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“Hossain’s prose is compellingly moody, building suspense slowly while engaging readers on every page. Gothic settings, spectral attacks that leave Sam physically bruised, and eerie elements of South Asian mythology provide thrills for those seeking serious scares. . . . Horror, suspense, and family history collide with marvelously scary results.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Vividly evoking an everyday Singapore, Hossain adds sensory details that heighten suspense, and the genuinely creepy images of decay and restless spirits are satisfyingly chilling. Themes of grief, memory, and finding acceptance add heart to this authentically gothic tale. An immersive, shivery read and an impressive, haunting novel.”

—Booklist

Bad Things Happened Here

Written by Moniza Hossain
Published by Holiday House

This supernatural horror follows twelve-year-old Sam to his unsettling family home in Singapore, where his journey to unearth details of his dead mother’s life entangles him in a deadly decades-old mystery.

Lonely twelve-year-old Sam Wells has never known his mother. So when his maternal grandmother calls with a plane ticket to Singapore, he hopes the trip will give him the answers he’s been looking for. But his imposing family home isn’t what he expected. His grandmother is a stranger. Spiders crawl over impassible mounds of hoarded mementos. The house is such a labyrinth that Sam can barely make his way through the boxes, let alone find out anything about his mom.

Until he meets her ghost, frozen in time at age twelve.

Something terrible happened when Priya Malhotra was just a schoolgirl in Singapore. Something twisted enough to keep her trapped. Something that might be happening again. Children are going missing as they did decades before in Sam’s eerily unsettling neighborhood . . . and the closer Sam gets to the terrifying truth that lurks within the haunted, abandoned factory where the original crimes occurred, the more it seems that Sam will be the next to disappear.

To save himself, he’ll have to untangle the mystery. But if he does, will he lose his mom forever?

Primary ISBN: 9780823462353
Publication Date: September 2026
Available As: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook
Middle Grade, Age 10 or older

Community Represented:

Themes: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Setting: United States (New York), Singapore

Character's Place in the Immigration Journey: 1st Generation

Book Creator(s) Connection to the Community Represented: Own Voices/Lived Experience

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