Thrills and Chills: 12 of the Best Horror Books for Teens

Twisting back and forth through time and various perspectives, this edge-of-your-seat thriller about a group of friends spending one last summer at the lake culminates in a shocking ending that will leave readers reeling. 

Natasha Preston is the queen of terror-inducing books, and with a title like The Fear, you know this is no exception! Pick up this book about a series of classmates’ deaths, and a spooked main character trying to find the killer as each death hits closer to home.  

Laced with magical realism, House of Hollow is the dark, haunting tale of three sisters shrouded in more mystery than they can even imagine. Since their strange, unsolved disappearance as children a decade before, the Hollow sisters have been plagued by the unexplainable. Lyrical prose and atmospheric world-building complete this eerie novel that will leave readers unsettled in the best way possible. 

Tiffany D. Jackson’s first foray into true horror is, well, hauntingly good. A captivating take on a classic haunted house story, White Smoke is a multilayered modern tale about a teenage girl named Mari and her newly blended family who move from California into an old house in a run-down Midwestern neighborhood. Readers will need to sleep with the lights on after they speed through this unputdownable thriller. And you won’t want to miss her upcoming horror, The Weight of Blood coming in September! 

With elements of mystery, thriller, and horror, this book will keep you utterly captivated from start to finish. With Eleanor returning to her estranged family after a horrifying incident at boarding school, she finds herself struggling to fit in with their odd and monstrous ways. While trying to hold herself and her family together, she must wrestle with accepting them as they are and taming the darkness within herself.  

A historical thriller full of 16 murders with bodies drained of all their blood, a single teenage girl as the sole suspect, and an aspiring journalist investigating the case. When the suspect decides that she’ll only talk to the aspiring journalist, the tension becomes almost unbearable. This book is certain to keep you on the edge of your seat! 

Horror-fantasy at its finest, Small Favors is a haunting small-town monster mystery complete with a heart-pounding forbidden romance. Atmospheric, unsettling and completely engrossing, this fresh spin on the tale of Rumpelstiltskin uncovers the evil that can sometimes lurk within the people we trust the most. 

As a medium that has to see the dead play out their final moments on a loop and as one of the only Black kids at a prep school full of racist teachers, life couldn’t be more complicated for Jake Livingston. And just as things are looking up with the arrival of another Black student and a romance on the horizon, Jake begins to be haunted by a vengeful and powerful ghost. The Taking of Jake Livingston will give you the chills from the first page to the last!

With the first four Fear Street stories all bound into one edition, horror fans won’t want to miss this collection of R. L. Stine’s beloved and terrifying stories! Are you brave enough to adventure down Fear Street? Those who visit don’t always return. 

Darkly eerie, and utterly evocative, Gallant is a gothic tale of a place where shadows meet light and death meets life. When Olivia Prior is summoned to her family’s home after a lifetime spent in an orphanage, she’s determined to understand what drove her mother, and countless other family members, to the edge. This chilling novel is best read with the lights on (or off, if you dare). 

This breathtaking post-apocalyptic debut about a transgender teenager and the fundamentalist cult he grew up in is not for the faint of heart. Guts and gore abound as Benji fights back against the monsters around him and learns how to control the one within himself. 

For a contemporary fantasy that will give you a dark, haunting read that’s fast paced and will also keep you riveted the entire time, pick up Our Crooked Hearts. Full of witchcraft, secrets and lies, this book is a must-read that alternates between the perspectives of Ivy and her mother, Dana, and hints at the reckoning required between this mother and daughter duo.