I’ve loved stories with a horror/thriller focus ever since I can remember. Yes, I was that creepy kid who read all of Goosebumps, as well as checked out a copy of Draculafrom the library at the tender age of eleven, much to the chagrin of the elderly librarian. My own books are multi-genre, but tend to include a thriller or horror element—it’s such fun to write a page-turner that ends with a bang. I truly hope you enjoy these picks as much as I did. They are some of my very favorites!
In Wilder Girls, a bizarre, unprecedented plague called the Tox has infested an island home to an all-girls boarding school. The Tox causes those it infects to mutate in gruesome ways—growing gills, claws, an extra spine, et cetera. The schoolgirls and remaining sparse crew of staff members have developed a system of survival, but when one girl goes missing and her friend determines to find her, everything is thrown into chaos.
This book will grip you hard from the first sentence, sink its teeth into you, shake you around, then have you gasping for air on the floor by the time you hit the last page. Seriously, this is an insane, intense ride, perfect for any fan of weird fiction and body horror. (That’s me.)
"The perfect kind of story for our current era."—Hypable
Featured in Vulture’s "11 Books to Read If You Already Miss Yellowjackets"!
From the author of Burn Our Bodies Down, a feminist Lord of the Flies about three best friends living in quarantine at their island boarding school, and the lengths they go to uncover the truth of their confinement when one disappears. This fresh debut is a mind-bending novel unlike anything you've read before.
It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled…
Can stories bring a human scale to something as all-encompassing as climate change? In 2011, I began an MA in Literature and Environment with this question weighing on my mind. I finished my degree two years later with a draft of my debut novel, Under This Forgetful Sky. I’ve come to understand the climate crisis, in many ways, as a crisis of imagination. Its enormity tests the limits of the imaginable. What if the world as we know it ends? What would life look like on the other side? The books on this list reckon with the fears these questions bring while also gesturing beautifully, unsentimentally, courageously toward hope.
War Girls is YA sci-fi that takes place in war-torn Nigeria at the end of the 22nd century.
The world as we know it has ended because of runaway climate change and nuclear disaster, and two sisters, Onyii and Ify, live together in a makeshift colony of traumatized former child soldiers. After a devastating raid on their camp, the sisters are separated—each believing the other was killed—only to find themselves on opposing sides of the conflict.
This is a book about the world-shattering horrors of war, but it’s also about colonial violence, about sisterhood and solidarity, and about small moments that forever shape how the protagonists view each other and themselves. It’s also a complex, character-driven story that tenaciously searches for hope in ruins and aftermaths.
Two sisters are torn apart by war and must fight their way back to each other in a futuristic, Black Panther-inspired Nigeria. The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky.
In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life.
Apocalyptic novels have always been a favorite genre of mine. It’s interesting seeing the lengths that people will go through to survive when all factors are stacked against them. The list of novels below is some of the many great reads that opened my eyes to this genre. The characters in these novels are oftentimes faced with challenges that seem impossible to the reader but are left feeling so fulfilled after seeing a character complete the difficult tasks. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
Dark Inside centers around a series of powerful earthquakes that shake every continent on Earth and awakens a supernatural inner rage within people. The concept of this novel is incredibly fascinating and is another novel that shows the power of Mother Nature - with a twist. After the earthquakes, the world descends into a hellish landscape that, at times, eerily mirrors events that have taken place in the real world. The apocalypse is brought on by the evilness of humanity, which makes it an interesting read.
Moments after several huge earthquakes shake every continent on Earth, something strange starts happening to some people. Michael can only watch in horror as an incidence of road rage so extreme it ends in two deaths unfolds before his eyes; Clementine finds herself being hunted through the small town she has lived in all her life, by people she has known all her life; and Mason is attacked with a baseball bat by a random stranger. An inner rage has been released and some people cannot fight it. For those who can, life becomes an ongoing battle to survive -…
'Nothing short of epic' Rosie Talbot, bestselling author of Sixteen Souls 'A thrilling fantasy with the most delicious slow-burn romance' M.A. Kuzniar, bestselling author of Midnight in Everwood '[A] titillating debut' Publishers Weekly 'A masterpiece' Goodreads Reader Review 'Everyone needs to read it' TikTok Review 'The BEST book I've read' NetGalley Reader Review 'A sizzling slice of fantasy romance' Booksellers Review
Fourth Wing meets The Hunger Games in this epic and sizzling fantasy romance not to be missed.
Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya . . . The exceptional. The Elites.…
I’ve been terrified, fascinated, and delighted by scary stories my whole life, and my very favorites dabble in the speculative and supernatural: ghosts, monsters, magic, and worlds beyond our own. Give me all your haunted houses, your warped realities, your inexplicable horrors intruding on the everyday world. These fantastical elements are fraught with the power of nightmares and fairy tales, and that makes them the best tools we have to get around our news-hardened, cynical safeguards and explore what truly frightens us.
This book fills the wilds of Texas with a plague of zombie-like “shakes,” and somehow they are all the scarier for being more of a backdrop than the core of the story. The desert setting is almost a character itself, and it practically shimmers with menace. Between the haunting sense of place and time and the galloping pace of the action, I gobbled down this book in one sitting.
Keep together. Keep your eyes open. Keep your wits about you.
The desert is unkind in the best of times. And the decade since the Civil War has been anything but the best of times for Daisy Wilcox-call her Willie-and her family. This tense, heart-pounding alternate history about a young woman fighting to survive the unthinkable will keep fans of Westworld and The Walking Dead reading late into the night.
A horrifying sickness has spread across the West Texas desert. Infected people-shakes-attack the living, and the surviving towns are only as safe as their perimeter walls are strong. The state…
I've had a fifteen-year job in the corporate world doing business system analysis and design. I never connected with capitalists and I can see that the environmental and economic damage is the byproduct of the capitalist society we live in. Our detached way of life has created horrific climate change and a brutal class system where the wealthy are separated from everyone else. These are both worsening by the year. Capitalism is one of the main culprits because the oligarchy running things (W.E.F.) is not going to relinquish power or control. My book, Pulse, is a merge between corporate greed, environmental activism, and technology with a scary creature that brings it all together.
I also produce original music inspired by my novels. If you want a taste, go find "Requiem" on my YouTube channel.
A young adult novel that no one would call horror. What makes this scary? The plot will bend your mind like watching The Matrix for the first time. Pick up this book if you want to see how to write scary and easy-to-read science fiction that isn't horror from a world-class author.
From two-time Carnegie Medal winner Patrick Ness comes an enthralling and provocative new novel chronicling the life - or perhaps afterlife - of a teen trapped in a crumbling, abandoned world.
A boy called Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he is here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived…
I’m a Canadian writer living in southern British Columbia. When I was young, most people thought I was too small and frail to do awesome things. It wasn’t until I got older that I began to understand that my love for wild places and adventures was at the heart of who I was, and I began to see that I was much stronger than I thought. These days, I hike, climb, kayak, cross-country ski, and snowshoe – anything that gets me outside in nature. And I've done some awesome things out there! I want to change the way people see nature, not as something to be conquered, but to be treated with affection and respect.
This is one of the scarier disaster novels I’ve read, targeted at young adults rather than middle-grade readers.
People die in frighteningly believable ways in this story about a severe water shortage in California. I live in a semi-arid region that has been experiencing more frequent droughts in the last few years, so this novel’s premise felt plausible: the taps are literally turned off.
As well, the various characters’ reactions to the crisis reflected people I know, from preppers to climate changer deniers to those who dig deep and find kindness no matter how bad things get.
2
authors picked
Dry
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
12,
13,
14, and
15.
What is this book about?
“The authors do not hold back.” —Booklist (starred review) “The palpable desperation that pervades the plot…feels true, giving it a chilling air of inevitability.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “The Shustermans challenge readers.” —School Library Journal (starred review) “No one does doom like Neal Shusterman.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
When the California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, one teen is forced to make life and death decisions for her family in this harrowing story of survival from New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman.
