As autumn deepens and shadows stretch earlier each evening, there’s nothing like a good horror read to keep you company in the dark. These five young adult horror stories not only deliver chills down your spine but also brings in voices too often under-represented.
1. She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran (2023)
Tran, a Vietnamese American queer author, pens a beautifully unsettling ghost story. In this book, Jade Nguyen returns to her father’s ancestral home in Vietnam and begins to experience haunting and folklore tied to her family’s past.
2. There’s No Way I’d Die First by Lisa Springer (2024)
A contemporary slasher-horror twist: Noelle, a horror-movie buff, invites friends over for a Halloween party. But when the Halloween “fun” goes off roads, she’ll have to use everything she knows about horror tropes to survive.
3. The Dark Place by Britney S. Lewis (2023)
A tense horror novel by a Black author. After Hylee is somehow pulled back in time to a night tied to her brother’s disappearance, she must untangle what’s real, what’s supernatural, and what’s linked to her own past.
4. Compound Fracture by Andrew Jospeh White (2024)
This novel mixes supernatural horror with socio-political tension. It follows Miles, a trans, autistic teen caught in a feud with a corrupt sheriff, who becomes haunted by a ghostly relative.
5. They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran (2025)
This novel is also by Tran, this one is a newer release. It ventures into ecological horror and body horror, centering around mutated wildlife and secrets under rising waters.
These stories prove that horror is more than scares, it’s about the voices that haunt, challenge, and redefine the genre. This fall, let these authors remind you that fear can be beautifully diverse.
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