Historical Thrills and Chills: YA Horror Set in the Past

UnderlinedIt’s 1985, and seventeen-year-old Jade Whitney has just been uprooted to Grove Hollow, where dark family secrets, a mysterious private school, and a charming rugby captain await. But when Jade discovers a cursed locket in an abandoned estate, she becomes bound to William, a handsome Victorian ghost who needs her help. Soon she’s caught between two worlds—and two irresistible boys—as supernatural forces, buried secrets, and forbidden romance threaten to change everything. In the past few years, young adult horror has gone through what many book reviewers and book-adjacent writers have called a renaissance, as new authors make their mark on a longstanding genre. While horror books set in the present abound, there are also plenty of horror novels for young adults that transport readers into the past, combining the genres of horror and historical fiction. The books here span from 16th-century Hungary to 1980s Niagara Falls and include zombies, ghosts, haunted houses, serial killers, and secret traps. You’ll meet the bloodthirsty Countess Elizabeth Báthory and go grave digging with an orphan in 1850s Philadelphia, listen to the confession of a teen girl accused of murder, and ...