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YA Fantasy Stories for Spooky Season

by Leanne Olson
written by Leanne Olson

Hallowe’en is my favourite time of year: the sun sets early and the shadows grow long, and there’s nothing better than curling up with a mug of tea and a creepy book.  Here are a few of my favourite young adult fantasy books with a spooky vibe for the spooky season.

Sawkill Girls book cover

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrande

Vibe: Folk horror

Sawkill Girls is a standalone that mixes feminist horror and modern-day fantasy. Marion has just moved to Sawkill Rock, an island with rocky cliffs, cold waters, and a legacy of disappearing teenaged girls. 

When her sister vanishes, taken by a creature from myth, Marion turns to two Sawkill girls for answers: Zoey (daughter of the police chief), and Val (a wealthy, perfect girl with a very dark secret).  Sawkill Girls is dark, beautifully written, and terrifying.

You Must Not Miss book cover

You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno

Vibe: Otherwordly teen vengeance

Magpie’s life is hell: she’s a social exile at her high school, her father cheated, and her mother is coping by drinking herself to death.  Magpie copes by writing about a fantasy world she calls Near…which becomes real.

Magpie considers hiding in her perfect fantasy world, but soon realizes she can use Near as the perfect revenge on those who have wronged her.   You Must Not Miss is creepy and dark, reminding me of Stephen King’s Carrie in the best way.

Dread Nation book cover

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Vibe: 19th Century zombie slaying

Jane McKeene is born two days after the Battle of Gettysburg, In an alternate United States when the dead begin to rise. She’s conscripted into Miss Preston’s School of Combat, learning to fight the dead and protect the white and wealthy. 

Dread Nation is a kick-butt, girl power zombie adventure that digs into meaty issues around racism and classism. It’s also one of my favourite audiobooks, with a funny, relatable performance by Bahni Turpin.  The sequel, Deathless Divide, is equally great.

A Great and Terrible Beauty book cover

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Vibe: Dark academia

The Gemma Doyle trilogy is a must for fans of boarding school stories and historical fantasy, with a creepy gothic vibe and strong female friendships.  In 1895, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is sent to an English boarding school after the death of her mother. 

Gemma is an outcast at the Spence Academy for Young Ladies until she makes friends with three other girls. Together, they find a doorway to another world–a world that’s darker than it first seems. Did I mention the secret society, ghosts, and visions of the future? A Great and Terrible Beauty is luscious and addictive.

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Vibe: Dystopian grim reapers

What’s creepier than the grim reaper him (or her) self? In the Arc of a Scythe Trilogy humanity has conquered death: there is no war, disease, or death.

Humanity has created living grim reapers to control population sizes: people commanded by the government to kill.  Teenagers Citra and Rowan are apprenticed to one of these Scythes and must learn to be death incarnate.  Scythe is fast-paced, philosophical and dark.

The Hazel Wood book cover

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Vibe: Pitch black fairy tale

Alice has spent her life alone with her mother, travelling from one place to the next. She has never met her grandmother,’ a reclusive author of cult-classic fairy tales. Her world changes when her grandmother dies and her mother is kidnapped. Alice goes searching for her mother in the Hinterland, a world where stories are deadly.

I loved The Hazel Wood‘s gorgeous prose and Alice’s snarky, relatable voice. I loved reading Melissa Albert’s own fairy tales interspersed through the book. They feel authentically weird, like they might have come from a feminist version of the Brothers Grimm.

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There Will Come a Darkness cover
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There Will Come a Darkness Review

by Isela Canale
written by Isela Canale

In There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool the age of darkness is coming, and five people will be responsible for the world’s salvation… or it’s destruction.

The Age of Darkness approaches.
Five lives stand in its way.
Who will stop it… or unleash it? 

For generations, the Seven Prophets guided humanity. Using their visions of the future, they ended wars and united nations―until the day, one hundred years ago, when the Prophets disappeared.

All they left behind was one final, secret prophecy, foretelling an Age of Darkness and the birth of a new Prophet who could be the world’s salvation . . . or the cause of its destruction. As chaos takes hold, five souls are set on a collision course:

A prince exiled from his kingdom.
A ruthless killer known as the Pale Hand.
A once-faithful leader torn between his duty and his heart. 
A reckless gambler with the power to find anything or anyone.
And a dying girl on the verge of giving up.

One of them―or all of them―could break the world. Will they be savior or destroyer?

There Will Come a Darkness Review

There Will Come a Darkness book cover

The Seven Prophets guided humanity until a hundred years ago when they disappeared, but they left one final prophecy. 

If the last prophecy becomes a reality, the Last Prophet will be either the world’s salvation or the cause of its destruction.

There are four bodily graces. 

