Books like 'The Surprise Party'
Readers who enjoyed The Surprise Party by R.L. Stine also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary horror mystery suspense high-school children crime teens realistic
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Mercurial Dreams by Hadena James
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAislinn Cain and the Serial Crimes Tracking Unit are being sent to the hottest place in North America to investigate mummified remains that were found in Death Valley. When Xavier Reece uncovers elemental mercury in the heart of one of the mummies, they discover there is more than Mother Nature at work... -
Explosive Dreams by Hadena James
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBright midways, rides with loud music and flashing lights, barkers trying to get people to spend money on rigged games; the normal sounds of county fairs everywhere until an explosion rips through the tinny music of the carnival rides. Now the screams are not squeals of delight but the terrified shrieks of the dying.The danger is no longer imaginary, something to shrug off when the ride is over... -
One Last Kill by Barry Eisler
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsPreviously published as Killing Rain and One Last KillAfter nearly dying while taking out a target in Hong Kong, Rain has a new employer, the Mossad, which wants him to fix a "problem" in Manila. He also has a new partner, Dox, whose good-ol'-boy persona masks a sniper as deadly as Rain himself... -
Elysium Dreams by Hadena James
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHe skins his victims alive, taking pleasure from their pain. In the cold, dark nights of Alaska, a hunter is stalking his prey. Once found, he takes them into the woods and skins them alive, prolonging the experience as much as he can, but the satisfaction always wanes.Aislinn Cain and the Serial Crimes Tracking Unit have just finished up another case when they get the call... -
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Ghost in the Machine by Patrick Carman
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe chilling second book in the innovative series from bestselling author Patrick Carman. Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek...and Ryan and Sarah are trying to find out why. Ryan writes down everything in his journal, and Sarah records everything on her videocam...Categorized as:
children high-school realistic suspense action-adventure book children-books contemporary -
Stolen Children by Peg Kehret
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsAmy learned a lot in her babysitting course, but not what to do if two thugs show up, intent on kidnapping. Armed with misinformation and a weapon, the men take Amy and little Kendra to a remote cabin in the woods. There they make videos of the girls and mail them to Kendra’s wealthy parents in an effort to get ransom money... -
The Back Door of Midnight by Elizabeth Chandler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPsychic...or psychotic? Anna knows her family is crazy. But when she goes to visit her aunt and uncle for the summer and learns that her uncle’s charred body has been found, her life reaches a new level of insanity. Her erratic aunt’s “psychic” abilities are exaggerated by her grief, and have become borderline violent... -
Abduction! by Peg Kehret
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMatt is missing. Bonnie's brother left his classroom to use thebathroom —and disappeared. A police dog traces his scent to the curb, where he apparently got into a vehicle. But why would Matt go anywhere with a stranger? Overwhelmed with fear, Bonnie discovers that her dog is gone, too. Was Pookie used as a lure for Matt? Bonnie makes one big mistake in her attempt to find her brother... -
Wicked Little Words by Stevie J. Cole, B.T. Urruela
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEdwin Allen Mercer I want them all to read my words. And they do. Every last blood-stained sentence, they've read and praised me for. They love the gore and violence, the realness. And I get a sense of power with it all because I know a secret: the victims in my books—they’re real and have all died on my table. And maybe that’s why the last book had such awful reviews... -
The Last Laugh by Mindy McGinnis
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn the dark and stunning sequel to The Initial Insult, award-winning author Mindy McGinnis concludes this suspenseful YA duology as long-held family secrets finally come to light . . . changing Amontillado forevermore. Perfect for fans of Truly Devious and Sadie!Tress Montor murdered Felicity Turnado—but she might not have to live with the guilt for long... -
The Angel of Death by Alane Ferguson
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs assistant to her father, the county coroner of Silverton, Colorado, Cameryn Mahoney has seen more gore than the average seventeen-yearold. But even Cameryn is shocked when Kyle O'Neil, the most popular guy in school, discovers the gruesome corpse of their English teacher murdered in his own bed... -
Le Manuscrit Inachevé by Franck Thilliez, Jean-Yves Berteloot
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAux alentours de Grenoble, un jeune a fini sa trajectoire dans un ravin après une course-poursuite avec la douane. Dans son coffre, le corps d’une femme, les orbites vides, les mains coupées et rassemblées dans un sac... -
