Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.

At eight years old, Tuesday Storm's childhood is forever lost when the death of her older sister Audrey sends her family spiraling out of control into the darkest of dysfunction. In the wake of the tragedy, Tuesday's mother, distraught and looking for a scapegoat, singles Tuesday out from her siblings to take on the blame for Audrey's death, and then targets her for unspeakable abuse.

A neglected 12-year-old boy does nothing to report the death of his mother in order to compete in a spelling bee. A tragic coming-of-age tale of horror and drama in the setting of a hot New Orleans summer.

Shortly after moving into their new home, the Snedeker family is assaulted by a sinister presence that preys one-by-one on their family. Exhausting all other resources, they call up the world-renowned demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, who have never encountered a case as frightening as this.

Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible. Her dad is forever planning how to boost business at the family restaurant. Her mom is constantly going off to meditate. Her sister, Sarah, who’s taking a year off after high school, is too busy finding ways not to work, and her brother Holden is totally focused on his new "friend". And then there’s Charlie: three years old, a "surprise" baby, and the center of everything. If it wasn’t for her friend Ran, there would be nowhere to turn. Ran is always calm, always positive.

I didn’t think it was such a great idea when my parents decided the family would spend the summer in a vacant house in a small town called Blairingville. Boringville seemed more like it. But as it turned out, this vacation was anything but boring. It all started when my brother and I looked in that closet marked OFF LIMITS. Now I’ve got a monster breathing down my neck!

One misty evening, Jennings Michael Burch's mother, too sick to care for him, left her eight-year-old son at an orphanage with the words, "I'll be right back." She wasn't.... Shuttled through a bleak series of foster homes, orphanages, and institutions, Jennings never remained in any of them long enough to make a friend. Instead, he clung to a tattered stuffed animal named Doggie, his sole source of comfort in a frightening world. Here, in his own words, Jennings Michael Burch reveals the abuse and neglect he experienced during his lost childhood.

Swept away from Louisiana bayou country as a child, Miranda Miller is a woman without a past. She has a husband and child of her own and a fulfilling job in a Manhattan museum, but she also has questions - about the tragedy that cut her off from family and caused her to be sent away and about those first five years of her life, which were erased from her memory entirely. Summoned to the bedside of Willy Pedreaux, the old caretaker of her grandparents' antebellum estate, Miranda goes back to Louisiana at last, hoping to learn the truths of her past and receive her rightful inheritance.

It's been five years since Livy and her family have visited Livy's grandmother in Australia. Now that she's back, Livy has the feeling she's forgotten something really, really important about Gran's house. It turns out she's right. Bob, a short, greenish creature dressed in a chicken suit, didn't forget Livy, or her promise. He's been waiting five years for her to come back, hiding in a closet like she told him to. He can't remember who-or what-he is, where he came from, or if he even has a family. But five years ago Livy promised she would help him find his way back home.

In Kathleen’s home, red jeans were a sin. Parties were punishable with violence. Fear was part of the daily norm. Growing up in a Catholic cult, under the unforgiving eye of her abusive father, Kathleen knew from an early age that if she were to survive, she’d have to do it on her own. But when the time came to escape, she found herself in a damaging spiral of self-destruction. At rock bottom, and with nowhere to go, Kathleen stepped off a bus in the last place she ever thought she’d find peace: a remote and very Catholic community.

A forbidden artifact from her fiance’s past beckons to Selena. Jessica leads a double-life from her friends and coworkers in the children’s wing of a hospital. Maya can’t resist the temptation to explore an off-limits area of Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. But in the world of Five Nights at Freddy's, everything comes with a price to pay. In this first volume, Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon spins three sinister novella-length tales from uncharted corners of his series' canon.

Nicky Roth has always been a lonely kid. But that all changes when he and his family move to Raven Brooks and meet their eccentric neighbors, the Petersons. Nicky befriends the Petersons' son, Aaron, bonding over their talents for tinkering. Soon the boys are inseparable and using their skills to pull pranks on the townspeople. But something about Aaron bothers Nicky - people seem almost afraid of him and his family.

Blake Taylor isn't the queen of horror, but she's certainly a member of the royal court. Blake has made a career out of writing novels that make her readers want to leave the lights on at night. What Blake's fans and very few people realize is that Blake Taylor is scared of her own shadow and just about everything else. After a family intervention, a case of writer's block, and the desire to be free of the confines of fear, she leaves New York and rents a house in Cypress Glade, Louisiana.