The Grace of Heart enhances strength, agility, speed and senses, the Grace of Mind creates objects imbued with unique properties, the Grace of Sight senses and locates living beings and the Grace of Blood gives and takes energy to heal or harm.

But the Hierophant and his followers believe the Graced need to be purified of the corruption of Grace, either they can choose salvation or death.

Characters

Ephyra, also known as the Pale Hand, kills only those who deserve it but for a good cause. Her sister Beru is sick and Ephyra, using her Grace of Blood, kills to retrieve their blood and heal Beru for a while until she needs more blood again.

Hassan, prince of Herat, escaped after The Witnesses invaded and took his kingdom. He doesn’t know what to do to get it back and feels he’s not the right ruler because he hasn’t developed any Grace so far.

Anton has been running away from his past, but it always catches up. He’s been living a nightmare since eleven years ago, he has the Grace of Sight but can’t use it because he’s filled with nightmares every time he tries.

Jude will be the next Keeper of the Word, the highest honor for a Paladin. But it also comes with a lot of responsibilities. He needs to protect The Last Prophet at all costs but he’s torn between his duty and his inner desires.

Beru is losing all hope to get better. She feels responsible for the lives The Pale Hand has taken.

Thoughts

First of all, having 5 POV’s was very exhausting. I understand that these five characters and their actions are going to be either the salvation or destruction of their world. But it was too much for me. 

I ended up enjoying certain POV’s and just wanted to skip the other ones because they became too repetitive. At least until two thirds of the book.

Having more than 4 perspectives, the book becomes either slow paced or too confusing for the reader in my opinion.

Even though the plot wasn’t too interesting until the last third of the book, I really enjoyed how it ended. I’m interested in how the characters’ stories are going to change from now on.

I have to say that it did take me a while to reach those certain scenes where I couldn’t put the book down. 

At the beginning, we are introduced to the characters, and then know a little bit of how their past has affected them to the point that they become the way they are.

But I don’t think that introduction should’ve taken more than half of the book. 

Katy Rose Pool did an excellent job with world-building. You have a good knowledge of it to understand the story but still have questions that make you want to read the rest of the series.

Overall, There Will Come a Darkness feels like the introduction of this trilogy and nothing actually happened but at the same time it makes sure to pique your interest so that you read what happens next in the sequel.

Looking for more great reviews?

Check out my review of Fable by Adriene Young.

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The Damned cover
Book ReviewsDark FantasyFeaturedMorally QuestionablePlot TwistsRomanceSeriesVampires

The Damned Review

by Yvette Baliko
written by Yvette Baliko

The Damned by Renée Ahdieh – sequel to the Beautiful – is a magical tale of fey, vampires and romance set in historical New Orleans with some crossovers to the world of the fey. This series is especially close to my heart for two reasons. First, Renée brought back vampires and vampire romance to YA fiction in a completely unique way, and second, the concept of vampires being a type of fey also appears in my own book. I enjoyed The Beautiful, but I wouldn’t have called it outstanding. The Damned on the other hand, delivered beyond its promise.

The Damned book cover

The Damned Review

Do not read this review unless you’ve read the Beautiful. It’s impossible to talk about the sequel without spoiling the first book. So yes, there are the Beautiful spoilers ahead.

The Damned starts off straight after the events of the Beautiful showing us Sébastien grappling with his new reality. He’d never wanted to become a vampire, but Celine made the choice for him rather than letting him die. She also chose to forget him, but as expected, that doesn’t mean their path will never cross again.

Characters

Let me say it here how much I adore Bastien’s point of view. Sébastien Saint Germain is one of the most complex, flawed yet lovable character I’ve read in the recent months. He becomes the primary point of view character for the rest of the book, even though we see others pop up. And he is amazing, engaging and heartbreaking at the same time. I was sucked into this book even faster than I expected.

Of course, Celine is right there at the top as the second most significant character, but it felt that she and Sebastian switched places in terms of lead character, and I’m not complaining. 

One of my issues with the Beautiful was that it felt a bit forced when it came to “strong women” stereotypes and “women’s rights”. While I loved the theme as much as I loved the story, it felt off balance. Celine was strong and struggled with some serious issues, which came across clearly from the story. The extra analysis in the book was unnecessary. You know that feeling when a book is trying to make a point so hard that the story gets lost? That’s how I felt with The Beautiful sometimes. The theme would have been so much more impactful if it was only shown and not explained.

What helped me get over it is that I still adored Celine as a character, and all her struggles felt real. That’s still the case in The Damned, but the execution is better.

Then we’ve got a few other point of view characters, but they are all very much secondary. Personally, I’m not sure their point of view is needed, but they all deliver relevant and interesting scenes, so it didn’t bother me much.

