Pumpkin patches, haunted houses, and ghosts...fun! Here are more ghost romances for your spooky pleasure! These romances have ghost as leads, haunts, or secondary characters in an otherwise normal contemporary world. 

 

1. Trouble in Mudbug by Jana DeLeon 

 

Scientist Maryse Robicheaux thought that a lot of her problems had gone away with her mother-in-law’s death. The woman was rude, pushy, manipulative and used her considerable wealth to run herd over the entire town of Mudbug, Louisiana.

Unfortunately, death doesn’t slow down Helena one bit.

DEA Agent Luc LeJeune is wondering what his undercover assignment investigating the sexy scientist has gotten him into – especially as it seems someone wants her dead. Keeping his secrets while protecting Maryse proves to be easier than fighting his attraction for the brainy beauty.

 

2. A Wish for Love by Gina Wilkins

 

Bailey Gates is tired of picking guys loaded down with emotional baggage—her "Dear Bailey" days are through. But one look at the fascinating, sexy Ian Cameron and she can't help falling hopelessly in love. However, Ian has a problem that even Bailey isn't ready to take on. Because seventy-five years ago Ian Cameron was shot down in cold blood….

 

3. Body and Soul by Susan Krinard

 

Jesse Copeland, an expert in mountain rescues, has returned to Manzanita after years in the Peace Corps. Despite an indomitable courage that sent her rappelling down cliffs, she is haunted by the nightmares and shadowy half-memories surrounding her mother's mysterious death. Now she is determined to find out if her mother's "accident" was murder. What she finds instead is a man as transparent as air--sensual, muscular, his blue eyes burning into hers as she cries out one word from a place deep within her: David.

David Ventris, Lord Ashthorpe, late of His Majesty's Light Dragoons, is, simply put, a ghost. He's waited two centuries to be called back to earth by the woman he wronged. He knew her as "Sophie," a wondrous lady who sparked a passion so blazing that time could not dim the flames. Now he is being given the chance to guard her from danger and get back his soul--if only she will believe him real and not madness. If only she will love him enough to create a miracle...and give him life again.

 

4. Seeing is Believing by Erin McCarthy 

 

Ever since Piper Tucker was young she wanted to be like everyone else, but her uncanny ability to see ghosts always put her on the other side of normal. And the apparitions are showing up now more than ever, desperately seeking help. But what can she possibly do for them? They’ve already been dead for years. Besides, she has a personal concern of her own right now. A real flesh and blood concern—named Brady.

He’s Piper’s childhood crush, and no sooner is he back in town than sparks start giving off heat. For Brady, it’s hard not to notice the sexy young woman Piper’s become, or forget the special gift she had as a girl. And right now it could come in handy, because a long-forgotten murder has been keeping a restless spirit from finding peace. All Piper and Brady have to do is solve the crime to put the specter to rest. But the passion brewing between them is just as restless, and could prove twice as dangerous.

 

5. Haunted Warrior by Allie Mackay

 

Kendra Chase is exhausted from her work as a ghost whisperer, so she's been looking forward to her vacation in Edinburgh. But work awaits her as the tiny fishing village is being excavated, and supernatural uprisings have been reported.

Graeme MacGrath knows the source of the psychic trouble. The excavation is disrupting the protective veil between this world and darker, more ancient ones. He hates to admit it but he will need the fetching Kendra and her paranormal abilities to save the town he loves from unspeakable evil.

 

6. Freudian Slip by Erica Orloff

 

Everyone loves shock jock Julian Shaw…except the guy who shot him.

The raunchy radio DJ expects the dark tunnel, white lights—even his late grandmother greeting him at the pearly gates. Instead, he gets a coma, a spirit guide named Gus and a pushy demon with a deal. His assignment: Katie Darby.

Katie Darby's best friend just stole her guy! Now she's losing her mind.

All she really wants to do is stay in mope mode, but it feels as if someone is watching her, whispering strange thoughts into her head, making her say and do things she would never normally consider. And it's actually making her life better!

Now Julian wants another chance to prove he's a good guy. But he just might have to sell his soul to the devil to get it….

 

7. Dream Lake by Lisa Kleypas

 

Alex Nolan is about as bitter and cynical as they come. One of three Nolan brothers who call Friday Harbor home, he’s nothing like Sam or Mark. They actually believe in love; they think the risk of pain is worth the chance of happiness. But Alex battles his demons with the help of a whiskey bottle, and he lives in his own private hell. And then, a ghost shows up. Only Alex can see him. Has Alex finally crossed over the threshold to insanity?

 

Zoë Hoffman is as gentle and romantic as they come. When she meets the startlingly gorgeous Alex Nolan, all her instincts tell her to run. Even Alex tells her to run. But something in him calls to Zoë, and she forces him to take a look at his life with a clear eye and to open his mind to the possibility that love isn’t for the foolish.

