13 Spooky and Thrilling Romances

Blackthorn

Geissinger (Brutal Vows) mixes paranormal fantasy, contemporary horror, and sexual tension into an extremely dark romance. Maven Blackthorn returns to Solstice, Vt., with her daughter, Beatrix, for her grandmother’s funeral. However, the funeral home has lost her grandmother’s body, and, when the authorities investigating start exhuming Blackthorn graves in the cemetery, all of those bodies have gone missing as well. Local billionaire and Blackthorn enemy Ronan Croft, who abandoned Maven when she got pregnant at 17, offers to help solve this mystery, but only if he can meet Beatrix—and he’s willing to stalk, manipulate, and threaten his way into getting what he wants. The antagonistic back and forth between Maven and Ronan drags on, and, while Geissinger is clearly aiming to create a toxic, possessive, star-crossed dynamic between these two, Ronan’s actions often veer into the straightforwardly abusive. Meanwhile, the third act plays frustratingly coy over what’s real and what isn’t, leading to an epilogue that wants to have it both ways about the supernatural elements. The author’s fans may find something to enjoy in this graphic gothic romance but others can skip it. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (Nov.)

The Demon of Beausoleil

Costa (Belle of the Ball) serves up a raunchy romantasy with a devilish sense of humor. Helianthes “Hell” Beausoleil is a cambion, a half-demon born to a human family. In his Victorian-esque fantasy world, such beings are usually killed at birth, but Helianthes has grown into a sly, sarcastic, and horny (in both senses of the word) rake with a reputation for seducing men. (Or, as patrons at the local tavern gossip, “That bastard puts this nasty spell... that makes ’em fall for him!”) Cast out of his noble family for bedding his sister’s fiancé, he finds work as a freelance exorcist, dispatching demons with the help of his burly, perpetually exasperated bodyguard, Elias. Costa draws a cast of colorful characters with hilariously animated faces and lithe figures, then sets them loose in a vividly imagined sepia-toned period setting. Helianthes and Elias battle demons in a brothel, a basilica, and a country house; receive an invitation to the apocalypse; and face off against Helianthes’s most dreaded ex. Beneath the fighting and flirting is a warmhearted romance, in which the leads learn to lower their emotional defenses as they hone their fighting skills. Along the way, Helianthes’s half-demon status and society’s reaction to it serve as a saucy commentary on queer identity. It’s a wicked treat. (Jan.)

House of Rayne

Bestseller Laroux (Her Soul for Revenge) is out for blood in this visceral and deliciously dark gothic romance set against the moody backdrop of the Pacific Northwest. Salem spends what was supposed to have been her wedding night in a dive bar hooking up with Rayne, a gorgeous, secretive stranger who ends the encounter by announcing that Salem will never see her again. Except the next day, when Salem arrives for a two-week retreat at Balfour Manor on Blackridge Island, there Rayne is behind the check-in desk. When Salem starts seeing terrible apparitions in the converted manor house, Rayne comes to her rescue and tells her the truth about Blackridge’s haunting history. The rugged island hides terrible secrets, including murders, ghosts, and a monster that roams its shores as soon as the sun goes down—and Rayne is somehow tied up in all of it. Salem is impossibly drawn to the lonely hotelier, but as Rayne’s family secrets come to light and bodies pile up, the women will have to fight the evils of the past if they ever hope to have a future. Laroux doesn’t hold back on either the splatter or the spice, balancing truly embodied horror with genuinely sexy erotica. The decadent result thrills from start to finish. (Oct.)

How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates

Like a rom-com twist on Scream, debut author Thompson’s unputdownable slasher-romance mash-up gets a meta edge from protagonist Jamie Prescott’s passion for both genres. Jamie, a grad student at work on a thesis about the similarities between horror films and rom-coms, attends a speed dating event at a nightclub with her roommate, Laurie—but the night takes a sharp turn away from romance and toward horror when one of her speed dates is found murdered. The novel plays out over the course of this one violent night, as the remaining attendees realize they are locked in the club with the murderer and fight for survival. It’s a gripping and often gory high-stakes drama that still leaves room for romance to blossom between some of the speed daters, including Jamie and cool under pressure Wes. Thompson dextrously balances horror and romance tropes, using Jamie’s genre-savvy narration to provide tongue-in-cheek commentary, and opens each chapter with horrific twists on classic rom-com quotes (“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life killing somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” —Not When Harry Met Sally”). It’s pure entertainment. Agent: Hana El Niwairi, CookeMcDermid Literary. (Feb.)