What Waits in the Water by Kieran Scott
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHannah is excited to spend some time at her best friend Jacob's lake house this summer. The catch? Hannah's annoying new stepsister, Katie, is tagging along. Katie is wild and pretty and seems to have a THING for Jacob. Hannah's not jealous...or is she? To make matters worse, the town they're staying in is sort of...creepy...Categorized as:
realistic suspense action-adventure book contemporary fiction horror law-enforcement -
Black for Remembrance by Carlene Thompson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsCaroline Webb knows what it means to lose the person you love most. Twenty years ago, her five-year-old daughter, Hayley, was the light of her life, her treasure, her angle. Then came the terrible day when Hayley was kidnapped from her favorite swing. More than a month passed before her burned, lifeless body was found. All that remained was the silence of Caroline's heartache--and her guilt.. -
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Count All Her Bones by April Henry
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsCheyenne sets out to save her former captor in this much-anticipated sequel to Girl, Stolen.Six months ago, Griffin Sawyer meant to steal a car, but he never meant to steal the girl asleep in the backseat. Panicked, he took her home. His father, Roy, decided to hold Cheyenne―who is blind―for ransom. Griffin helped her escape, and now Roy is awaiting trial... -
Long Gone by Paul Pilkington
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe brand new mystery series from the author of the bestselling Emma Holden Trilogy and Kindle Number One Someone to Save You...A missing girl... Natalie Long is missing. About to board a high speed train from London’s Paddington station, she has vanished without a trace.Just two days earlier, things were so different... -
Remember Me by Christopher Pike
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsSHE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THAT SHE WAS DEAD.When Shari Cooper awoke at home after being at her girlfriend's birthday party, her family acted like she wasn't there. They didn't hear a thing she said. They wouldn't even look at her. Then the call came from the hospital. Her father and brother paled. Her mother started to cry. Shari didn't know what was wrong. Not until she followed them to the hospital... -
Skeleton Creek #1 by Patrick Carman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe first book in the breakthrough series from bestselling author Patrick Carman, featuring text and technology in an innovative new way. Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek . . . and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it... -
I'm a Therapist, and My Patient is a Vegan Terrorist: 6 Deadly Social Media Influencers by Dr. Harper
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Explosive Conclusion to the Dr. Harper Therapy seriesI'm a therapist, and I've worked with the wildest internet celebrities… A vigilante who treated humans as factory farm animals. A germaphobe who warned of the next major plague. My own best friend. A rapist who got cancelled online — and in real life. A psychic medium with a disturbing prediction... -
The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFascinated by forensics, seventeen-year-old Cameryn Mahoney persuades her father, the county coroner in sleepy Silverton, CO, to take her on as his assistant... -
ASBO by Iain Rob Wright
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsYOUR FEAR IS THEIR ENTERTAINMENT...Andrew’s life is one of bored contentedness: a teenage daughter, a faithful wife, and a middle-class job. He even has a Mercedes. His life is without drama, and the comfort of middle-age is setting in.That all changes when he refuses to buy a pack of cigarettes for the local gang of youths... -
The Silence of Six by E.C. Myers
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“What is the silence of six, and what are you going to do about it?”These are the last words uttered by 17-year-old Max Stein’s best friend, Evan: Just moments after hacking into the live-streaming Presidential debate at their high school, he kills himself...Categorized as:
crime high-school realistic suspense action-adventure book children-books contemporary -
Blink Once by Cylin Busby
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWest is a high school senior who has everything going for him until an accident leaves him paralyzed. Strapped down in his hospital bed, slipping in and out of consciousness, West is terrified and alone. Until he meets Olivia.She's the girl next door-sort of... -
Get Dirty by Gretchen McNeil
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe members of Don’t Get Mad aren’t just mad anymore . . . they’re afraid. And with Margot in a coma and Bree stuck in juvie, it’s up to Olivia and Kitty to try to catch their deadly tormentor. But just as the girls are about to go on the offensive, Ed the Head reveals a shocking secret that turns all their theories upside down... -
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The Black Queen by Jumata Emill
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNova Albright was going to be the first Black homecoming queen at Lovett High--but now she's dead. Murdered on coronation night. Fans of One of Us Is Lying and The Other Black Girl will love this unputdownable thriller.Nova Albright, the first Black homecoming queen at Lovett High, is dead... -
