Children's Book World

A vampire awakens from a 300-year hibernation, bringing a plague of undeath to a working-class Massachusetts town. With the high school’s most notorious party house serving as ground zero for the infection, it isn’t long before the affliction spreads through the entire student body and beyond.

Ava, who’s hesitant to take the next step with her football star boyfriend, and Nick, Ava’s best friend who pines for more, must band together with an unlikely ally to fight a horde of their newly turned classmates. Bloodsick is a terrifying, character-driven novel where a hunger for blood mirrors the real-life body horror of being a hormonal American teenager.

Bestselling and award-winning author Adam Cesare brings his signature wit and penchant for a bloody good time to this high-stakes action-packed vampire novel, sharpening the genre’s fangs in much the way he shepherded a new generation of slasher fans with his Clown in a Cornfield series.

Bloodsick is perfect for fans of The Lost Boys, Kalynn Bayron’s You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight, and the body horror of Andrew Joseph White.

“Cesare is a true master of fast-paced, fun, balls-out, over-the-top fear fiction, and those narrative talents are on full display in this video-arcade-set gore-o-rama ghost novel.”
— FANGORIA

It’s 1989, and Robby Asaro is making FunCave Arcade’s pizzas when his sleeve is caught on the pizza oven conveyor belt, and he dies a brutal death. But that wasn’t the end for Robby, who is now a friendly ghost watching over the gamers of the arcade.

Fast forward to 2014, and this retro video arcade is still going strong as teens flock to both the new games on the main floor and the old classics on the second. What they don’t know is that FunCave is now haunted by the man who died there in the 1980s. Robby cares about the regulars, especially Tiffany Park. When Robby tries to protect Tiffany from a bully, his first kill has unintended consequences as he absorbs his victim’s hate and rage. He can’t help what he does next as more bodies pile up and the patrons of the arcade are trapped inside.

Blood and ectoplasm fly in this new edition of the nostalgic slasher from the incomparable award-winning and bestselling author Adam Cesare.

“Adam Cesare solidifies himself as the Herschell Gordon Lewis of horror lit with Zero Lives Remaining, a dizzying fizz of kinetic energy, corn syrup blood and guts, and an added dab of pathos to warm our eviscerated hearts.”
— Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters

Harriet Laurel notices the odor the moment she steps inside Mercy House, brought to the retirement home against her will by her son and his wife. In the early stages of dementia, Harriet has grown to resent her daughter-in-law for not providing grandchildren. Yet as she crosses the threshold, she notices her mind begins to sharpen. Then her hate begins to grow.

Arnold Piper, an eighty-five-year-old ex-Marine, has always prided himself on self-reliance. But betrayed by his own body, he’s learning that surviving war-torn Korea was easier than facing the daily indignities of old age. And his worst trials are still to come.

Sarah Campbell, an idealistic nurse, is already stretched thin at the chronically understaffed Mercy House. Now her duties are about to take a terrifying turn. Can she survive the night. . . and her patients?

“[Adam Cesare] has implemented a style that is highly cinematic, merciless in its execution and leaves you hanging on for dear life wondering what he’ll do next.”
— Horror DNA

“Mercy House is the kind of no-holds-barred thrill ride that horror junkies love to find.xecution and leaves you hanging on for dear life wondering what he’ll do next.”
— October Country

Across the street, Rachel’s sister, Rhonda, was one of the first to turn. A slithering, chitinous evil has overtaken her body and mind, and she’ll do anything to spread the alien infection. Blood, sex, rock and roll, invaders from outer space, and tender perspectives on teen male friendship: Video Night is one cult classic that has it all!

“The writing moves like a greased torpedo, compulsively readable as it rockets through your brain.”
— Fangoria

Lights, Camera, FRENDO! Welcome back to Kettle Springs. It’s time for Frendo’s close-up.