 

The ghost has been existing in the half-light of this world for decades. He doesn’t know who he is, or why he is stuck in the Nolans’ Victorian house. All he knows is that he loved a girl once. And Alex and Zoë hold the key to unlocking a mystery that keeps him trapped here.

Zoë and Alex are oil and water, fire and ice, sunshine and shadow. But sometimes it takes only a glimmer of light to chase away the dark, and sometimes love can reach beyond time, space, and reason to take hold of hearts that yearn for it. .

 

8. Crazy For The Cowboy by Cindy Spencer Pape

 

Tough-as-nails Sheriff Fitz Hall has learned the hard way that transplanted city girls are not to be trusted, so he plans to steer clear of the new arrival in town. Rhiannon Jakobowski has lived a staid, regimented life. Inheriting a bookstore in Shirley, Wyoming, is her first chance at independence, and she?s determined to make the most of it. Within days of arriving, however, she wakes up to find the handsome sheriff in her bed. Pretty soon she?s talking to ghosts. Is she losing her mind? Or is she just crazy for the cowboy?

 

9. The Ghost and Cheri by Jacqueline Diamond 

 

Former child star Cheri Louette, who retreated from the world to raise her orphaned nephew, wants to help the seven-year-old recover from his parents' deaths, but now he's hearing voices in the night. Is it possible that their old house came with resident ghosts?

 

When bookish college co-ed Alexis heads to the laundry room in her new apartment, she runs into Ian Reese, the chem lab partner she crushed on all last semester. And the guy who stood her up on their first date. But she’s down for an awkward reunion, and no better place than her creepy laundry room.

 

Ian has every intention of making amends, but just when Alexis begins to trust him again, a new threat calls more than their future together into question. A ghost from the apartment’s past is hellbent on revenge, and if he wants to get his girl, he’ll have to get the ghost first.

 

 

Let me know your favorites on this list and if any didn't make it!

 

To vote for the best of the best go to the Goodreads list: Beyond: Contemporary Romance with Ghosts. 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Martin is chasing her brother across the world. She finds herself in a Czech village with a Dhampir called Josef Darecky who is hunting a vampire family who are also hunting him. She's quite worried for her twin brother, and she can sense that he's in trouble. She first takes a dislike to Josef but later finds herself conflicted about him.It's pretty much a predictable fang-banger romance, the adventure part of the story was pretty well written.

Where to start? Illuminated barely received two stars from me. The story was original and had a few elements of mystery but it fell seriously flat for me. I'm not sure what I expected from "Illuminated" but what I got were two teenagers who feel head over heels in love with each other within 4 days, an extremely rare book that became a "dangerous" mystery, and an introduction to the romance for Abelard and Heloise. The story moved swiftly but I felt everything was way to easy to be a real mystery or adventure (but I could be over thinking it). They had to trace the history and ownership of a book hundreds possibly thousands of years old, and they did that with no problem in about one week, maybe two. Really? The book must have changed hands a dozen times and they found every single person that had possession of the book at one time.I can see if they found maybe three of the owners over the course of the summer but to trace it all the way back to the beginning in two weeks tops? Um, no. You will not feed me that foolishness.Then enters a villain who's stent and presence was so fleeting in the book that I seriously have no info or need to mention him/her in this review, so moving on. August was the perfect dream boyfriend. Sweet, attentive, straight forward and gorgeous. But I felt nothing as I read about him. He had passion but and he wasn't completely there or perfect but he still wasn't a real enough person for me to care about. Callie was what you expect of a young woman who lost her mother as a child with a father who was never home. She had mommy issues she had daddy issues and above all else she was so innocent. Not necessarily bad traits in your main character but traits that I had seen done more times than one, but those traits didn't even begin to make Callie tangible. The only characters I loved were Uncle Gabe and Harry, they both loved Callie so much I could touch it and that is something that I seriously wish I could have seen in all of the characters. Emotion that felt real instead of just merely written. The toss in of Abelard and Heloise was sweet, and well placed and while for two minutes I wanted to go to Paris to see their graves it still wasn't enough to save this book for me. I'm not against insta-love or mystery but I just didn't feel that any of this was real, and that is always my goal with a book. To be taken to a new and exciting place away from our very real world.

I'd really give this one 3.5 stars. I can't say I always liked the heroine of this book, but she definitely kept my interest and I respected some of the choices she had to make about how to live her life. A boxing trainer/promoter in Vegas is not the usual heroine,and Jack Rooney came across in this book as being tough enough to be the real deal. The book centers on Jack's trying to protect a murder victim's young daughter. The victim was Jack's friend and the child is in danger from the mob. The suspense thriller side of the plot in this book really worked for me, though the romantic elements lacked a certain emotional depth, even accounting for the fact that the romance was obviously not the main thrust of the book.FWIW, in case anyone's curious about my bias:I know that the Bombshell line generated all kinds of controversy among reviewers when it launched and more than a few people expressed dismay that romance wasn't front and center in the Bombshell books. Even though I'm a romance reviewer, I wasn't one of those dismayed. I loved the idea of a line centered on strong female leads and their adventures, I thought some of the books that came out of Bombshell were fantastic, and I'm only sad that we didn't get more books from this line before it folded. I love reading romance, but I also love to read across all kinds of other genres and subjects as well.

