19 Great Ghost Stories for Halloween Reading
Welcome, readers!
Today I’ve put together a wide variety of ghost-related stories for you.
(And don’t worry.. I know not everyone is a big fan of the scary stuff so I made sure to include a number books that are more entertaining than frightening.)
All of these protagonists lives have been touched by the dead, haunted by them, one might even be a ghost herself.
Whatever the case may be.. you’re likely to find some pretty interesting reading material here.
Enjoy!
(Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Any purchases made through my links may earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you.)
Information, synopsis, links, and images are taken directly from the Amazon site.
The Restorer by Amanda Stevens
Publication date: September 12, 2016
Pages: 371
Genre: Ghost Thrillers, Paranormal Fiction, Romance Novel
Book 1 of 7: The Graveyard Queen
Never acknowledge the dead.
Never stray far from hallowed ground.
Never get close to thehaunted.
Never, ever tempt fate.
My name is Amelia Gray. I’m a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protectmyself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I’ve always held fast to these rules passeddown from my father…until now.
Detective John Devlin needs my help to find a killer, but he is haunted by ghosts whoshadow his every move. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I’ve vowed tokeep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the headstonesymbols lead me closer to truth and to the gossamer veil that separates this world fromthe next.
Publication date: October 16, 2012
Pages: 450
Genre: Teen and Young Adult, Magical Realism, Urban Fantasy
Book 1 of 3: Guards of the Shadowlands
“My plan: Get into the city. Get Nadia. Find a way out. Simple.”
A week ago, seventeen-year-old Lela Santos’s best friend, Nadia, killed herself. Today, thanks to a farewell ritual gone awry, Lela is standing in paradise, looking upon a vast gated city in the distance – hell. No one willingly walks through the Suicide Gates, into a place smothered in darkness and infested with depraved creatures. But Lela isn’t just anyone – she’s determined to save her best friend’s soul, even if it means sacrificing her eternal afterlife.
As Lela struggles to find Nadia, she’s captured by the Guards, enormous, not-quite-human creatures that patrol the dark city’s endless streets. Their all-too human leader, Malachi, is unlike them in every way except one: his deadly efficiency. When he meets Lela, Malachi forms his own plan: get her out of the city, even if it means she must leave Nadia behind. Malachi knows something Lela doesn’t – the dark city isn’t the worst place Lela could end up, and he will stop at nothing to keep her from that fate.
Publication date: May 12, 2011
Pages: 308
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Coming of age, Ghost Story
Book 1 of 11: Experiment in Terror
Perry Palomino seems like your average twenty-something girl on the surface. She’s had bad luck dating, her job sucks, and she’s disillusioned by her place in life, not sure exactly what she wants or where she’s even going.
She also sees ghosts, which makes things extra complicated, especially when she’d do anything to be normal.
But normal people don’t go exploring an abandoned and supposedly haunted lighthouse on the Oregon coast, where she ends up getting the attention of Dex Foray, an enigmatic producer who wants to exploit her talent for seeing the dead on his webseries.
At first, Perry’s not sure she wants to work with Dex on his amateur ghost-hunting show. He’s cocky, sarcastic, mysterious, and perhaps a little disturbed, not to mention aggravatingly sexy. But the more Perry works alongside Dex, her sanity tested at every turn, the more she realizes that falling for this man might just be the scariest thing of all.
Sometimes the ghosts we really need to fear are the ones that live in our pasts.
Publication date: March 30, 2009
Pages: 372
Genre: Fantasy Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Suspense
Book 1 of 9: Greywalker
Harper Blaine was your average small-time P.I. until a two-bit perp’s savage assault left her dead for two minutes. When she comes to in the hospital, she sees things that can only be described as weird-shapes emerging from a foggy grey mist, snarling teeth, creatures roaring.
But Harper’s not crazy. Her “death” has made her a Greywalker- able to move between the human world and the mysterious cross-over zone where things that go bump in the night exist. And her new gift is about to drag her into that strange new realm-whether she likes it or not.
Trying to Live With the Dead by B.L. Brumnemer
Publication date: December 6, 2016
Pages: 468
Genre: Teen and Young Adult, Paranormal Fantasy, Reverse Harem
Book 1 of 9: The Veil Diaries
Hi, I’m Alexis Delaney. I’m your average 17-year-old girl. Except I can see the dead. And talk to the dead. And push them away and, well, help them move on. So..okay, I’m not your average 17-year-old girl. For years I’ve been struggling to survive the souls still roaming around. The shitheads always seem to find me. Moving from town to town every few months never helped either. More dead just always find me. But things are changing for me now. I’m moving in with my uncle Rory and cousin Tara. I’m finally going to be able to do normal teenage stuff I’ve been missing out on. Right?
