Could ghosts be the new vampires? Here at the teen blog we’ve recently noticed a whole bunch of interesting ghost stories are being published, some of them with Victorian, 19th-century sensibilities. Could this be the new black? we wonder. We will keep an eye out for more.

The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater (409 pages) – The Scorpio Races happen each year in November, where riders race waterhorses (presumably underwater). They’re a dangerous sport, and some riders don’t survive. Sean Kendrick has, he’s the current champion, back to defend his title. Then there’s Puck, who is going to be the first female rider ever, not fully aware of what she’s got herself in for. We’re thinking everyone’s going to get more than they bargained for.

First sentence: It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.

Human.4, Mike A. Lancaster (231 pages) – When Kyle volunteers to be hypnotised at a talent show, he doesn’t expect the world to be completely changed when he wakes up. Now everyone behaves like he doesn’t exist, and TVs and computers just display a weird language. So, is this a new real world, or is Kyle still lost in a nightmare?

First sentence (Kyle Straker’s First Tape): … Is this thing on?

Drink Slay Love, Sarah Beth Durst (386 pages) – (The title is an Eat, Pray, Love reference, if you hadn’t already noticed.) Pearl is your average run of the mill vampire until one day she is stabbed through the heart by a unicorn. Now she can be out in daylight, which is kind of useful for vampires, and her vampire family agrees, and puts Pearl to use, enrolling her in high school with the intention of luring innocent humans to the vampire King’s feast (as, you know, the feast). But Pearl starts having second thoughts – especially about one particular cute guy – and finds herself torn between having her friends killed and being killed herself.

First sentence: “One hour until dawn,” Pearl said.

The Summer I Learned to Fly, Dana Reinhardt (216 pages) – Drew is a loner who hangs out in her mother’s cheese shop and owns a pet rat. One day she meets Emmett, a boy with an endless amount of mysteries surrounding him, and begins her first real friendship. The cover says “[it’s] about a cautious girl swept up by new feelings. It’s about a charismatic boy in search of a miracle. It’s about what happens when they find each other”, which is quite nice.

First sentence: For some people it’s the smell of sunblock.

He’s So Not Worth It, Kieran Scott (360 pages) – the sequel to She’s So Dead to Us. “Told in two voices, Allie and Jake continue to be bombarded by family issues and pressures from the “Cresties” and their poorer counterparts as they spend a summer dealing with the fallout of their breakup.” (Catalogue)

First sentence: I had imagined my reunion with my father so many times over the past two years, I had every last detail down.

Anna Dressed in Blood, Kendare Blake (316 pages) – Cas Lowood is a ghost-killer who travels the country with his mother and cat, following legends and stories to hunt down harmful ghosts and, well, kill them. They arrive in a new town on the trail of the ghost known as Anna Dressed in Blood, who has killed every person who has entered the house she haunts – except, mysteriously, she decides to spare Cas.

First sentence: The grease-slicked hair is a dead giveaway – no pun intended.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Laini Taylor (418 pages) – newly arrived, and featuring in our Most Wanted list: this one is “a sweeping and gorgeously written modern fantasy about a forbidden love, an ancient and epic battle, and hope for a world remade” (cover), which makes it sound fabulous!

First sentence: Walking to school over the snow-muffled cobbles, Karou had no sinister premonitions about the day.

A Long Long Sleep, Anna Sheehan (342 pages) – This is a kind of fairytale-meets-futuristic-semi-dystopian-tale, which sounds really interesting. Rosalinda Fitzroy’s mega rich parents organised for her to “sleep” for sixty years in a stasis tube. When she is kissed awake by a strange boy she discovers the world quite changed, and must reestablish herself. But when an assassin threatens her life, things are turned up a notch, and Rose is forced to uncover some past truths and face the deadly threat head on.

First sentence: I’d try to hold on to my stass dreams as long as I could.

Haunting Violet, Alyxandra Harvey (344 pages) – Set in the 19th century. Violet’s mother is a fake medium, who holds séances to relieve various willing members of society of their cash. But at one particular session Violet is confronted by the ghost of a murder victim, who won’t rest until the killer is brought to justice.

First sentence: I was nine years old when my mother decided it was time I took part in the family business.