Bow High School

Learning COmmons Library

Scary and Horror

Book List

Need a good scary read? The LC has plenty! Here is a small selection of the many scary books. Don’t forget to check our catalog for more ideas and nearly 15,000 ebooks!

Email sdixon@bownet.org at anytime to request a copy!

This looks like a good read.

Urrrrgghh….

Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is an audacious retelling of English literature’s most enduring novel. Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield.

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities. As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels? This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It’s survival of the fittest—and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

Cover images and summaries are from either our catalog, Amazon.com or Goodreads.com

Oscar winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro and bestselling author Cornelia Funke have come together to transform del Toro’s hit movie Pan’s Labyrinth into an epic and dark fantasy novel for readers of all ages, complete with haunting illustrations and enchanting short stories that flesh out the folklore of this fascinating world.

This spellbinding tale takes readers to a sinister, magical, and war-torn world filled with richly drawn characters like trickster fauns, murderous soldiers, child-eating monsters, courageous rebels, and a long-lost princess hoping to be reunited with her family.

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When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Collections

A collection of Poe works. Because it’s Poe!

Anthology of gothic fiction, spanning two centuries of American writing from forty-six authors, including Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, Shirley Jackson, and H.P. Lovecraft.

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Collection of short stories from the depths of the sea. Including a story from local author Darin Hlavaz!

Collections

A collection of previously published spooky short fiction stories from twentieth and twenty-first century writers, and features "The Sadness of Detail" by Jonathan Carrroll, "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" from Stephen King, "October in the Chair" by Neil Gaiman, and others.

For fans of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, American Horror Story and The Walking Dead comes a powerhouse anthology featuring some of the best thriller and horror writers in YA A host of the sharpest young adult authors come together in this collection of terrifying tales and psychological thrillers. Each author draws from a mix of literature, film, television, and music to create something new and fresh and unsettling. Clever readers will love teasing out the references and can satisfy their curiosity at the end of each tale, 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 blood horror, to the supernatural, to unsettling, all-too-possible realism, this collection has something for anyone looking for an absolute thrill.

Stephen

King

Jack Torrance's new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he'll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote...and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.

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Years ago, the haunting of the Overlook Hotel nearly broke young Dan Torrance’s sanity, as his paranormal gift known as “the shining” opened a door straight into hell. And even though Dan is all grown up, the ghosts of the Overlook—and his father’s legacy of alcoholism and violence—kept him drifting aimlessly for most of his life. Now, Dan has finally found some order in the chaos by working in a local hospice, earning the nickname “Doctor Sleep” by secretly using his special abilities to comfort the dying and prepare them for the afterlife. But when he unexpectedly meets twelve-year-old Abra Stone—who possesses an even more powerful manifestation of the shining—the two find their lives in sudden jeopardy at the hands of the ageless and murderous nomadic tribe known as the True Knot, reigniting Dan’s own demons and summoning him to battle for this young girl’s soul and survival...

So much Stephen King!

Written by Stephen King under the name Richard Bachman. After an old gypsy woman is killed by his car, lawyer Billy Halleck is stricken with a flesh-wasting malady and must undertake a nightmarish journey to confront the forces of death.

Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland, lost in the woods after she wanders off to escape the bickering between her mom and her brother, boosts her courage by imagining that her hero, Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Tom Gordon, is with her, helping her survive an unknown monster tracking her.

Try a collection of Stephen King short stories.

Nonfiction

A fascinating exploration of the spirit world, from apparitions to haunted places.

Are werewolves real? When the moon is full, do ordinary people under a supernatural curse transform into snarling creatures charging out of the fog, only to revert to human form? Throughout history, people have claimed to have seen weird beings that are part human and part wolf, dog, fox, or even cat. Modern-day eyewitnesses across the United States report strange encounters with dogmen and wolf-like creatures. And while theories abound to explain the stories, the only certain thing is that popular interest in the mystery of werewolves remains strong. Werewolves examines the lore and legends of lycanthropy throughout history and from around the world, describing the many types of werewolves and case studies, and offering readers information they need to conduct their own field investigation.

Using contemporaneous court reports, depositions, letters, confessions and detailed written accounts, the author builds a terrifying picture of a world beset by the collective mania that was the witch hunt. Illustrated throughout in black & white.

Ray Bradbury

Two boys, best friends in a small midwestern town, finally come to understand that of all the terrors threatening them from Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show the greatest menace exists within themselves.

