H.A.U.N.T.S. Books in Order

The H.A.U.N.T.S. books are six short linked adventures built around Davey Williams, a boy whose gran insists he has the gift of second sight. Davey is a chime child, born when the clock stuck at midnight, and that detail tells you a lot about the series straight away. He is marked out by time, by bad luck, and by a strange closeness to things most people cannot see.

The first story begins on Midsummer's Eve, when Davey, Kate, Elinor, and Tom head off on a city ghost tour and get much more than a few rehearsed scares. From there the series keeps widening. A haunted Halloween, a sinister new teacher, an archaeological dig, and repeated slips toward a ghostly version of the city all build on one another. The books are short, but they do connect. Read in order, they feel like one long struggle broken into fast episodes.

Davey is the heart of it.

He is not fearless, and that helps. Rees writes him as an ordinary boy who would gladly hand his gift back if he could. He worries, doubts himself, and sometimes resists what he knows. That makes the supernatural pressure feel stronger, because it keeps landing on someone who never asked for any of it. His family and friends matter too. Kate, Elinor, and Tom are not just bystanders. The danger reaches all of them, and the stories work best when the group has to think its way through the haunting together.

The setting does a lot of work. Rees turns an old city into a layered place where past and present keep rubbing against each other. Streets are never only streets. Cellars, schoolrooms, dig sites, and public buildings all seem to sit on top of older stories that are not ready to stay buried. The books have a brisk, younger feel, but the atmosphere is properly eerie.

Another useful thing to know is that these six books were later repackaged into three longer volumes: City of Shadows, A Trap in Time, and The Host Rides Out. So H.A.U.N.T.S. is the original, more episodic form of the same larger Davey Williams story. If you like shorter chapters, quick momentum, and clear cliff-edge endings, this version is a lot of fun.

Expect time slips, ghosts, seasonal chill, and a reluctant young hero learning that seeing more than other people can be both a gift and a trap. For readers who enjoy supernatural adventure with a strong sense of place and a steady rise in stakes, this is one of Rees's most accessible series.