Ryan's relationship is already on the brink when a woman goes missing in the small town of Bakerstand. With the whole town on high alert, he refuses to let this dead city kill what's left of his and Zoey's relationship. But, a house in the woods may hold a deadlier fate than the town ever could.

Jackie does not like surprises. Chaos is the enemy! The best way to get her successful, busy parents to notice her is to be perfect. The perfect look, the perfect grades—the perfect daughter. And then Jackie's family dies in a freak car accident and she has to move cross-country to live with the Walters—her new guardians. Now Jackie must trade in her Type A personality and New York City apartment for a Colorado ranch and all the wild Walter boys who come with it. How can she fit in and move on when she needs to keep her parents' memory alive by living up to the promise of perfect?

Eli and his family have lived in the Compound for six years. The world they knew is gone. Eli's father built the Compound to keep them safe. Now, they can't get out. He won't let them.

When Abbey’s best friend, Kristen, vanishes at the bridge near Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, everyone else is all too quick to accept that Kristen is dead, and rumors fly that her death was no accident. Abbey goes through the motions of mourning her best friend, but privately, she refuses to believe that Kristen is really gone. Then she meets Caspian, the gorgeous and mysterious boy who shows up out of nowhere at Kristen’s funeral, and who keeps reappearing in Abbey’s life. Caspian clearly has secrets of his own, but he’s the only person who makes Abbey feel normal again.

Eleven-year-old David is about to meet his new stepsister, Amanda, who is only one year older than he is. Amanda arrives at their big old house wearing a huge tattered shawl and carrying a sharp-eyed crow in a cage. She is hardly what David expects. Before long, she introduces David to a strange world of witchcraft and the occult. At first, spells and potions are fun. He enjoys the spooky chants and smoky seances. Even his younger brother and sisters join in, making sure their parents suspect nothing.

Funny Business is based around the theme of - what else? - humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and the Guys Read Library, you already know what you’re in store for: 10 hilarious stories from some of the funniest writers around. Before you’re through, you’ll meet a teenage mummy; a kid desperate to take a dip in the world’s largest pool of chocolate milk; a homicidal turkey; parents who hand over their son’s room to a biker; and more.

When Alexis's little sister Kasey becomes obsessed with an antique doll, Alexis thinks she is just being her usual weird self. Things get weirder, though, when their house starts changing. Doors open and close by themselves; water boils on the unlit stove; and an unplugged air conditioner blasts cold air.

When you're the third of six kids, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle, but Sunday Fowler is determined that this summer she'll find the one thing that makes her stand out from her siblings. And when she discovers a silver box in the basement of the library her parents are renovating, she might just have found something to gain her the attention she so craves. Inside is a series of letters addressed to "The Librarian" and a manuscript. But who wrote them?

It’s the summer of 1962, and Scott and his friends spend their days playing baseball and thinking about girls. But the threat of nuclear war looms over everything they do, and they are haunted by the idea that they could all be dead tomorrow. Even though the possibility of war is all anyone talks about, Scott’s dad is the only one in the neighborhood who actually prepares for the worst, building a bomb shelter to protect his family and stocking it with enough supplies to keep them alive for two critical weeks. The neighbors scoff, but then, in the middle of the night in late October, the unthinkable happens.

When Adam Blake lands the best elective ever in his senior year, serving as an aide to the school psychologist, he thinks he's got it made. Sure, it means a lot of sitting around, which isn't easy for a guy with ADHD, but he can't complain, since he gets to spend the period texting all his friends. Then the doctor asks him to track down the troubled freshman who keeps dodging her, and Adam discovers that the boy is Julian - the foster brother he hasn't seen in five years.

When 15-year-old Beck Phillips travels by train to the secluded village of Kingsplot to live with his wealthy but estranged uncle, Beck discovers some dark family secrets. A buried basement, a forbidden wall, an old book of family history with odd references to...dragons? Beck's life is about to be changed forever in this suspenseful tale about the destructive nature of greed and the courage to make things right.

Can a person’s life change in just one day? How about seven? This is the story of seven pivotal days in Evan Donaldson’s life. Evan was a teenage street hustler when Father Valentin talked him into coming to Saint Bartholomew’s Academy. In that one day, Evan’s entire life changed. That’s the day he met his roommate, Clay Mueller, and the day Evan began to live. But Evan’s life would change again and again, from abuse to first love, to separation and heartbreak, and eventually to starting his own family.