Well, if this one bitch of a ghost could leave me alone on campus that would be great. Especially since I haven’t told my new friends about my abilities. Can you believe this? Five good looking guys practically adopt me on my first day of school, and I still think they’re a bit nuts for it. Now if I can only just keep my life with the dead from mixing with my normal life, everything would be great. Yeah…I don’t see that happening either. But I’m going to give it a shot. Who knows? It might work.
Publication date: February 5, 2002
Pages: 448
Genre: Horror Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
Standalone
They found the town silent, apparently abandoned. Then they found the first body, strangely swollen and still warm. One hundred fifty were dead, 350 missing. But the terror had only begun in the tiny mountain town of Snowfield, California.
At first they thought it was the work of a maniac. Or terrorists. Or toxic contamination. Or a bizarre new disease.
But then they found the truth. And they saw it in the flesh. And it was worse than anything any of them had ever imagined…
Publication date: October 6, 2009
Pages: 304
Genre: Teen and Young Adult, Ghost Story, Supernatural Mystery
Book 1 of 7: The Mediator
Suze is a mediator—a liaison between the living and the dead. In other words, she sees dead people. And they won’t leave her alone until she helps them resolve their unfinished business with the living.
But Jesse, the hot ghost haunting her bedroom, doesn’t seem to need her help. Which is a relief, because Suze has just moved to sunny California and plans to start fresh, with trips to the mall instead of the cemetery, and surfing instead of spectral visitations. But the very first day at her new school, Suze realizes it’s not that easy.
There’s a ghost with revenge on her mind…and Suze happens to be in the way.
First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones
Publication date: February 1, 2011
Pages: 321
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Mystery
Book 1 of 13: Charley Davidson
Charley sees dead people.
That’s right, she sees dead people. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (i.e., murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice.
Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she’s been having about an Entity who has been following her all her life…and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.
A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb
Publication date: September 21, 2005
Pages: 291
Genre: Teen and Young Adult, Ghost Story, Horror Fiction
Standalone
In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: for the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now. And Helen—terrified, but intrigued—is drawn to him. The fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their first challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess.
Suffer the Children by John Saul
Publication date: October 27, 2010 (originally published 1977)
Pages: 380
Genre: Ghost Fiction, Horror, Suspense
Standalone
Innocence dies so easily. Evil lives again . . . and again . . . and again.
One hundred years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle. And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea.
Now something peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The children are disappearing, one by one. An evil history is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified child has ended her silence with a scream that began a hundred years ago.
Publication date: May 12, 2014
Pages: 270
Genre: Paranormal, Occult, and Supernatural Fiction
Standalone
Yara Silva has always known that ghosts walk alongside the living. The women of her family are Wakers, born with the ability to see and talk to ghosts. But having grown up watching the toll it’s taken on her family, Yara has dreaded the day her abilities would surface. At sixteen, her powers have yet to show, and the longer they take, the more hopeful she is they’ll pass her by, leaving her to live a normal life.
All that changes on Yara’s first day at her elite boarding school, when a dark mist only she can see attacks Brent, a handsome fellow student. Yara rushes to his rescue, but her act of heroism draws the attention of a dark spirit, which begins stalking her. Thrown headfirst into a legacy she never wanted, Yara finds herself entrenched in a sixty-year-old curse that haunts the school, threatening not only her life, but the lives of her closest friends as well.
The past isn’t going to go quietly. But it’s up to Yara to put it to rest, once and for all.
The House of Ashes by Stuart Neville
Publication date: September 7, 2021
Pages: 305
Genre: Paranormal Suspense, Mystery, Psychological Fiction
Standalone
Sara Keane’s husband, Damien, has uprooted them from England and moved them to his native Northern Ireland for a “fresh start” in the wake of her nervous breakdown. Sara, who knows no one in Northern Ireland, is jobless, carless, friendless—all but a prisoner in her own house.
When a blood-soaked old woman beats on the door, insisting the house is hers before being bundled back to her care facility, Sara begins to understand the house has a terrible history her husband never intended for her to discover.
As the two women form a bond over their shared traumas, Sara finds the strength to stand up to her abuser, and Mary—silent for six decades—is finally ready to tell her story . . .
Publication date: June 14, 2011
Pages: 400
Genre: Teen and Young Adult, Romantic Fantasy, Science Fiction
Standalone
One hour to rewrite the past . . .
For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn’t there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents’ death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She’s tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.
So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson’s willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may change her past.
Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he’s around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should have happened?
Publication date: June 5, 2007
Pages: 388
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Supernatural Fiction
Book 1 of 7: A Zoe Martinique Investigation
Zoë Martinique was just your average, single female, past 25, looking for love and/or exciting job opportunities. Then life handed her the dubious ability to travel outside of her body at will—which she turned into a career, hiring herself out as a literal spook.
