Take A Trip Back To Fear Street!

Probably almost every teenager from the late 1980s and 1990s will recall reading at least one Fear Street novel by author R.L. Stine. The teen horror book series was first published in 1989 with The New Girl and quickly became popular with teenagers. Several spin-offs followed, such as Fear Street Sagas, Fear Street Seniors, Ghosts of Fear Street (ghostwritten). More than 80-million copies have been sold worldwide, leading Fear Street to become the best-selling young-adult book series of all time that is until the Harry Potter books and the Twilight Saga came around. The franchise took a brief hiatus until the Fear Street Nights trilogy was published in 2005 and then once again disappeared from bookstores until last week's release of Party Games: A Fear Street Novel.

Party Games marks the first Fear Street hardcover release, plus, it launches the start of brand-new releases of the series. The new book centers on teenager Rachel Martin, who spends her after school time working at the restaurant called Lefty's and trying to avoid her ex-boyfriend, Mac. She gets the shock of her life when her crush Brendan Fear invites her to his party that will be on his family's estate on Fear Island. Though she has been warned to stay away from Brendan by one of her friends, she eagerly agrees to attend the party.

When she arrives at Fear Lake to get aboard the boat that will take her to Fear island, she meets the other guests - April Conkin, Delia Rogers, Geena Steves, Robby "Spider"" Webb, Eric Finn, Patti Berger and Kerry Reacher. All of them are excited to spend the weekend on Fear Island that is said to be haunted.

What starts out as a scavenger hunt party, ends up in something that Rachel never imagined - real fear! Strange accidents occur, guests go missing, two men with guns appear on the island and there is ghost of Victoria Fear walking around the mansion.

I grew up reading Fear Street books and as an adult I occassionally buy an old Fear Street book at thrift stores. Fear Street originally came out during the "Point Horror" years, a young-adult genre with thrilling plots and lots of violence that reflected the horror movies from the '80s. Party Games follows the typical Fear Street plot with a female heroine, but this time it is set on an island - Fear Island. From there it starts to play out like the '80s horror flick April Fool's Day, but then it takes a few twists & turns that I didn't see coming and then there is the freaking ending. Overall, Party Games: A Fear Street Novel may not be the scariest book from the series, but it was still an entertaining read and a breath of fresh air compared the recent overflow of vamire-love-story young-adult books.

*Disclaimer - I received a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

About the Author:

R.L. STINE is one of the bestselling children’s authors in history, with more than 400 million books sold to date. In 1986, he wrote his first teen horror novel, Blind Date, which became an instant bestseller. In 1989, Stine created the Fear Street series, one of the bestselling young adult book series in history, with 80 million copies sold worldwide. He is also the author of the bestselling children's series Goosebumps, which began in 1992 and has sold 300 million copies around the world.