The Tale of the Twisted Toymaker (Are You Afraid of the Dark #2)

Book excerpt: The spine-chilling next installment in the middle-grade horror series based on Nickelodeon’s hit show Are You Afraid of the Dark? from YA horror sensation Danielle Valentine. Everyone wants a Ms. Mabel doll. And the dolls want something in return... Ms. Mabel’s Doll Emporium can make a doll that looks like anyone, customizing every last detail from hair color down to the shape of its tiny fingernails until you have your very own “mini-me.” Fourteen-year-old Layla has saved up her babysitting money to buy one for her little sister, Emily. Emily is dying for one of her own, and Layla knows exactly how it feels to covet something. She’s never been so jealous over anything as she’d been over the doll of her former best friend, Quinn. Then Quinn moved away, and she and the doll disappeared entirely from Layla’s life. The loss still stings. Which is why—when the two sisters go to the store to pick up Emily’s doll—Layla is shocked to see Quinn’s old doll sitting on a shelf, covered in dust. Layla hardly recognizes herself when she stuffs the doll into her backpack as the girls exit the shop . . . and the afternoon gets even stranger when they return home. Layla hears whispering coming from the closet where she’s stashed the Quinn doll. She wakes up in the middle of the night, frozen in fear as something creeps around the shadows. Her beloved tortoiseshell cat, Anne Boleyn, is behaving as if possessed. And she could swear the teeth on Emily’s doll look somehow . . . sharper than before. Then Emily falls ill, and when Layla’s joints begin to stiffen unnaturally, she knows the dolls are to blame. They want something from their owners, and they won’t stop until its theirs. Can Layla track down the answers she desperately needs? Or will Emily and Layla eventually disappear, just like Quinn did? Are You Afraid of the Dark? series The Tale of the Gravemother (#1) by Rin Chupeco The Tale of the Twisted Toymaker (#2) by Danielle Valentine The Witch’s Wings and Other Terrifying Tales: An Original Graphic Novel by Tehlor Kay Mejia, illustrated by Junyi Wu, Alexis Hernandez, Justin Hernandez, and Kaylee Rowena