Celebrating Women of Horror

To celebrate Women’s History Month I thought I’d highlight some authors who specialize in creeping us out, scaring us, and writing amazing thrillers that have us biting our fingernails as we quickly turn page after page to find out “who done it”. Let’s raise a glass to the YA Authors of Horror!

First off, in my humble opinion, the queen Tiffany D. Jackson. She is known for plot twists that absolutely break our hearts while giving us all sorts of literary thrills. I always say I’m going to take my time with one of her books, but we all know that’s a lie. I’m way to into the story to put the book down and usually end up reading well past my bedtime. Her latest, The Weight of Blood is an excellent homage to Stephen King’s Carrie in the only way a Jackson novel can.

the book cover looks like a black and white photo. A young woman is wearing a tiara amid her many curls. She has a serious expression on her face. The only color on the cover is the red sparkly blood that is dripping down her face and onto her chest where there is also a rose and sash that says prom. The tag line at the top of the book is uneasy lies the head that wears the tiara..The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson

When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation… Maddy did it.

An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she’s dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington.

After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High’s racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school’s first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it’s possible to have a normal life.

But some of her classmates aren’t done with her just yet. And what they don’t know is that Maddy still has another secret… one that will cost them all their lives.


Next is “Within These Wicked Walls” by Lauren Blackwood which I absolutely loved. Who would have thought turning a romance novel into a YA horror novel would work so well? Blackwood’s novel is creepy and gothic and full of steamy romantic moments that make it a wonderful thriller that you can’t put down.  

Within These Wicked Walls” by Lauren Blackwood

What the heart desires, the house destroys…

Andromeda is a debtera—an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. When a handsome young heir named Magnus Rochester reaches out to hire her, Andromeda quickly realizes this is a job like no other, with horrifying manifestations at every turn, and that Magnus is hiding far more than she has been trained for. Death is the most likely outcome if she stays, but leaving Magnus to live out his curse alone isn’t an option. Evil may roam the castle’s halls, but so does a burning desire.


The next few books are on my TBR list and I can’t wait to be scared by these awesome authors.

Burn Down, Rise Up by Vincent Tirado

Mysterious disappearances.
An urban legend rumored to be responsible.
And one group of teens determined to save their city at any cost.

For over a year, the Bronx has been plagued by sudden disappearances that no one can explain. Sixteen-year-old Raquel does her best to ignore it. After all, the police only look for the white kids. But when her crush Charlize’s cousin goes missing, Raquel starts to pay attention—especially when her own mom comes down with a mysterious illness that seems linked to the disappearances.

Raquel and Charlize team up to investigate, but they soon discover that everything is tied to a terrifying urban legend called the Echo Game. The game is rumored to trap people in a sinister world underneath the city, and the rules are based on a particularly dark chapter in New York’s past. And if the friends want to save their home and everyone they love, they will have to play the game and destroy the evil at its heart—or die trying.

There is a young woman in the center of the cover. Her dark hair has a few leaves in it. There are colorful flowers in each side of her mouth. A tear is running down one side of her face. Her eyes are wide and eyebrows are drawn down.She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

A house with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family in this atmospheric horror, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic.

When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised.

But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don’t belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can’t ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves her cryptic warnings: Don’t eat.

Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house—the home her family has always wanted—will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house’s rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all.

Read Audrey’s Review 

Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers

Tsalagi should never have to live on human blood, but sometimes things just happen to sixteen-year-old girls.

Making her YA debut, Cherokee writer Andrea L. Rogers takes her place as one of the most striking voices of the horror renaissance that has swept the last decade.

Horror fans will get their thrills in this collection – from werewolves to vampires to zombies – all the time-worn horror baddies are there. But so are predators of a distinctly American variety – the horrors of empire, of intimate partner violence, of dispossession. And so too the monsters of Rogers’ imagination, that draw upon long-told Cherokee stories – of Deer Woman, fantastical sea creatures, and more.

Following one extended Cherokee family across the centuries, from the tribe’s homelands in Georgia in the 1830s to World War I, the Vietnam War, our own present, and well into the future, each story delivers a slice of a particular time period that will leave readers longing for more.


Man Made Monsters is a masterful, heartfelt, haunting collection ripe for crossover appeal – just don’t blame us if you start hearing things that go bump in the night.