A Killer Kind of Romance

Lorini (Desserts for Stressed People) delights with this suspenseful contemporary. When popular crime fiction podcaster Scarlett Moore is recruited by her boss, Celeste, to take over a romance podcast from a colleague who’s leaving, her knee-jerk response is no because she doesn’t read the genre—until she remembers that she has a mortgage to pay. While attending a “single mingle” event at a friend’s behest, Scarlett reconnects with the boy next door and her longtime crush, the mysterious Rafael Gray, who left town under suspicious circumstances five years earlier. Soon after his return, someone starts using Scarlett’s on-air mystery recommendations as inspiration for real-life murders, leading Scarlett to investigate. Along the way, she’s repeatedly thrown back together with Rafael, and the pair fall in love, though Scarlett still has no idea why he left town or what he does for a living. Lorini does a good job planting red herrings and making everyone a suspect on the way to a startling final reveal. Add in a plucky heroine, a hero with unexpected depths, and cheeky meta references to the tropes at play, and this is sure to have readers hooked. (Jan.)

Kooky Spooky Love

Silver follows up Crazy Spooky Love with another adorable outing for British medium Melanie Bittersweet. Melanie may head up the Ghostbusting Girls’ Agency, but she’s not exactly thrilled to have spirits “hassling the hell” out of her any time she ventures into an older building. When an American couple buys the haunted Maplemead Castle over the internet, Melanie and her team are called in to ghost-bust—but so is their biggest competitor, TV ghost hunter Leo Dark, who happens to be Melanie’s ex. Also poking around is skeptical local reporter Fletcher Gunn, who definitely has a thing for Melanie. She must juggle her relationships with both men while getting to know the resident ghosts, among them Britannia, a trapeze artist who died in the home a century ago; Britannia’s circus performing suitors Dino and Bohemia, who are still ready to fight to the death for her hand; and a lovely older couple, Lord Alistair Shilling and his bride, Eleanor, who are content to simply play cards and hang around their old home. Silver’s sparkling prose brings the leads to vivid life and the endearing spectral supporting cast adds to the charm. Coming just in time for Halloween, this cozy paranormal romp is sure to hit the spot. (Oct.)

Love Bullet

Love is a battlefield—albeit a cutesy one—in this adorable manga comedy about an invisible war for human hearts. When schoolgirl Koharu dies in a gruesome accident, she’s resurrected as a winged cupid, the outcome for all humans who die without falling in love. Cupids have the chance to earn karmic points, and someday return to life, by playing matchmaker. Bows and arrows are passé; Koharu’s comrades shoot love from guns and grenade launchers. Alongside supportive team leader Kanna, gleefully violent Chiyo (“Hitting two hearts with one bullet? Freaking awesome!”), and logical, bespectacled Ena, Koharu wields her armory for romance. Inee’s fine-lined art is relentlessly charming, and the premise delivers endless opportunities for slapstick: the cupids engage in friendly firefights over their preferred pairings, stray bullets cause bystanders to become smitten, and grenades set off heart-shaped explosions. A deliciously bittersweet sentimentality punctuates the action, as the cupids ache over the mysteries of love and deal with their own mortal pasts. Notably, the couples include same-sex pairings, which the cupids treat as no different from heterosexual relationships. For romantics with a refined sense of humor, this offbeat fantasy delights. (Dec.)

The Reluctant Reaper

Bestseller Davidson (Road Queens) launches a fun new paranormal romance series that brings Death to life. Amara Morrigan has known since her childhood that her father is the death god responsible for reaping souls in the “Midwest Fiefdom.” When her father falls mysteriously ill, Amara is summoned home to North Dakota, where his fellow death gods are gathering to anoint his successor. Amara has absolutely zero interest in the gig, especially because she knows her best friend and favorite person, Graham Gray, is going to be on a Reaping list way too soon, and she fully intends to tell them all to leave her alone. But when she arrives at the old family mansion, with Gray in tow, she quickly realizes the situation is more serious than she thought. Her father is sicker than should be possible for a god, suggesting foul play. If Amara and Gray can’t figure out who would want to kill Death, she could be next on the list. Davidson’s signature lively humour turns what might have been a grim subject into a cozy one, mixing somewhat kooky mythology with Midwest charm. This is a promising start. (Nov.)

Remain

Bestseller Sparks (The Notebook) and filmmaker Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) combine their talents to create a paranormal love story that makes suspension of disbelief easy through thoughtful characterization. Architect Tate Donovan entered a “paralyzing” depression following the death of his sister and closest confidante, Sylvia, leading to a four-month stay in a psychiatric hospital at the urging of his best friend, Oscar. Now readjusting to day-to-day life, Tate takes a room in a Cape Cod estate while helping Oscar to design and build a vacation home nearby. That banal assignment takes an odd turn when Tate catches sight of an attractive stranger in the house where he’s staying. When Tate asks around, the property’s groundskeeper remarks that his description of the woman sounds like Wren Tobin, who died in the house almost two years prior. Tate comes to believe that he’s seen a ghost, which does nothing to stop him from falling for her when they meet again. He also becomes preoccupied with resolving the mystery tethering Wren to the house: the possibility that she was murdered. The mystery chugs along nicely but the romance is the stronger plot, and the authors deserve credit for making the relationship between the living and the dead moving. Fans of both authors will not be disappointed. (Oct.)

