Serafina is True Middle Grade Horror

Premise: Serafina has always lived secretly in the basement of a mansion, warned by her father to never go outside where the dark forest waits. But then one night a wealthy child in the mansion goes missing, and Serafina is the only witness. As more children begin to disappear, she knows that she must follow the clues to save them.

Title: Serafina and the Black Cloak
Author: Robert Beatty
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Mystery, Horror, Fantasy
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Content appropriate for: Grades 4-7
Format: Digital ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Publication: July 14, 2015

Three adjectives that describe this book: dark, gripping, mysterious

Serafina and the Black Cloak was much scarier than I expected! It was engaging, complex, and made me question my reading-before-sleeping habit.

I found it really interesting how Beatty wove the actual history of the Biltmore Estate with fantasy and horror elements. At times I was caught off-guard when fantasy elements crept into the story. We'd be going along with fancy mansion-life and dank basement-life, and then BAM mythical creatures in the forest!

A scene from the book trailer with the Biltmore Estate in the background

For a book to be truly scary, you must have a scary villain. So how does the villain in Serafina measure up? He is definitely scary. And creepy. And strange. His skin seems to be falling off and he comes for you steadily in the dark. I was definitely creeped out by him.

Villain in a black cloak. From the author's website.

The only reason I docked a star for Serafina and the Black Cloak is because most of the reveals were kind of evident well ahead of being revealed. Hopefully, upper-middle-grade readers will find them to be more surprising.

Fast-paced and dark, this book will appeal to any MG reader who wants to be truly spooked and enjoys a good mystery.

Author Website

Spirit's Key is Magically Haunting

Premise: Twelve year old Spirit is starting to wonder if something is wrong with her. First, she can't seeing the future like her father can. And secondly, she has started seeing the ghost of her dead dog. When her neighbors start getting sick, everyone blames the wild dogs on the island. But Spirit is convinced that they are not to blame. Together with her ghost dog, she seeks to find the truth.

Title: Spirit's Key
Author: Edith Cohn
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Mystery
Series or Stand Alone: Stand alone
Content Appropriate for: Grades 4-7
Format: Digital ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley


Three adjectives that describe this book: mysterious, captivating, memorable 

Hooray for a well-crafted, haunting, dog book that doesn't make you cry! This book is for every dreamer and wonder-er. For kids who love dogs or a good mystery or interesting magic - or all three!

It's full of magical moments set firmly in the fascinating world of Bald Island - populated by wild dogs and superstitious islanders. The relationship between Spirit and her dog, Sky, is spot-on. Clearly influenced by Ingrid Law's terrific book, Savvy, Spirit's Key is part magic, part mystery, part homage to dogs.

I loved the haunting setting. Edith Cohn's world-building is outstanding. This tight-knit community reminds me of the wonderful Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." Both stories ring of McCarthyism and group-think. It's amazing to me how carefully Cohn built the community's paranoia so that it seems somehow superstitious and outrageous, but also totally plausible. And she keeps all of this completely accessible to young readers.

My only beef is that the Big Reveal is a bit too ta-da for me. Everything wraps up quickly in a neat little package. More tension in the ending would have fit better with the tone of the rest of the book.

Be sure to check out Edith Cohn's fascinating discussion of her inspirations for Spirit's Key.

The Night Gardener

Premise: Molly and Kip are barely surviving when they are offered a job as servants at the supremely creepy, derelict Windsor estate. The people living there are pale, with sunken dark eyes. And the house is visited each evening by a mysterious "night man" who tends a strange tree. Soon Molly and Kip find themselves enmeshed in an ancient curse that threatens the lives of everyone at the Windsor estate.

Title: The Night Gardener
Author: Jonathan Auxier
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone
Content Appropriate For: Grades 5-8
Format: eARC courtesy of Amulet books via NetGalley
Release Date: May 20, 2014

Three adjectives that describe this book: gripping, dangerous, spooky

Oh man this book is terrific! The creepiness builds steadily until the unbelievably dark seems totally plausible. That's one reason why I typically avoid scary stories - they seem so fake that it's hard for me to buy in to them. In this case, however, Auxier has crafted a tale that is wholly believable. He does it by starting with mundane and carefully adding the creepy, ghost elements.

