Twisted (Will Mara) Books in Order

Twisted is Will Mara's middle-grade supernatural thriller line, a series of quick, eerie stories built for readers who want suspense without a lot of extra sprawl. The books are usually short, the reading level stays approachable, and the strange thing at the center of each story shows up fast. That makes the series especially friendly to reluctant readers or anyone who likes a creepy premise and does not want to wait fifty pages for it to start working.

The weird part arrives fast.

What makes the series fun is that the setup is almost always ordinary at first. A brother and sister jump into a swimming pool. A boy hears an elderly relative call him by the wrong name. A girl notices a locker at school that should not be open. Then the normal world slips sideways. In A Pool of Deathly Blue, twins Madison and Mason surface in an abandoned town that turns out to be Pripyat after Chernobyl. In The Other, Alex finds evidence that he seems to have existed before he was born. In The Secret of Locker 24, Emily is pulled into a mystery tied to lost drawings, an old act of bullying, and a school secret adults would rather leave buried.

The settings are familiar on purpose. Suburban houses, attics, hallways, pools, classrooms, and school routines give the books a sturdy everyday frame. Because the world feels recognizable, the paranormal element lands harder. Mara does not need huge fantasy systems or endless lore. He just needs one impossible thing to break into a believable kid's life and refuse to leave.

The tone sits in a useful middle ground. These are spooky books, but they are not trying to be brutal or grotesque. The suspense comes from confusion, creeping evidence, and the fear that the main character may be the only person seeing what is really happening. Real emotional problems often sit underneath the supernatural plot too. Bullying, grief, family memory, identity, and isolation all show up. That gives the stories more shape than a simple jump-scare idea.

Another big part of the series is pace. The chapters move quickly, and the books are designed to keep readers asking one more question. What is that place? Who was that person? Why is nobody telling the truth? The answers usually matter on both levels, the spooky one and the personal one. A character solves a mystery, but also learns something difficult about fear, loyalty, or the stories people hide from themselves.

What links Twisted is not a recurring cast but a recurring promise. A young person meets something impossible, ordinary life becomes unstable, and the truth has to be faced before things get worse. If you want short paranormal stories with readable prose, strong hooks, and just enough darkness to feel deliciously unsettling, this series delivers exactly that kind of ride.