POISON APPLE Series

The Poison Apple series is a supernatural companion to the Candy Apple series. Young tween/early teen girls are the protagonists and they face a variety of supernatural mysteries from ghosts to vampires to werewolves. The first eight books came out from May 2010-November 2011. The first two Rotten Apple books, also supernatural but with a zombie theme, came out in August 2012. Unbeknownst to me, Poison Apple also returned with The Ghoul Next Door in October 2012 and The Ghost of Christmas Past in November. The Green-Eyed Monster followed in January 2013, but the twelfth book, Dead in the Water, didn't release until April 2014. September 2014 brought the third anf fourth Rotten Apple books, which I think are the last of this oddly stretched out run of Candy Apple spinoffs.

Spoilers below! Since these books are mysteries, if you plan on reading any and want to avoid spoilers, stop reading here.

I'll talk about Rotten Apple in a separate post, because I haven't started them yet. I just finished the twelfth Poison Apple. Mostly, I enjoyed these stories. Some of them are typical ghost stories, like The Dead End, Curiosity Killed the Cat, and The Ghost of Christmas Past. I think Christmas Past is the best of the trio, because the prank-loving ghost was a bit different, although I really enjoyed Curiosity, too. This Totally Bites and At First Bite are companions of sorts. The first follows a girl who's convinced she's a vampire, but she turns out not to be, and it's the popular spoiled girl in her class who actually is. At First Bite picks up with the popular girl dealing with her newly-acquired vampire status, a move across the country, and a mystery involving a "Dark" vampire who actually preys on humans. Both of these are good. I prefer the storyline of the second, but the protagonist of the first. Miss Fortune is interesting, because it's a bad luck curse, but the story is kinda boring. Bad luck mishaps kinda bore me, I guess. Now You See Me is another ghost story, but it's centered around a haunted camera and it's very well-written. The characters are all engaging. It was easily my favorite of the first eight books when I read them the first time and it still is. Midnight Howl is werewolves and Her Evil Twin is unique because the girl is being haunted by her old imaginary friend, not an actual ghost. The Ghoul Next Door feels like a ghost story, but it's actually out of body experience, so that made it work better. I liked that one a lot. The Green-Eyed Monster is a possessed necklace from the Salem Witch Trials days. It's pretty good. Dead in the Water, the twelfth book, blows all the others away though. It's got a very different theme based on Norwegian folklore and that really makes it stand out. Definitely my favorite of the entire series.

If you're looking for some fun supernatural mysteries that actually ARE supernatural and not just explained away, check these out.