The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while…
As a teenager I loved the post-apocalyptic genre, especially John Wyndham and H G Wells, and as a scientist I’ve become increasingly aware of the threats to society, especially from climate change and pandemics. But it seems to me that any collapse will be gradual: yes, the weather will worsen, and the seas will rise; but those won’t happen overnight. We’re unlikely to see a pandemic that kills everyone, but we could well see a train of smaller ones. This is the world of Truth Sister: it’s changed, but we’ve had time to adapt. The books in my list have different takes on how a post-civilisation world might look. Enjoy!
This early-21st-century novel takes rising sea levels as its starting point, and tracks young Mara as she leaves her home island and heads south, towards supposed safety.
I liked that not only does Mara encounter the starving people of the Netherworld, but also the privileged elite who live in “sky cities”. The growing gap between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, has resonances for our own societies today.
The fifteenth anniversary edition of Exodus, a startling, thrilling novel set in a dystopian future ravaged by global warming
It is 2099 - and the world is gradually drowning, as mighty Arctic ice floes melt, the seas rise and land disappears forever beneath storm-tossed waves. For fifteen-year-old Mara, her family and community, huddled on the fast-disappearing island of Wing, the new century brings flight. Packed into tiny boats, a terrifying journey begins to a bizarre city that rises into the sky, built on the drowned remains of the ancient city of Glasgow. But even here there is no safety and,…
I’ve been described as ‘the Energizer bunny,’ so it’s no surprise that I’m drawn to colorful and passionate fictional characters—especially historical ones who have not only life’s circumstances to deal with but societal limitations too. My personality is such that if I’m told I can’t achieve something, I grit my teeth and say, ‘Watch me!’ So, it’s only natural that I draw on this sheer bloody-mindedness to breathe life into my own historical fiction ensembles. Creating characters who are as limp as wet lettuces is one of my biggest challenges. I want everyoneto have gumption, but I also understand that good balance in a story is important.
Felix and Zelda have the purest, most joyful, and endearing childhood friendship… set against a horrific time in human history, the Holocaust.
I read this series out aloud to my boys (ages 9 to 12). I wanted to let them learn the history in a way that was age appropriate. Gleitzman delivers spectacularly!
This book doesn’t gloss over anything. It’s all there on the page to interpret. The children in the story are sometimes naively unaware of what some of their observations and experiences mean, making it so powerful to read as an adult—and a great conversation starter for kids.
Felix’s positive thinking and quick wit, used to deflect even the most atrocious characters, were the biggest takeaways for us as a family.
2
authors picked
Once
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
12,
13,
14, and
15.
What is this book about?
My name is Felix. This is my story.
Felix has been living in an orphanage for three years and eight months when the men in armbands arrive to burn the books.
Going on the run in search of his parents, Felix soon learns that Poland in 1942 is not a safe place for Jewish boys. But can his gift for storytelling keep him one step ahead of the Nazis and help him find his parents?
After all, everybody deserves to have something good in their life at least once.
'Morris Gleitzman has a rare gift for writing very funny stories…
I’m a writer who loves to read and wants to write all the fantasy genres, or at least, wants to try. I’ve always been fascinated by monsters and the question, “What if?” Dystopian, Apocalyptic, Post-Apocalyptic, and Fantasy gives us the freedom to explore both these things. It’s amazing how these genres can bend our world and expectation when we explore these two things. What if the world ended but not in the way we expect? What if monsters were real? What if we are the real monsters? These questions are terrifying but so fascinating to consider and blending fantasy with apocalyptic has been a safe way to explore them.
This book felt so real. Ilsa Beck did such an amazing job at writing a book about a very saturated genre that was fresh and terrifying because her use of science really made me think this was a very real way the world could end. Also, it is wonderful when a book features a flawed, but strong female lead, something I always strive to write in my books. The main character, Alex, is real and three-dimensional and relatable, even as she’s trying to survive a sudden zombie apocalypse all on her own.
A cataclysmic event. A dramatically changed world. A zombie army. Can three kids really survive... and who can they trust?
Alex has run away and is hiking through the wilderness with her dead parents' ashes, about to say goodbye to the life she no longer wants to live. But then the world suddenly changes. An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky zapping every electronic device and killing the vast majority of adults. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who has changed...
Everyone still alive has turned - some for the better (those who acquired…
