Now Read This!: Halloween and Horror

Twenty vampire tales ranging from romantic to chilling to gleeful; including Neil Gaiman's vampire poet in "Bloddy Sunrise," Cassandra Clare and Holly Black's "The Perfect Dinner Party," and Tanith Lee's "Why Light?"

Shori is an apparently young amnesiac girl whose alarming needs and abilities lead her to a startling discover: she is in fact a 53-year-old vampire, genetically modified to walk in the light of day, the only survivor of a vicious attack on her community with no memory of her past life.

If you are looking to laugh instead of hide under the covers, check out this Twilight parody, featuring Belle Goose falling in love with mysterious and sparkly Edwart Mullen; "complete with romance, danger, insufficient parental guardianship, creepy stalkerlike behavior, and a vampire prom, Nightlight is the uproarious tale of a vampir-obsessed girl, looking for love in all the wrong places."

Nina Harrison, fanged at fifteen and still living with her mother, hates the Reformed Vampire Support Group meetings every Tuesday night.Then one of group members is mysteriously destroyed by a silver bullet and the misfit vampires soon band together to track down the hunter, save a werewolf, and keep the world safe from the likes of themselves.

A modern retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula in the form of a series of cell-phone text messages.

In this twist on William Shakespeare's classic play, Juliet is a vampire and Romeo is the vampire hunter who is supposed to destroy her.

Princess Decomposia's father has taken to his bed, leaving her in charge of his underworld kingdom. She hires a chef, but her father is suspicious: "He's a lothario. All vampires are."

People are keeping secrets from Oli. His mum has brought him to stay with his aunt and uncle in the countryside, far away from all his friends, but nobody will tell him why his dad isn't there, too. Oli has a hundred questions, and only an ld, empty house in the middle of an ancient forest for answers. But then he finds a secret of his own: there is a creature that lives in the attic...Eren.

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Will Henry is an orphan and assistant to a doctor with a most unusual specialty: monster hunting. In the short time he has lived with the doctor, Will has grown accustomed to his late night callers and dangerous business. But when one visitor comes with the body of a young girl and the monster that was eating her, Will's world is about to change forever. The doctor has discovered a baby Anthropophagus--a headless monster that feeds through a mouth in its chest--and it signals a growing number of Anthropophagi. Now, Will and the doctor must face the horror threatening to overtake and consume our world before it is too late.

Grubbs Grady is about to learn three things: the world is vicious, magic is possible, demons are real.

Some secrets are better left buried; some secrets are so frightening they might make angels weep and the devil crow.

In the midst of a 1981 meteor shower in Iowa, a homicidal maniac escapes from prison and returns to the farm where his nineteen-year-old son, Ry, must summon three childhood toys, including one called Scowler,to protect himself, his eleven-year-old sister, Sarah, and their mother.

In the wake of a devastating disease, everyone sixteen and older is either dead or a decomposing, brainless creature with a ravenous appetite for flesh. Teens have barricaded themselves in buildings throughout London and venture outside only when they need to scavenge for food. The group of kids living a Waitrose supermarket is beginning to run out of options.

Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone – until they are brought together by a zombie invasion!

In the zombie-infested world Benny has grown up in, teenagers must work once they turn fifteen-or they'll lose their food rations. Benny isn't interested in taking on the family business, but he reluctantly agrees to train as a zombie killer with his boring big brother, Tom. And then...

Imagine being trapped aboard the doomed Titanic on an icy Atlantic. . . with the walking dead. This fast-paced thriller reimagines the historical events of the fateful Titanic voyage through the lens of zombie mayhem.

"To defend themselves, a ragtag group of teens bands together at an abandoned amusement park after one day when, without warning, the entire human race turns against them"--Provided by publisher.

Phoebe Kendall is just your typical Goth girl with a crush. He's strong and silent and dead.

All over the country, a strange phenomenon is occurring. Some teenagers who die aren't staying dead. But when they come back to life, they are no longer the same. Feared and misunderstood, they are doing their best to blend into a society that doesn't want them.

In the early twentieth century in Swampsea, seventeen-year-old Briony, who can see the spirits that haunt the marshes around their town, feels responsible for her twin sister's horrible injury until a young man enters their lives and exposes secrets that even Briony does not know about.

Sophie Mercer thought she was a witch. That was the whole reason she was sent to Hex Hall, a reform school for delinquent Prodigium (a.k.a. witches, shapeshifters, and faeries). But then she discovered the family secret.

Meet Granny Weatherwax, the most highly regarded non-leader a coven of non-social witches could ever have.
Generally, these loners don't get involved in anything, mush less royal intrigue. but then there are those times they can't help it. As Granny Weatherwax is about to discover, though, it's a lot harder to stir up trouble in the castle than some theatrical types would have you think. Even when you've got a few unexpected spells up your sleeve.

Anne Rice makes real a family of witches--a family given to poetry and incest, to murder and philosophy, a family that is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous and seductive being.

When an old friend disappears in Aokigahara, Japan's infamous 'suicide forest,' Tark and the ghostly Okiku must resolve their differences and return to find her. In a strange village inside Aokigahara, old ghosts and an ancient evil lie waiting.

"When Miss Lana accidentally buys a haunted inn at the Tupelo Landing town auction, Desperado Detectives--aka Mo LoBeau and her best friend Dale--opens up a paranormal division to solve the ghost's identity before the town's big 250th anniversary bash"--Provided by publisher.

Anya, embarrassed by her Russian immigrant family and self-conscious about her body, has given up on fitting in at school but falling down a well and making friends with the ghost there just may be worse.

A host of the sharpest young adult authors come together in this collection of terrifying tales and psychological thrillers. Each story draws from a mix of literature, film, television, or even music to offer something new and fresh and unsettling. Even better? After you've teased out each tale's references, satisfy your curiosity at the end, where the inspiration is revealed. There are no superficial scares here. These are stories that will make you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat. From bloody horror, to the supernatural, to unnerving, all-too-possible realism, this collection has something for anyone looking for an absolute thrill.

An imaginary friend who won't let go; a recluse bird-hunter who kidnaps girls; and a magician with sinister tricks. A collection of suspenseful stories from eleven masterful children's authors.

Horror and beyond; just the titles of some of these stories are enough to start you shivering-"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper," "The Valley of the Spiders," "Come and Go Mad," The Explosives Expert," and "The Doll," to name a few.

Start off with a this, thin book of short and scary stories to get in the Halloween frame of mind.

When your best friend is just a tiny bit psychotic, you should never actually believe him when he says, "Trust me. This is gonna be awesome."

Of course, you probably wouldn't believe a voodoo doll could work either. Or that it could cause someone's leg to blow clean off with one quick prick. But I've seen it. It can happen. And when there is suddenly a doll of you floating around out there...

In America after the Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement: The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, a parent may choose to retroactively get rid of a child through a process called "unwinding." Unwinding ensures that the child's life doesn’t “technically” end by transplanting all the organs in the child's body to various recipients. Now a common and accepted practice in society, troublesome or unwanted teens are able to easily be unwound.

A collection of short, and not so short, terrifying stories by Stephen King. The title really does say it all.