Just before summer begins, 13-year-old Ali finds an old photograph. She recognizes the two children in it; one’s her mother, the other her aunt Dulcie - but who is the third person, the one who’s been torn out of the picture? Ali will have two months to figure it out, since she’s spending the summer with her aunt and her cousin in the same house her mom and aunt used to visit when they were kids. Then Ali meets Sissy. Sissy is mean, spiteful, and determined to ruin Ali’s summer. Sissy also has a secret. Could it have something to do with the old photo? Ali is dying to find out - though, if she’s not careful, that may be exactly what happens to her.

Aunt Blythe's house gives Drew the creeps-it's full of dark rooms, creaky noises, and the sound of a woman sobbing somewhere in the shadows. Then, in the middle of the night, Drew awakens to find a boy standing in his room...a boy who is Drew's exact double, except he looks as if he's come from the grave.

While camping near Indian Creek, Matt and his best friend, Parker, get up early to see if they can spot a blue heron. Instead, they find the body of a dead man floating in the clear water. Parker is sure that George Evans, the smooth-talking local antiques dealer, must somehow be connected to the dead man. Matt isn’t so sure - but then, on Halloween night, while snooping around Evans’s antique shop, the boys make another shocking discovery that puts their own lives in danger. There are murderous grownups who would do anything to keep what the boys found in the shop a secret....

This collection of tales is for fans of ghost-story writer Mary Downing Hahn’s scary but not too scary books. Even the stories without actual ghosts are spooky. Each tale turns something ordinary - a pigeon, a white dress, a stranger on the bus, a puppet - into a sinister link to the supernatural. For the human characters, secrets from the past or careless behavior in the present can lead to serious trouble. All the stories have a young person as their central character, so all will resonate easily with young listeners who enjoy the eerie, the creepy, and the otherworldly.

Jules' family moves into an old abandoned house. Her parents love it, but she's frightened and feels a sense of foreboding. When she sees a pale face in an upstairs window, she can't stop wondering about the eerie presence on the top floor - in a room with a locked door. Her fear replaced by fascination, Jules becomes determined to make contact with the mysterious figure and to unlock the door. Past and present intersect as she and her ghostly friend discover the fate of the family who lived in the house all those many years ago.

When her adorable baby brother is replaced by an ugly, ill-tempered changeling, Mollie is determined to find the so-called Kinde Folke who took baby Thomas, return the changeling she calls Guest, and make them give Thomas back. Natural and magical obstacles and her own reckless temperament make her journey arduous and full of dangers, and a plot rich in surprises and twists makes this book a must-listen for Mary Downing Hahn’s fans.

Zoey loves spending the summer with her Aunt Alice, and her aunt's new house is the perfect place to cozy up with a good book. But she's unnerved by the overgrown forest next door, which is creepy even in the daytime and full of eerie sounds at night. Worse, there are rumors in town of a dark force in those woods. And Zoey can't deny that the wild black cats who live there seem to be watching her. When she encounters a mean old woman who claims to be their owner, Zoey realizes there's more to the cats than meets the eye.

When Ashley finds a doll in her garden, she's determined to keep it. Little does she know that its previous owner - who's been dead for seven years - wants it back.

When best friends Abbi and Skylar witness a clandestine meeting between a mysterious woman and someone in a dark van, they're thrilled. Finally, a mystery to spice up the summer! Who could these people be? Why are they meeting? Are they spies? Criminals? The two girls are determined to find out. But then a local woman goes missing and is found dead in the woods. And Abbi and Skylar realize that their detective work could hold the keys to solving her murder. Suddenly, sleuthing isn't so fun anymore.

When her widower father inherits a castlelike estate in the mountains of West Virginia, twelve-year-old Jen is thrilled. It seems like a wish come true. But she quickly realizes that not all change is positive. Her dad has a mysterious new girlfriend, Moura, who slowly drives a wedge between Jen and her father. Furthermore, Moura has an unusually strong—almost obsessive—interest in the antiques that fill the mansion, especially a beautiful glass globe that Jen finds hanging in a window.