Be warned, though, this book is not for the faint of heart. The idea of a creepy man walking around your house at night, standing over your bed, is sure to give some readers nightmares. Not to mention the collection of violent deaths and super-creepy-soul-stealing tree.

Wonderfully written, beautifully paced, and populated by a cast of richly interesting characters, The Night Gardener kept me totally glued to the page.

This post is part of the A to Z Challenge.

Short and Scary. Hide and Seek is Perfect for Struggling Readers

I was intrigued by this book because it was written with the express goal of targeting upper middle grade readers (Grades 5-8) who struggle or have dyslexia. The text is written in mostly simple sentences. After reading it, I found that the novel didn't suffer much from this approach.

Title: Hide and Seek
Author: Catherine MacPhail
Length: 67 pages
Genre: Horror
Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone
Content Appropriate For: Grades 5-8
Format: Digital ARC provided by the publisher and netgalley.com

Three adjectives that describe this book: dark, spooky, simple

I don't typically read horror novels because I scare easily. This one definitely did the trick. It was scary. Even though the book is super short, very straight-forward, and written with simple text, I found myself hooked by increasing fear. I also thought it was interesting that this novel is written from the (third person) perspective of a bully. That's an unusual approach, and I found it fascinating. It really made me wonder why people can be cruel to others. Of course, since this book is so short, the characters are all rather flat and the plot follows only one main storyline. Therefore, there isn't any delving into why the main character is cruel to others. That would have been a great element to add, though.

In an effort to interest middle school readers, the main character, Nicole, spends an awful lot of time trying to get the interest of Danny. We hear a lot about his dreamy eyes and how much she wants to hold his hand. This will probably limit the audience for the book to girls, unfortunately.

Overall Hide and Seek was sufficiently scary and does the job of grabbing older readers who need simpler text.

3 stars

Creepy Ghost Story, Stunning Illustrations

Premise: Billy wishes he had never taken a job as a prison guard. Now that he has been transferred to the night shift, Billy's discovering that this is no ordinary prison. Not only do the haunted cells have a history of killing their inmates, but the prisoner in the Witch Well must be tended every night. Sooner or later, it will be Billy's turn.

Title: Ghost Prison
Author: Joseph Delaney
Length: 112 pages
Genre: Fantasy (Horror)
Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone
Content Appropriate For: Grades 5-8
Format: Digital ARC provided by the publisher via netgalley.com

Three adjectives that describe this book: spooky, dangerous, mysterious

Delaney's new work is a departure from his famous Spook stories such as The Last Apprentice. Rather than a full-length novel in a well-developed world, Ghost Prison is essentially a short story designed for maximum creepiness. And boy does it deliver!

Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry

Premise: When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills. Now, his mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance....(Amazon)

Title: Patient Zero
Author: Jonathan Maberry
Length: 421 pages
Genre: Science Fiction
Series or Stand Alone: Joe Ledger 
Content appropriate for: Adults

4/5 zombies

3 adjectives that describe this book: fast-paced, spooky, fun

I came to this novel already a HUGE fan of Jonathan Maberry's work. If it has zombies, blood, guts and gore, I'm totally into it! Needless to say my expectations were high. For the most part I was not disappointed. 

Although it was sometimes bogged down by plot building tedium and mediocre dialogue, the full-throttle pace was by far the strongest asset in this book...think Mission Impossible, Walking Dead and 24 all rolled into one break-neck novel. The characterization of Joe Ledger and the agents of the DMS went far beyond the "soldier-boys with their toys mentality". Everyone is damaged, dissociative and dangerous in some way, and kudos to Maberry for also including the dynamite female character Grace Courtland.

If you're looking for the great zombie/anti-terrorist novel of the century, keep looking. This story could have benefited from being trimmed down about 50-65 pages; plus, the flipping back and forth between perspectives did get a bit old. This was especially true when the chasm between reader knowledge (of what was going to happen) and character knowledge stretched pretty far toward the end of the book. 

Seriously though, if you don't mind some colorful language, gory violence and (some) sexual content, you should give this book a try. It was a great, fast-paced, good versus evil showdown that kept me rooting for the good guys until the end.