Never Have I Ever by Sara Shepard
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMy perfect life was a lie.Now I'd do anything to uncover the truth.Not long ago, I had everything a girl could wish for: amazing friends, an adorable boyfriend, a loving family. But none of them know that I'm gone--that I'm dead. To solve my murder, my long-lost twin sister, Emma, has taken my place. She sleeps in my room, wears my clothes, and calls my parents Mom and Dad... -
Smilin' Sam's Corn Maze by Stephanie Perry Scissom
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhen her seven-year-old daughter Lizzy disappeared into a corn maze on Halloween night in 1984, Catherine Bryant didn’t think she’d survive the loss.For nearly forty years, Catherine has struggled with her grief and guilt, so when her doctor delivers a fatal diagnosis, it’s almost a relief.But something is happening to Catherine... -
El libro negro de las horas by Eva García Sáenz de Urturi
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAlguien que lleva muerto cuarenta años no puede ser secuestrado y, desde luego, no puede sangrar.Vitoria, 2022... -
Crazy Dangerous by Andrew Klavan
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsSam Hopkins is a good kid who has fallen in with the wrong crowd. Hanging around with car thieves and thugs, Sam knows it's only a matter of time before he makes one bad decision too many and gets into real trouble.But one day, Sam sees these thugs harassing an eccentric schoolmate named Jennifer... -
The Doll's House by Tania Carver
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the outside, the house was unremarkable. Just one of many on an ordinary, suburban estate. But inside was a different matter. With pink ribbons and pink walls, stuffed toy animals everywhere and a dining table laid out for a tea party, it was a doll's house.The doll was sitting at the table. Life size, with blonde, pigtailed hair and rosy red cheeks, dressed in her best pink party dress... -
Lucky Day by Barry Lyga
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis is the story of the small town sheriff who captured one of the world's most ruthless and cunning murderers.It all started with Dead Girl #1 and Dead Girl #2, the first killings in the sleepy town of Lobo's Nod in decades. Two murders: just a coincidence, or something more sinister? One thing's for sure -- it was definitely inconvenient in a year when Sheriff G... -
Escape from Eden by Elisa Nader
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSince the age of ten, Mia has lived under the iron fist of the fundamentalist preacher who lured her mother away to join his fanatical family of followers. In Edenton, a supposed “Garden of Eden” deep in the South American jungle, everyone follows the Reverend’s strict but arbitrary rules—even the mandate of whom they can marry... -
When She Was Bad by Jonathan Nasaw
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe author of "Twenty-Seven Bones" and "The Girls He Adored" delivers another nailbiting thriller featuring former FBI agent E. L. Pender. Breathtaking and suspenseful, yet leavened with a perverse and quirky humor, "When She Was Bad" examines the terrifying relationship between two hot young lovers who also happen to be coldblooded killers... -
Stalkers by Ed Gorman, Trish Janeshutz
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDarkness falls quickly when you're being stalked....but it is always dark when you are a stalker. In this compelling, all--original anthology, the masters of suspense take you into the, darkest depths of terror as they explore both sides of the human hunt. These 19 chilling tales of horror and suspense will leave pulses pounding long after the last page has been turned... -
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Seat 7A by Sebastian Fitzek
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt's irrational.You know that, you’ve checked the statistics. Flying is safer than driving — nineteen times safer.You also know that should something happen, seat 7A, according to the numbers, is the worst place to be sitting.But here you are, in seat 7A, buckled up for take off, unable to shake off the feeling of dread, the feeling that something is about to go very wrong.Irrational, perhaps... -
Are You Awake? by Claire McGowan
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of What You Did comes a chilling story about a missing girl and two potential witnesses. They both think they saw her. But can they trust their own eyes?Mary hasn’t slept in what feels like years. Her two young children never let her rest, and so one exhausting night, in the middle of a London heatwave, she escapes to a nearby park for some air.Tim can’t sleep... -
Keep This to Yourself by Tom Ryan
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIt's been a year since the Catalog Killer terrorized the sleepy seaside town of Camera Cove, killing four people before disappearing without a trace. Like everyone else in town, eighteen-year-old Mac Bell is trying to put that horrible summer behind him—easier said than done since Mac's best friend Connor was the murderer's final victim... -