Halloween Night, 1954. A young, film-obsessed scriptwriter has just been hired at one of the great studios. An anonymous investigation leads from the giant Maximus Films backlot to an eerie graveyard separated from the studio by a single wall. There he makes a terrifying discovery that thrusts him into a maelstrom of intrigue and mystery—and into the dizzy exhilaration of the movie industry at the height of its glittering power.

Dean Koontz

"The dead don't talk. I don't know why." But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn. Maybe he has a gift, maybe it's a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out.

Molly Sloan, an aspiring writer, and Neil, her ex-priest husband, cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong when a silvery downpour with a strange scent drenches their California mountain home, and their fears come to pass when extraterrestrial beings of great evil invade Earth, stripping humans of life and hope.

Bartender Billy Wiles thinks the note on his windshield threatening the murder of a schoolteacher if he ignores it or the murder of an elderly woman if he goes to the police is a hoax; but when a young teacher is killed and he receives other warnings, his life becomes a nightmare.

Flume nominee

Relates the adventures of two creatures which have escaped from a secret, sinister government laboratory where experiments in genetic engineering are conducted.

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.

In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.

But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.

And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

Zombies...

The Zombie Survival Guide is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now. Fully illustrated and exhaustively comprehensive, this book covers everything you need to know, including how to understand zombie physiology and behavior, the most effective defense tactics and weaponry, ways to outfit your home for a long siege, and how to survive and adapt in any territory or terrain.

We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead, but at what cost? Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand, World War Z is the only record of the pandemic.

In self-contained stories that Marilyn French describes as honest without cynicism, loving without sentimentality, angry without bitterness, a woman helps her elderly mother grow old and die -- only to have her come back as a ghost, to settle all that she left out in life. Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, this episodic novel returns us to Broner's inimitable fictional world.

Jane Eyre, a penniless orphan, is engaged as governess at Thornfield Hall by the mysterious Mr Rochester. Her integrity and independence are tested to the limit as their love for each other grows, and the secrets of Mr Rochester's past are revealed.

Classics

Anne Rice

We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks--as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . . He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heir--young, romantic, cultivated--to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life . . .

Rowan Mayfair finds the drowned body of a man and brings him back to life. Together they try to solve the mystery of her past and his suddenly acquired sensory power. It takes them through four centuries of witchcraft and the occult.

Former government assassin Toby O'Dare is summoned to the fifteenth century by the angel Malchiah to investigate a case of poisoning and to search out the truth about a haunting, and the quest reconnects O'Dare with his past and offers him the promise of salvation.

Akasha, mother of all vampires, has been awakened from her 6,000 year sleep and elevates herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of gods.

A thrilling reimagining of Shakespeare's Hamlet, The Steep and Thorny Way tells the story of a murder most foul and the mighty power of love and acceptance in a state gone terribly rotten. 1920s Oregon is not a welcoming place for Hanalee Denney, the daughter of a white woman and an African-American man. She has almost no rights by law, and the Ku Klux Klan breeds fear and hatred in even Hanalee's oldest friendships. Plus, her father, Hank Denney, died a year ago, hit by a drunk-driving teenager. Now her father's killer is out of jail and back in town, and he claims that Hanalee's father wasn't killed by the accident at all but, instead, was poisoned by the doctor who looked after him - who happens to be Hanalee's new stepfather. The only way for Hanalee to get the answers she needs is to ask Hank himself, a "haint" wandering the roads at night.

Try something Shakespearean

Local author!

Set in New Hampshire!

At first, the arrival of the Circus Mysteriosa to the small ranching town of Guymon, Oklahoma, seems a blessed distraction for the Friedman family, but when Mary’s children, Emma and Jakob, open The Box, their hidden magical powers are revealed. Now the circus’s ringmaster, The Man in White, will stop at nothing to possess them, just as his enemies will stop at nothing to destroy them. Still reeling from the death of her husband in the trenches of WWI, Mary finds herself ill prepared to fight against such otherworldly forces. Trapped in the prison of her own mind, the only way back to her kids may very well be a pact with the very eldritch forces arrayed against her. With their mother dying, the children race to find a cure – a cure which only The Man in White can provide…but at what price.

A seven-year-old girl and her fathers are confronted by four menacing strangers while vacationing at a remote New Hampshire cabin.