But one night things get out of hand while she is out-of-body: Zoë witnesses a murder. What’s worse, the killer is also a traveler—who not only sees her but tries to pursue her.
To save herself, Zoë must somehow guide the very handsome detective assigned to the case to the truth without revealing herself. And with the help of her semi-psychic mom, a pair of gay ghosts, and her best friend (a Goth techno witch), she also has to figure out exactly who—and what—the murderer is, before he finds her and puts an end to her traveling—permanently.
The Spookshow by Trevor McGregor
Publication date: December 5, 2014
Pages: 175
Genre: Mystery, Paranormal Romance, Psychic Suspense
Standalone
THE SPOOKSHOW is a macabre, fast-paced supernatural series about how the paranormal disrupts one woman’s fate.
Billie Culpepper is drifting through her own life when her latent psychic ability is suddenly awakened, allowing her to see ghosts. But the dead can also see her, and they demand to be heard.
As Billie struggles to adapt, dark secrets about her past threaten not only her own future, but that of her friends as well.
Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris
Publication date: October 4, 2005
Pages: 267
Genre: Mystery, Paranormal Fiction, Supernatural Fiction
Book 1 of 4: Harper Connelly Series
Harper Connelly has what you might call a strange job: she finds dead people. She can sense the final location of a person who’s passed, and share their very last moment. Harper and her stepbrother Tolliver are experts at getting in, getting paid, and then getting out of town fast—because the people who hire Harper have a funny habit of not really wanting to know what she has to tell them.
At first, the little Ozarks town of Sarne seems like no exception. A teenage girl has gone missing, but the secrets of her death—and the secrets of the town—are deep enough that even Harper’s special ability can’t uncover them. With hostility welling up all around them, she and Tolliver would like nothing better than to be on their way. But then another woman is murdered. And the killer’s not finished yet…
The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong
Publication date: August 26, 2008
Pages: 404
Genre: Teen and Young Adult, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Book 1 of 3: Darkest Powers
My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.
All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don’t even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost—and the ghost saw me.
Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won’t leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a “special home” for troubled teens. Yet the home isn’t what it seems. Don’t tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It’s up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House . . . before its skeletons come back to haunt me.
Four Psychos by Kristy Cunning
Publication date: November 6, 2017
Pages: 173
Genre: Fantasy Romance, Paranormal Fiction, Reverse Harem
Book 1 of 4: The Dark Side
I’m not so different from most people.
Like everyone else, I have life goals.
Goal #1: Become a real girl instead of this invisible ghost thing I currently am.
Goal #2: Convince the four men I’ve been haunting for the past five years to pick me to be their new toy after goal one is complete.
Goal #3: Figure out who/what I am and why I can’t remember anything past the five years I’ve been haunting this quad.
Goal #4: Eat popcorn.
See? Perfectly normal. Sort of.
Gotta start small, after all.
It’s not like anyone else is perfect either.
**Sexual situations
**Reverse Harem
**Dark humor galore
**Language warning
Publication date: April 15, 2010
Pages: 324
Genre: Teen and Young Adult, Ghost Story, Paranormal Romance
Book 1 of 3: Shade Series
Aura can see ghosts. Born after the Shift, a little-understood event that enabled younger generations to communicate with the dead, Aura is relentlessly pursued by these violet-hued spirits. They need help to pass out of this world and into the next. And some are so angry they are on the verge of becoming Shades, dark vortexes of energy. But Aura just wants the ghosts to leave her alone so she can spend time with her boyfriend, Logan.
When Aura is paired with a new foreign-exchange student to research the Shift for a class project, she is determined to ignore her partner’s sexy Scottish accent and discover the cause of the Shift so she can reverse it.
Then Logan dies a most untimely death. Forced to reconsider her relationship with the living and the dead, Aura is caught in a love triangle with her violet-hued boyfriend and her hot research partner… one of whom may hold the key to reversing the Shift.
Thanks so much for checking out my post, I hope you were able to find something interesting!
Have you read any great ghost stories lately?
(Please leave any recommendations in the comments below.)
Be sure to stay safe out there and, always, Happy reading!
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What a great idea for Halloween reads.
Lol. Thank you Rosie, I love making October posts.. there are so many great ways to celebrate this time of year.
Oh my gosh, these all sound super creepy! 😆 I don’t think I could ever bring myself to read one – but they sound like great stories! Which was your fav??
Aw.. I’m sorry to hear that.
I’d say First Grave on the Left is my favorite. Come to think of it, you might actually enjoy that series as well, it’s more hilarious than creepy.
I love this post! Such a great idea ❤️
Thank you! I’m glad you like it!
I always end up with a handful of new TBRs when doing these posts so.. I enjoy doing them. 😋
Thank you, you’ve given me a lot more to put on my list of spooky reads 😀
Always happy to help, Mogsy! I hope you enjoy them! ❤️