The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling team behind Chasing Vermeer comes another thought-provoking art mystery--featuring Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie house! Spring semester at the Lab School in Hyde Park finds Petra and Calder drawn into another mystery when unexplainable accidents and ghostly happenings throw a spotlight on Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, and it's up to the two junior sleuths to... -
The Foxglove Killings by Tara Kelly
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsGramps always said that when the crickets were quiet, something bad was coming. And the crickets have been as silent as the dead. It started with the murdered deer in the playground with the unmistakable purple of a foxglove in its mouth. But in the dying boondock town of Emerald Cove, life goes on... -
Remedy by Eireann Corrigan
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCara's been sick all her life . . . but in this case the cause might be more shocking than the cure.It's a mystery - why is Cara so sick? It feels like she's been sick all her life . . . but she and her mom have never stayed in one place long enough for doctors to really understand what's happening to her. Now, at fourteen, Cara is tired of being tired, and sick of being sick... -
Oblivion Road by Alex McAulay
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFive stranded teenagers must battle for their lives against a group of escaped convicts, and each other, in this shocking survival thriller from the author of Bad Girls and Lost Summer. Courtney Stanton thinks she's on just another ski trip with her friends -- until a horrific car accident strands them all on an isolated Colorado road during a blizzard... -
Sleep Softly by Gwen Hunter
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFour little girls--each blond, each on the verge of adolescence--stolen from their families.Their bodies discovered months later in shallow graves, surrounded by trinkets they never owned, clutching a scrap of paper bearing a cryptic verse... -
Stranger with My Face [With Book] by Lois Duncan
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsHave you ever been haunted by the feeling that someone is spying on you, lurking around your house and yard, even entering your bedroom? Are your friends plotting against you when they say they've seen you do things you know you haven't done? What's going on -- and does Laurie really want to find... -
The Night She Disappeared by April Henry
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsGabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part-time as a delivery girl at Pete's Pizza. One night, Kayla—another delivery girl—goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working.Gabie can't move beyond the fact that Kayla's fate was really meant for her... -
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Missing by Kelley Armstrong
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsEveryone knows they left. No one knows they're...m i s s i n gReeve's End is the kind of town every kid can't wait to escape. Each summer, a dozen kids leave, and at least a quarter never come back. I don't blame them - I'll do the same in another year. We thought it was just something that happened in town like ours.We were wrong... -
Into the Dark by Peter Abrahams
Rated: 3.87 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIn Echo Falls, secrets buried in the past don't always stay there.In the third book in the Edgar Award–nominated and national bestselling Echo Falls series, Peter Abrahams's talent for building suspense shines as Ingrid embarks on her most harrowing adventure yet. Perfect for middle schoolers looking for a good mystery... -
What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSeeing things. You were just seeing things. For city girl Callie Velasquez, nothing sounds more terrifying than a night out in the wilderness. But, wanting to bond with her popular new friends, Lissa and Penelope, she agrees to join them on a camping trip. At least Callie's sweet new boyfriend, Jeremy, will be coming too. But nothing goes as planned. The group loses half their food supply... -
More Twisted: Collected Stories Vol. II by Jeffery Deaver
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"New York Times" bestselling author Jeffery Deaver has famously thrilled and chilled fans with tales of masterful villains and the brilliant minds who bring them to justice. Now the author of the Lincoln Rhyme series ("The Cold Moon" and "The Bone Collector," among others) has compiled a second volume of his award-winning, spine-tingling short stories of suspense... -
O Mistério do 5 Estrelas by Marcos Rey
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsUm homem é assassinado no apartamento 222 do Emperor Park Hotel. O único que viu o corpo foi Léo, o mensageiro. Mas ninguém acredita em suas histórias, a não ser seus amigos Gino, Ângela e Guima. Léo é apenas um garoto e seus inimigos são ricos e poderosos. sem ter provas nenhuma contra elas, acaba perdendo o emprego e sendo procurado pela polícia, achando que tem problema de cabeça... -
To Right the Wrongs by Sheryl Scarborough
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSheryl Scarborough continues the adventures of teen amateur sleuth and aspiring forensic scientist Erin Blake in To Right the Wrongs , the sequel to To Catch a Killer.Erin Blake has one goal for summer leave behind her reputation as the girl whose mom was murdered, and just be normal girl enjoying her first real romance...
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