There’s just something about star-crossed lovers, isn’t there? I find it extremely interesting that some of the most enduring romances are the ones that end tragically. Arthur & Guinevere, Tristan & Isolde, and of course, Romeo & Juliet, just to name a few. So what keeps us coming back to the unhappy ending? For me, it’s the promise of what might have been; the way the two lovers burned impossibly bright before everything went so horribly wrong. It’s the ever-present “what if?”, imagining what their future might have been had not bad timing, misunderstandings, or betrayal befallen them. Maybe it’s even the vain, silly hope that this time, this time the ending might be different. Happiness so tragically thwarted. These are the stories that have made their mark on history and literature, that capture the imagination, and this is no less true for heroine Callie Martin.A summer intern for her uncle at Manhattan’s prestigious Royal Auction House, Callie becomes caught up in the romance of Heloise & Abelard when an illuminated text crosses her uncle’s desk. Uncle Harry’s expertise lies in antique books and manuscripts, and while appraising his newest acquisition, he discovers that the book is, in fact, a palimpsest. (What is a palimpsest, you might be wondering? It’s basically a super-old recycled book. Back in the day when paper or vellum was a little harder to come by, sometimes book would be wiped clean and rewritten on. Today, with the benefit of technology, modern-day scholars are able to find and sometimes read the original words hidden beneath the newer. Such books are obviously very special and extremely rare.) Beneath the gorgeous illustrations and religious text of the book, lies the mysterious pennings of a tragic love by an individual known only as A. To correctly appraise the book’s value for auction, her uncle must first discover and verify who the anonymous A. truly is. And so, Harry gives Callie along with August, the handsome son of an antique book dealer, the job of unraveling the secrets of the palimpsest’s original author. As they uncover the story of A. piece by piece, Callie begins to fall for August. Realizing that their own stories share parallels with the ill-fated lovers’, Heloise & Abelard, August & Callie begin to wonder about the fate of their own fledgling but passionate romance.Callie. When Callie was in Kindergarten, her mother died of cancer leaving Callie in the care of her cold, emotionally-distanced father. She and her dad do not have what one might call a close relationship, and while she hardly knows her workaholic dad, she knows even less about her mom. Her refuge/confidante/trusted parental figure has always been her Uncle Harry, with whom she spends her summers. He’s Callie’s closest link to her mom and the nearest person she has to a supportive, involved dad. In turn, she’s like the daughter Harry never had. I love the multi-faceted dynamic of Callie and Harry’s relationship. It’s very sweet and most certainly one of my favorite aspects of Illuminated.Callie herself is a perfect blending of her parents’ personalities – her success-oriented dad with his high expectations and her free-spirited, spontaneous mother. Callie is extremely intelligent and on the Ivy League track for college, pushed and prodded to academic excellence by her father. She desperately wants to know more about her mother – to discover who her mother was, how Callie herself fits within the story of her parents’ failed relationship, and if her future relationships might be tainted by the toxicity that marred her parents’ marriage. She’s determined, driven, a bit more on the reserved side than August, but she can also be impetuous, allowing her heart to lead her.August. August is endearing. He blows into Callie’s life and immediately takes her heart by storm. He’s optimistic, brilliant, confidant, friendly, honest, easygoing and charming. He’s instantly drawn to Callie. It’s clear from the get-go that August knows what he wants, and Callie is it. Typically, I’m not a fan of relationships that reach an extremely deep level of commitment in an unbelievably short amount of time. However, in Illuminated, while I thought Callie and August’s relationship develops quickly, it works for me. Perhaps it’s the shared excitement, the adrenaline rush of being thrown together, hunting down clues to an archaic mystery together. Perhaps it’s the poetic, romantic words of A. bringing them together. Perhaps it’s the fact that August is just so sweet and so obviously into Callie. Perhaps it’s that, even though I’m usually a skeptic, I want to be mushy and believe in soulmates – that one soul can instantly recognize a like soul. Perhaps it’s a combination of all of these reasons. But given the conditions, I can understand how an intense romance could be kindled under such circumstances.In addition to solving the mystery of the book, both Callie and August are two people who are struggling to avoid their parents mistakes and “eccentricities” – they don’t want their parents’ choices to define them. Both characters have very interesting back stories and family lives. Both are a bit heartbreaking, and it’s interesting to see the story of the illuminated manuscript unfold alongside the events and revelations of both August & Callie’s personal histories – how they merge and differ. The mystery of the book quickly transforms into an intensely personal journey as Callie wonders what the tragic outcome of the Heloise & Abelard’s story means for her own, and what it means for her and August.Overall, with just the slightest hint of magical realism, Illuminated is a story of the all-consuming beauty, the hopefulness, the limitless potential of young love contrasted against the tragedy of a centuries old romance.