Sabrina Alvarez is a nobody — until Quinn Maybrook makes her a somebody. After landing the starring role in a film based on the Kettle Springs Massacre, Sabrina should be on top of the world. She’s going to be THE Quinn Maybrook, Final Girl of Final Girls, national hero and certified badass. But as soon as Sabrina gets to Kettle Springs, she just can’t quite shake the feeling that something’s off. For one, the director is way intense. No phones on set, shoots that last all night long, and some freakishly realistic dramatizations of the massacre’s events. Not to mention that it’s getting pretty clear to Sabrina that the residents of Kettle Springs want them out…

And then the first pair of deaths crop up. But Frendo’s gone, right? Or is he back for another round in the spotlight… It’s the latest installment of Adam Cesare’s Bram Stoker Award-winning series, Clown in a Cornfield — and this time, it’s all on film.

In Adam Cesare’s terrifying young adult debut, Quinn Maybrook finds herself caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress — that just may cost her life. Quinn Maybrook and her father have moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs, to find a fresh start. But what they don’t know is that ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can. Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now. Hardcover.

YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults Nominee

Clown in a Cornfield was 2020’s Bram Stoker Award Winner for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives is perfectly set to attract old and new fans to the series. Please note: The paperback is currently available for pre-order and will be shipped as soon as available. Scheduled publication date is August 29, 2023.

After barely making it out of the Kettle Springs cornfields alive, Quinn’s first year away at college should be safe and easy. All she wants is to be normal again.

But instead, Quinn finds that her past won’t leave her alone when she becomes the focus of online conspiracy theories that claim the Kettle Springs Massacre never happened.

When a murderous clown attacks Quinn at a fraternity party at the same time that another goes after her father in Kettle Springs, Quinn realizes that the facts alone are never going to save her. Her only option is to go back into the cornfields, back where the nightmare began, to set the record straight the only way she knows how. Because when the truth gets lost in the lies, that’s when people start to die.

Quinn has just survived yet another bloody run-in with the murderous clown Frendo, but somehow still she knows this won’t be the last. Tired of being hunted and seeing innocent people hurt, Quinn believes the only way to beat the horror is to take justice into her own hands–and stop the Frendo followers herself. Little does she know that this path will take her across cornfields and state lines, to where she will have to face the most dangerous and bloody menace yet: True believers.

It’s an all-new tale in this terrifying trio series about the villains inside us all, from the master of slashers and suspense, award–winning author Adam Cesare.

Clown in a Cornfield was 2020’s Bram Stoker Award Winner for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.

In Adam Cesare’s terrifying young adult debut, Quinn Maybrook finds herself caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress–that just may cost her life.

Quinn Maybrook and her father have moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs, to find a fresh start. But what they don’t know is that ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half.

On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now.

Don’t miss this Bram Stoker Award–winning novel from rising star Adam Cesare.

Influencer, by Bram Stoker Award–winning author Adam Cesare, is a tense and timely psychological thriller told from alternating points of view about a teenage girl who begins to suspect the charismatic new kid may in fact be a murderous psychopath. As more and more of her friends fall under his influence, her suspicions begin to come across like jealousy. But is she right? And if so, how much more dangerous would he be toward someone who has discovered his secret?

A new and expanded paperback adaptation of the Audible Original, Influencer explores the dark side of social media and the cult of personalities that flourish there as the teens navigate their own fears about friendship and popularity, culminating in an epic battle of wills that will leave readers breathless.

“Sizzling writing and a skin-crawling story make Influencer one of the most addictive horror novels I’ve read. It’s deeply uncomfortable, deeply perceptive, and deliciously fun.”
— Darcy Coates, USA Today bestselling author of The Whispering Dead

Mutant mayhem is coming to this twisted corner of New Jersey!

When a struggling janitor is pushed into a vat of toxic waste, he is transformed into a mutant freak who must go from shunned outcast to underdog hero as he races to save his son, his friends, and his community from the forces of corruption and greed.

Experience this action-packed, irreverent, gory and outlandish saga of vengeance and twisted justice, adapted from the 2025 reboot of the classic cult comedy-horror extravaganza The Toxic Avenger.