything. I only wish I could see you again. I wish I could tell
you everything that I couldn’t before. Most of all, I wish there
was a way we could start over. Whatever happens now, please
believe that I didn’t mean for it to end this way.
Yours always, V
THREE-QUARTERS DEAD
BY RICHARD PECK
Kerry is chosen by the coolest clique in school and so she
thinks life has finally begun. But then it seems all over
when her three friends are killed in a shocking car accident.
Or are they? Only weeks after the accident, Kerry receives
a text from one of the girls: We're all 3 here at my aunt's in the
city. Take the 3:50 train. B there. Exhilarating, terrifying
suspense is crossed with a thought-provoking examination
of peer pressure in Richard Peck's return to his
contemporary teen- and ghost-story roots.
CRAS H BY LISA MCMANN
“Something bad is going to happen,” I say. “I know you don’t believe me
and the whole school thinks I’m insane. I just need to ask you to please
be careful…” I bite my lip to stop my voice from pitching higher into
frantic mode. I can’t look him in the eye. I hear him sigh, feel its weight
in his hands on my shoulders. He rests his chin on my bowed head for a
moment and pulls me closer into him. And then he moves his face next to
mine. I want to wrap my arms around him, hold him, but I don’t. I
can’t. As we stand there together, bodies nearer than they’d ever been
before, I wonder how many times I will regret holding him.
BAD GIRLS DON’T DIE BY
KATIE ALENDER
I opened my eyes to see Kasey sitting on the edge of the bed, luminous in
the blue moonlight. “Kasey,” I said, “what…?” Behind her, the door
gaped open into the dim hallway. “Hello, Alexis,” Kasey whispered. “I
saw you in the dark.” “What are you talking about?” In the low light,
everything seemed drained of color, like it was happening in black-andwhite. Even Kasey’s eyes shone bright black with flecks of white. But she
didn’t answer. Now I was wide awake. “What do you want, Kasey?”
She ignored the question, “Come play with me, Alexis,” she said, and
her eyes burned even brighter. “Come outside and play with me.”
CARRIE BY STEPHEN KING
The story of misfit high-school girl, Carrie White, who
gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers.
Repressed by a domineering, ultra-religious mother and
tormented by her peers at school, her efforts to fit in lead
to a dramatic confrontation during the senior prom, that
no one will eve forget.
THE S HINING BY STEPHEN KING
Danny was only five years old but in the words of old Mr.
Halloran he was a 'shiner', aglow with psychic voltage. When
his father became caretaker of the Overlook Hotel his visions
grew frighteningly out of control. As winter closed in and
blizzards cut them off, the hotel seemed to develop a life of
its own. It was meant to be empty, but who was the lady in
Room 217, and who were the masked guests going up and
down in the elevator? And why did the hedges shaped like
animals seem so alive? Somewhere, somehow there was an
evil force in the hotel - and that too had begun to shine...