The Kids Are All Fright: 8 Great New YA Horror Books

Up first is this exciting queer retelling of Frankenstein! Victor Frankenstein is a young genius who wants to make the world a better place, and thinks he can do it by healing the sick and dying. But when Victor experiments on Elias Hilfiker, a teen boy from a nearby village, things go wrong. Elias awakens a monster, taking the two boys down a dark path of guilt, revenge, love, and redemption.

All Jonathan wanted was to escape his island home after high school and go to college on the mainland with his friends. But when his application is rejected, Jonathan makes an offering to the eldritch sea-god Scorpion Deep, not really expecting it to work. Whoops. Now he’s awakened an ancient evil that is out for blood, and Jonathan begins to physically change as he tries to find a way to undo the damage before he pays with his life.

Calling all dark academia fans! As a nightcursed Revenant, Emrys Swift has been perpetually the age of seventeen for over a century. He has spent his time as a librarian for the NeverEnd library, a pretty uneventful job, until someone starts stealing magical artifacts. With the help of his nemesis, the very handsome shapeshifter Aubrey Vale, the two must face down nightmarish creatures and places to solve the mystery.

At the exclusive Milford boarding school, Lyssa’s first attempt at young love ends tragically when her boyfriend Jude is killed in a freak accident. Unable to let go, Lyssa figures out a way to summon Jude’s ghost. But his spirit’s powers quickly begin to grow out of control, and Lyssa will need the help of her roommate, George, in order to stop Jude’s ghost before it’s too late.

The fast approach of graduation only serves as a reminder of the night Lili’s best friends were killed in a massacre at their graduation the year before. It was a horrifying event Lili herself barely survived. And when another student is killed on the anniversary of the murders, Lili realizes the nightmare is starting again. But this time, she’s going to be ready.

When fledgling witch Lucy’s new roommate, Retta, goes missing at the start of their first year of university, Lucy needs the help of her coven to find her. Lucy got the weird feeling that Retta had unrealized powers, and with the help of her bruja friends, she uncovers an anti-magic regime and a hidden forest under the school’s campus.

In this Gothic horror, Catriona Cameron is one of only six girls to be accepted at the coed Isle of Skye boarding school in Scotland. And after curses are placed on her in an attack by some of the male students, Catriona receives new looks, new powers, new cravings, and a strong desire to punish people who hurt women. And there are a lot of people who need to be punished…

And finally, in this fantasy tale full of body horror and danger, two teen orphans, Petra and Jade, are trying to scrape by. They make money leading tourists into the giant chasm at the edge of the city, which is home to terrifying beasts and plants. And the deeper into the Void they go, the more they get paid. Then the worst thing imaginable happens, when they venture too far and Jade gets lost in the Void, leaving Petra to risk everything to save her best friend.