Setting, plot and romance

I adored the setting of the Beautiful. I mean, who wouldn’t love historical New Orleans for a supernatural story? It’s pure perfection. So when the Damned goes on and crosses into the realms of the fey with even more magic, it’s just pleasure overload. I can’t praise the creativity of these settings enough.

The Damned takes the relationship between Bastien and Celine to a very different territory, keeping the readers on the edge of their seats. Yes, the romance is still as adorable as you can expect after the Beautiful, but the stakes are getting higher, the environment significantly more hostile, the creatures even more cunning and just as deadly.

Conclusion

Overall, the Damned raises the Beautiful series to a whole new level and I can’t wait for the next book. Let’s not forget that Renee’s writing style is so stunningly lyrical that it’s always a pleasure to read her words. This book delivered everything I expected and more.

Looking for more great reviews?

Check out my review of Havenfall here.

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The Dark Tide Review
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The Dark Tide Review

by Cynthia Bujnicki
written by Cynthia Bujnicki

The Dark Tide by Alicia Jasinska, is a gripping dark fairy-tale fantasy.

An excellent dark fantasy. Honestly, this was such a good novel, and the LGBTQ representation was excellent. The fact that it just exists in the story, so naturally, makes the novel astounding.

It also adds to the world-building and the depth of the characterization since the main character has two moms. It is invigorating to see it just bleed into the confines of the societal structure in the novel. In a way, it makes the novel more realistic and impactful.

The Dark Tide Alicia Jasinska

The Dark Tide Review

Exceptional Storytelling

As for the story, the world-building is exceptional. There are snippets of where these people came from and why they live in a world that is both beautiful and tragic.

It gives off this wonderful feeling, luring the reader into the story and history of the world without being overwhelming. It has a breathtaking edge to it as it is something rather unique.

The Dark Tide also steps away from classic fantasy tropes and cliches revolving dark fantasy, witches, and romance, making the novel even more engaging for the reader.

Jasinska did a fantastic job in constructing this novel, giving the reader a look at the characters, a look at their pain, guilt, remorse, and desires. She creates complex characters in a complex narrative to keep the story engaging.

Lina is the unsuspecting heroine of the novel and works hard to keep those she cares about safe.

Admittedly, Lina is not the most engaging character in the beginning. Lina is undoubtedly relatable, but it is not until she meets Eva that she comes to life. And that has to do with the character dynamics.

Eva is a brilliant character because of her complex nature. In the beginning, it does not seem that way, but as the story continues, it peels away layers of her past to reveal why she has so much anger, so much grief, and her connection with Lina, it is empowering to both of them. Together they make such an incredible duo.

Final Thoughts

The Dark Tide is a fantastic novel. The perfect pacing allows all aspects of the novel to grow and develop into a beautiful breath of fresh air.

Get it on Amazon
Get it at B&N

Looking for more great reviews?

Check out my review of Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw.

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Winterwood Review
Book ReviewsDark FantasyFeaturedStand AloneWitches

Winterwood Review

by Cynthia Bujnicki
written by Cynthia Bujnicki
Winterwood Review
Winterwood by Shae Ernshaw
Simon Pulse

If there is one thing that Ernshaw excels at, it is creating an eerie atmosphere. Winterwood opens with Nora entering the Wicker Woods, woods alive with malice in their roots.

Entering under the safety of the full moonlight, Ernshaw creates a delightfully eerie setting. Combined with Nora’s narrative, Ernshaw lures the reader into the entrancing story.

Winterwood Review

Winterwood is a compelling read with a dark atmosphere and a sinister magical edge. However, the pacing for the first third of the novel is a little slow.

Focusing on developing the sinister Wicker Woods and establishing the character dynamics slows the story down. Ernshaw does an excellent job with her characterization and building the dynamics, nevertheless, the cold eeriness of the story gets a little lost.

That being said, the characterization is excellent.

Take Nora, for instance, ostracized for being a Walker, a witch, Nora keeps to herself, collecting lost things she finds in the woods. As an introvert, perfectly happy in her loneliness, Ernshaw gives Nora a sharply defined and fierce narrative.

Her voice is strong, never trembling as it keeps the reader engaged. It also serves as the perfect balance for the cold and eerie atmosphere.

Oliver also has a strong narrative, but he is softer.

Abandoned at the camp for wayward boys, Oliver is an outcast himself as the new boy, and he keeps to himself as much as Nora. Their dynamic brings out the best of both characters, giving the story some warmth to contrast the cold setting.

Final Thoughts

Winterwood is a novel full of surprises, bursting with magic and darkness, captivating the reader and luring them into the dark and mystical woods.

Get it on Amazon
Get it at B&N
Get it on Kobo

Looking for more great reviews?

Check out my review of Deeplight by Frances Hardinge.

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