Son of the Morning

This over-the-top spicy paranormal romance from bestseller Emezi (You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty) follows Galilee Kincaid, the daughter of a large Southern family of supernaturally powerful Black women led by matriarch Nana Darling. Even among her kin, however, Galilee has always felt different. When she moves to the city of Salvation with her two best friends, Bonbon and Oriaku, she enters the orbit of Lucifer Morningstar. He’s the leader of an elite security team guarding a mysterious Nigerian artifact collected by Oriaku’s wealthy father—and he’s also the literal devil. It’s lust at first sight as Galilee wrestles with the intensity of her feelings for the possessive and dangerous Lucifer. Meanwhile, his underlings, the princes of hell, work to keep them apart, especially the brooding Leviathan, whose own relationship with Galilee eventually takes a heated turn as well. When Oriaku’s father’s artifact threatens to open a gate to hell, Galilee must confront dark secrets from her past and embrace her identity to save the world. The reveal of Galilee’s origins feels fairly expected, and the abundant sex scenes, while scorching, occasionally border on gratuitous, but it’s satisfying to see Galilee own her power and her desires. There’s nothing particularly revelatory here, but it’s a solid outing and an exciting new direction for Emezi. (Jan.)

So Thirsty

The addictive latest from Harrison (Black Sheep) is by turns gory, rage-inducing, eerie, melancholy, and hopeful. For Sloane Parker’s 36th birthday, she heads out for a long weekend of celebration at a swanky resort in the Finger Lakes with her best friend, Naomi, hoping for a distraction from her husband’s infidelity and her anxiety about aging. But when risk-taker Naomi drags risk-averse Sloane to a house party with strangers they met in a bar, the night takes a sharp turn. The party turns out to be a vampiric orgy and to survive the night Sloane and Naomi must agree to transform into vampires themselves. It’s an unusual perspective from which to approach the vampire novel: that of a woman unhappy about aging being instead forced to live forever. There are some familiar elements—including the introduction of a brooding, moody male vampire love interest who regards Sloane as a captivating enigma; the question of animal blood as a more humane alternative to killing people; and the excruciating pain of transformation—but there’s also enough that feels fresh to render this a distinctive treatise on the transformational power of friendship, as Sloane and Naomi embark on this literally never-ending journey together. The result is a smart, scary, and occasionally sexy page-turner. (Sept.)

Tourist Season

Just as gleefully ghoulish as fans will expect, this series-launching black comedy from bestseller Weaver (Butcher and Blackbird) pairs two serial killers in a quirky coastal town. After running from a traumatic past, Harper Starling landed in Cape Carnage, where she was taken under the wing of aging serial murderer Arthur Lancaster, who trained her to “protect the town” by dispatching obnoxious tourists. Now Arthur’s memory is failing, meaning that most of the slaying and body disposal falls on Harper. Enter Nolan Rhodes, who has devoted his life to methodically hunting down the people who left him and his brother for dead in a hit and run—and Harper is the last name on his list. The pair meet cute before either realizes who the other is, and their mutual attraction never fades even as they enter a deliciously dangerous game of cat and mouse. When a true crime documentarian starts poking around town, Harper blackmails Nolan into helping her cover Arthur’s tracks, taking the story in a somewhat more tedious direction as they set aside their animosity to spend each night exhuming decades-old bodies. Also frustrating is a central miscommunication between the characters that feels increasingly contrived as it drags on. Still, there’s plenty of humor, gore, and spice to hold readers’ interest. Weaver’s good at what she does. (Sept.)

Undead and Unwed

This light paranormal romance from Tschida (Errands & Espionage) puts a tongue-in-cheek spin on the archetypal rom-com heroine by making her a vampire. Approximately 300-year-old singleton Tiffanie bought her current identity, that of Tiffany Amanda Blair, on the black market. When the real Tiffany’s aunt dies and leaves her niece a dilapidated B&B in the quaint town of Valentine, Vt., Tiffanie’s the one who receives the inheritance. So she heads east from L.A. with her neighbor, Heaven, whom she’s just accidentally transformed into a vampire. In Valentine, Tiffanie meets and starts crushing on local Christmas tree farmer Tyrone. It would all be straight out of a Hallmark movie if it weren’t for the vampiric element making familiar scenarios feel fresh. Both Tiffanie and Heaven chug coconut water to curb their appetites and safely mingle with humans, though Heaven’s bloodlust as a newborn vampire is much harder to control. Tschida milks this supernatural element for comedy that at times verges on the slapstick, as when Tiffanie, having accidentally ingested human food, vomits into a sack of toys at a children’s Santa photo op. The result is a playful but still heartfelt mash-up of beloved tropes. (Oct.)