When a hurricane strikes the Florida coast, FantasticLand is cut off from the outside world. Most of the visitors have been evacuated, but hundreds of mostly college-aged employees remain behind without their phones, normal routines, or any clear idea of when help will arrive.

Five weeks later, rescuers enter the park and discover the aftermath of unimaginable violence. The surviving employees have divided themselves into rival groups—including the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People—and transformed different areas of the park into their own territories.

Told through a series of interviews conducted after the rescue, FantasticLand pieces together how an isolated group of young employees turned against one another and made the amusement park the scene of a real-life nightmare.

In the summer of 1973, college student Devin Jones takes a job at Joyland, a North Carolina amusement park, hoping the change will help him recover from a broken heart. As he learns the language and traditions of carnival life, he forms friendships with his fellow summer employees.

Years earlier, a young woman named Linda Gray was murdered inside the park’s Horror House. Her killer was never caught, and employees claim that her ghost still appears inside the attraction. Devin becomes increasingly interested in learning what happened to her.

Part coming-of-age story and part murder mystery, Joyland follows Devin as he confronts the park’s haunted history, befriends a seriously ill child, and uncovers truths that will change the course of his summer.

Seventeen-year-old Billie expects to spend the summer working alongside her best friend, flirting with her crush, and operating one of the most talked-about new rides at Murder Land. Her promotion should be the start of an exciting summer—but her first night on the job takes a deadly turn.

Billie’s creepy coworker dies while sitting on her ride, even though she wasn’t authorized to be operating it. At first, his death appears to be a heart attack. When Billie returns with help, however, his body is in a different position and his neck appears to be broken. Someone may be trying to make Billie look responsible.

With only one night to clear her name, Billie and her friends search the closed amusement park for answers. But as more people turn up dead, Billie begins to realize that the killer may be closer than she thinks—and some of her friends may be keeping secrets of their own.

After a personal tragedy and professional scandal, homicide detective Vanessa Castro moves her family to Seaside, Washington, and accepts a position as the town’s deputy police chief. Seaside appears to offer a fresh start, but the town depends heavily on Wonderland, the largest amusement park in the Pacific Northwest.

On Vanessa’s first day, a decomposing body is discovered inside the park. Soon afterward, a teenage Wonderland employee disappears. Vanessa’s investigation is met with resistance from people who fear that exposing trouble inside the park could threaten the entire town.

The missing teenager is not the first Wonderland employee to vanish. As Vanessa uncovers a history of disappearances, secrets, and corruption, she begins to suspect that the rumors surrounding the amusement park’s past may be true.

In 1911, twenty-year-old heiress Peggy Batternberg is expected to spend the summer with her wealthy family at the luxurious Oriental Hotel near Coney Island. Peggy would rather continue working at the Moonrise Bookstore than spend her time keeping up appearances for controlling relatives and New York society.

Coney Island, however, gives Peggy a taste of the independence she has been missing. Away from her family’s carefully managed world, she falls for a struggling artist who works near the pier—a man her relatives would never consider an acceptable match.

As Peggy moves between the luxury of the hotel and the crowded attractions of Coney Island, she uncovers betrayals and dangerous secrets within her own family. When people begin dying, she must determine how far the powerful Batternbergs will go to protect their name.

After an incident the previous year leaves Greta Riley Green desperate for a fresh start, she takes a summer job at Hyper Kid Magic Land. The local amusement park seems like the perfect place to reinvent herself and finally leave her troubled past behind.

Things begin looking up when Greta catches the attention of Mercy Goodwin, a beautiful and confident performer who stars in one of the park’s shows. At a party, Mercy tells Greta that she has a secret to share and asks her to meet the following day. But Mercy never arrives—and then she stops showing up for work altogether.

Convinced that Mercy may be in danger, Greta begins searching for answers inside the park. Her investigation uncovers troubling secrets about Hyper Kid Magic Land and the performers who have worked there before. But the closer Greta gets to the truth, the greater the chance that her own carefully hidden past will come to light.

Twenty-one-year-old Hardy “Hardly” Reed is drifting through life. He spends his days getting high, avoiding responsibility, and working a minimum-wage job as a scare actor at a rundown amusement park. Hardly has never considered himself particularly ambitious—or the kind of person anyone would depend on in a crisis.

That changes when he notices two young children sitting alone and sees signs that someone has been physically hurting them. Hardly reports what he saw to Child Protective Services, but he worries that the overwhelmed agency will be unable to help. Unable to forget the children, he decides to investigate the situation himself.

With help from an unexpected group of allies, Hardly begins gathering the evidence needed to protect the children. But their abusive father is not only a lawyer—he is also connected to a violent drug operation. Saving the children may finally give Hardly’s life a purpose, but it could also place all of them in even greater danger.