Bad Creek

Name: Bad Creek
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Peyton June
ISBN: 9798897560875

Author: Peyton June

Narrator: Michael Crouch, Suzy Jackson, Nick Mills

Unabridged: 9 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 06/17/2025

Categories: Young Adult Fiction, Horror, Suspense & Thriller, Supernatural, Family, Lgbtq+

Synopsis

“June's debut is atmospheric and haunting, capturing the heart-pounding exhilaration of exchanging ghost stories around a campfire. The perfect spine-tingling read for summer!”—Tori Bovalino, author of My Throat an Open Grave Three lifelong friends confront restless ghosts and malevolent family secrets in this fierce, propulsive debut young adult horror novel. Iris, Gum, and Aidan are vacationing in Bad Creek, just like every summer. Except Iris’s older sister, Glory, drowned in the lake last year, and Iris can’t seem to move on; Gum is hiding his sexuality from his family while being viciously haunted by Glory’s rotting ghost; and Aidan is distraught over a drunken argument with Glory that he fears may have led to her death. When Iris sleepwalks to the dilapidated house that Glory obsessively sketched in her final days, she and the boys begin to uncover a sinister history in the very bones of the town. The trio must reckon with the events of last summer and uncover what lurks within Bad Creek before it takes Iris’s life next. Gripping and vengeful, Bad Creek confronts the intersection of religion, sexuality, and feminism, and forces readers to reckon with monsters in all their forms—human included.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Denise on March 06, 2025

Stranger Things meets the Indian Lake Trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones in this somewhat campy YA horror set at a lake in Michigan where families vacation every summer. The story was inspired by the author's own childhood experiences at a summer lake and she really got the creepy, meandering, nostalgi......more

Goodreads review by Mallory on June 30, 2025

This was an interesting one for me. I really liked the narration and thought the narrators did a great job. I liked the character development, but I wanted some more from the story. I didn’t love the pacing and I thought that the story was way too predictable. It was still a fun ride, I was just hop......more

Goodreads review by Jo on June 19, 2025

I’m a bit unsure how to rate this, because, while it didn’t work for me, I can completely see that it would work for others The highs. Lqbtq representation Amazing character development Questions religion Covers lots of angsty teen type tropes The lows I did f really enjoy the pacing I was distracted of......more

Goodreads review by Lisa on April 20, 2025

Thank you to NetGalley for the early ARC of this book. This was good. I don't know if I'll remember it for a long time and it probably won't be a favorite for 2025 but I enjoyed it while I was reading and liked the characters. Iris became more annoying as I read which was a bummer but got better aga......more

Goodreads review by Alex on June 22, 2025

I’ll say this every year, but there’s something comforting about a good horror read in the summer. Bad Creek is such a fun read, it’s all hauntings, curses, and a history of murders. I loved the idea of the summer friend group and their history unravelling slowly throughout the book. This was extrem......more