The creepy motel is a staple of the horror genre—think the Overlook or the Bates. In her chilling seventh novel, The Night Sister, Jennifer McMahon has created a worthy addition to that roster: the Tower Motel. 

Located in the tiny town of London, Vermont, the hotel was the pride of the region when it opened in the 1950s. But after the interstate was built, bookings trickled down to nothing and the hotel fell into disrepair. Amy Slater grew up on the grounds of the Tower Motel in the 1980s. Raised by her grandmother, Charlotte, Amy grew up hearing stories of her mother’s instability and her aunt Sylvie’s mysterious disappearance in 1961. Family lore has it that Sylvie ran off to Hollywood in hopes of becoming Hitchcock’s new favorite blonde, but Amy has doubts. In the way of preteen girls, Amy and her best friend, Piper—often trailed by Piper’s younger sister, Margot—love to scare themselves by imaging more sinister reasons for Sylvie’s disappearance. 

Cut to the modern day: Piper and Amy are no longer best friends, but when Margot calls with the news that Amy has killed her son, her husband and herself, leaving only her 11-year-old daughter, Lou, alive, Piper knows she owes it to her old friend to investigate. The mystery leads her back to a discovery the girls made the summer their friendship ended—and to a dark Slater family secret.

As in her previous bestseller, The Winter People, McMahon draws from myth and legend for inspiration in crafting the tragedy that haunts the Slater family. But she has also created a powerful story of childhood friendship and sisterhood, as Piper and Margot work together to clear their old friend’s name. The Night Sister is a dark and compelling story that will keep you turning pages.

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

When eight-year-old Carolyn stood in the kitchen in her home, helping her mother make potato salad for a Labor Day picnic, she had no idea her life was going to change drastically in a few short hours. Soon, she and several other children from her quiet suburban neighborhood of Garrison Oaks would be orphaned and forced into apprenticeships with a man who could raise the dead and make light from darkness.

The children learned to call him Father. He knew the secrets of the universe and how to make it bend to his will. The children were thrown into rigorous study of his catalogs, books that would teach his 13 adoptees to manipulate life, death and the in-between. They learned to speak to animals, to see versions of the future and more. A question was murmured among the students: Was Father God?

The children’s world was turned upside down again with Father’s disappearance: If he is gone for good, one of his apprentices must take his place as keeper of the catalog library, the key to life and death and the universe. Carolyn prepares for the inevitable battle for the library, unaware of the heartbreaking sacrifice she must make to ensure victory.

A combination of horror and contemporary fantasy, The Library at Mount Char is full of varied and interesting characters, with a Buddhist burglar-turned-plumber, war heroes and murderers in tutus all making appearances. In his first novel, Atlanta software engineer Scott Hawkins shows an obvious mastery of the language and an ability to keep readers involved, even if that means meeting at the intersection of bizarre and creepy. The Library at Mount Char is unique, mystical and hugely entertaining.

In this fascinating and deeply creepy novel by South African author Sarah Lotz, four commercial flights go down on the same day. Everyone on board perishes except three children: a British preteen named Jess; an American boy named Bobby; and a Japanese boy named Hiro. The children are uninjured, but their personalities have changed.

Just one other person survives, albeit briefly: Pamela Donald, a middle-aged Texan who lives long enough to record a mysterious message on her phone. Her pastor, Len Vorhees, who has been trying to break into the big leagues of televangelism, uses the message to start a new cult of “Pamelists,” who believe the three surviving children signal the apocalypse. Rapture Fever is soon spreading around the nation.

Trailed by religious zealots and under intense media scrutiny, the orphans and their new caregivers are forced into seclusion, even as the children’s behavior grows more unsettling. Is it the result of surviving a harrowing disaster, or something else?

The Three is nifty in part because it is a book within a book. Investigative journalist Elspeth Martins has searched out everyone remotely connected to the crashes: the paramedics who responded to the crash in Africa; the prostitute sleeping with Pastor Len; Bobby’s grandmother, who suspects that Bobby has somehow eased his grandfather’s severe Alzheimer’s. The novel is at its eerie best with the transcription of voice recordings by Jess’ Uncle Paul, who slowly descends into madness as he tries to determine what’s wrong with his niece.

Lotz has honed her writing skills as a screenwriter and YA author, and here she spins a tail of disaster and fanaticism that is both entertaining and scarily realistic. The Three is the real deal: gripping, unpredictable and utterly satisfying.

This article was originally published in the June 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It is a cool October night on Falstaff Island, about nine miles off of Prince Edward Island, and Scoutmaster Tim Riggs is enjoying a sip of scotch. He can hear his five 14-year-old scouts talking and laughing in the next room, most likely telling ghost stories before they fall asleep. All six are completely unaware of the horrifying turn their annual camping trip is about to take.

The familiar comfort of their night is interrupted by the sound of a motorboat approaching the island. The boat’s sole passenger is a grotesquely gaunt, obviously very ill man who’s so frantic with voracious hunger that he’ll eat anything, even a moth-eaten chesterfield sofa. Tim, a small-town doctor, at first tries to help the man—and keep him away from the naturally curious boys. Tim soon discovers, however, that the stranger is infected with something more dangerous, deadly and contagious than he could have ever imagined. And so begins the terrifying thrill ride that is Nick Cutter’s The Troop.

Cutter’s decision to alternate perspectives between chapters is a wise one. Not only does it allow readers to get to know each character (and their backstories), but it also keeps us guessing as to who—if anyone—is going to make it through the ordeal. They’re a ragtag but close-knit group: Kent, the arrogant jock, most popular guy in school; Ephraim “Eff,” the troubled, anger-prone youth; Eff’s best friend, Max, earnest and loyal; Newton, overweight and socially awkward; and Shelley, a loner with some unsavory interests.

Reminiscent of Scott Smith’s The Ruins and with shades of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Stephen King’s “The Body” (on which the film Stand by Me was based), The Troop is brutally visceral, pulling readers right into the action, tapping into our most primal fears: isolation, hunger, survival. Cutter is at his best when describing the ooey-gooeyness of infection—the stench, the sounds, the texture—and in articulating the abject and utter terror of the characters unlucky enough to witness, or experience, these ooey-gooey happenings. The book isn’t for the faint of heart, but if you’re intrigued by what you’ve read so far, then chances are you’ll enjoy succumbing to the thrills of this highly entertaining page-turner.

Christopher Golden’s Snowblind is a supernatural thriller that transcends the ghost story genre. While this spooky story will not disappoint readers who relish all things creepy, Snowblind is also a well-observed tale populated by a cast of characters whose Recession-era lives are portrayed with poignant authenticity, offering up a 21st-century landscape of tract homes, strip malls and fast food joints inhabited by ordinary folks.

Not surprisingly, given Golden is an award-winning, best-selling author of novels including The Myth Hunters, The Boys Are Back in Town and The Ferryman, his latest effort will grab readers from its opening pages, where a contingent of residents of the small New England town of Coventry are devastated by a deadly blizzard.

After portraying the effects of the past storm, Golden then deftly fast-forwards 12 years, to find Coventry once again about to be snowed in. But this time, the chilling winds and falling snow are accompanied by a horrifying, communal sense of déjà vu for all those who lost loved ones in that first icy Armageddon. For TJ, Allie, Jacob, Joe and Doug, this latest blizzard conjures far more than bad memories.

Alternately redemptive and unnerving, Golden’s Snowblind will hold readers in its icy grip to the very last page, which offers up one last, unexpected and devastating literary chill.