love story and ghost story

OLDSTYLE TALES PRESS  

CLASSIC HORROR BLOG

Literary Essays on Gothic Horror , Ghost Stories, & Weird Fiction

— f rom  Mary  Shelley  to  M.  R.  James  —

by M. Grant Kellermeyer

S U B S C R I B E:

Our sincerest thanks for your subscription.

We will be haunting your inbox soon...

• M. Grant Kellermeyer
• Feb 2, 2019

20 Romantic Ghost Stories of Desire, Jealousy, Love, & Loss to Read this Valentine's Day

Romance has always had a dark side: something sinister, possessive, even fatal lurks behind the desire to attract and be attracted. For centuries something spiritual – even supernatural – has been suspected in the ways of lovers in the night. Shakespeare called love-making “the beast with two backs”; in many ages the monomaniacal lust of a man for one woman has been blamed on witchcraft; the French refer to the sleep that follows intercourse as “le petite mort” – the little death. There is a night-side to our amours: a dark, animalistic release that takes place when we are alone with our love, drenched with shadows and candlelight.

Something vestigial and primitive about romance returns us to our less civilized forms, and for some of us, it is one of the few moments that we can genuinely sense our relationship to infinity and the realm of spirits. Consequently, romance has become one of the most prominent themes in Gothic fiction: from “ Dracula ” to “ The Phantom of the Opera ,” from “Wuthering Heights” to “ The Raven ,” nothing bridges the gap between reality and imagination, the physical and the spiritual, quite so nimbly as carnal attraction; and no genre is more capable of deconstructing these emotions quite so nimbly as horror.

As a result, for some people there is nothing quite so romantic as a darkened castle or a windy moor: the idea of guttering candles, the flash of a white negligee slipping down a dark hallway, the distant peal of subterranean organ music. If this is how you'd like to spend your Valentine's Day, then eschew the chocolates and roses and sit down with these classic stories of desire, jealousy, love, and loss from the masters of classic horror.

20. THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY

– algernon blackwood.

One of the most sensual ghost stories ever written, this tale features a spirited, female ghost hunter who stuns an audience of men with her account of being trapped in a room with a tormented male ghost. Although her experience is initially terrifying, it eventually becomes transcendental and spiritually purifying, as she frees them both from fear.

( READ IT HERE )

– ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

A classic vampire story, “Olalla” is set in the dusty plains of 19th century Spain, where a wounded soldier falls in love with an aristocratic girl in spite of her demented, inbred family. They make plans to flee her Gothic manor together, but when he accidentally cuts his hand in front of her mother, a dormant family curse comes to life.

18. THE WAY IT CAME

– henry james.

Doesn’t everyone know two friends who would be a great couple if they ever met? In this Henry James story, the planned setup by the mutual friends of a man and woman are delayed over several years (both are interested, but the timing is never right), but when the young woman dies unexpectedly, her spirit decides to heed their meddling friends, and she appears to the still-living man, leading to the strangest, shortest blind date.

17. THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM

– washington irving.

Like “The Way it Came,” “The Spectre Bridegroom” is a study in matchmaking gone wrong. A German noblewoman is awaiting the arrival of her bridegroom on the night before their arranged marriage, but when he bursts in the castle, his face is pale and serious, and they latter learn of his murder in the woods. She is stunned by the loss, and when her servants catch her talking in the garden with the spirit, they are terrified that she has fallen in love with a dangerous ghost.

16. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT

Falling in love with dead people is especially dangerous in Washington Irving’s universe: in this classic campfire story (it has since become a classic urban legend) set during the French Revolution, a radical intellectual is smitten with a mournful woman he meets at the foot of the guillotine during a thunderstorm. Learning that her entire family was executed, he takes her home as his lover, eagerly beds her, and in the morning learns the dreadful secret of the black velvet choker she refuses to remove

( READ IT HERE)

15. JOHN CHARRINGTON’S WEDDING

– edith nesbit.

Another classic story, this tale of love’s power beyond the grave is not charming or sweet, but terrifying. John Charrington was obsessed with May Foster and vowed to marry her. When she finally agrees after years of teasing, she is shocked when he shows up late to their wedding (covered in dust and uncharacteristically gloomy). When they finally drive off together, she will learn just how deeply John Charrington desired to possess her -- body and soul.

14. THE DANCE OF DEATH

Despite his doctor’s warnings that he should avoid strenuous activity, the protagonist of this mystical story would not say no to the local dance: his job is thankless, his life is dull, but dances are his passion. There he becomes entranced with a strange woman named Ivy, dressed in a beautiful dress of living green. Although he never learns her identity, we have a good idea by the time their dance is done.

13. THE BRIDAL PAIR

– robert w. chambers.

A man returns to the town where he first met the lover he abandoned. Weary with guilt and eager to reconcile, he walks the streets thinking about her. When he climbs the hills and finds the pine trees where they had first pledged their love, he is surprised to find her waiting for him there, and they reminisce about the sunny days of their romance long into the night. In the morning the villagers discover the ending of their love story.

12. MAN OVERBAORD!

– f. marion crawford.

Jealousy is powerful and can drive the best of us to desperate, foolish acts. In this seafaring tale, two brothers fall in love with the same pretty girl, and stew over their attachments as they sail on the same merchant ship. When one is mysteriously lost overboard, the other returns to shore in search of his beloved. He wins and woos her, but feels, all the time, as though they are not ever really, truly alone.

11. CAPTAIN OF "THE POLESTAR"

– sir arthur conan doyle.

Another nautical story, this Arthur Conan Doyle story combines “Moby Dick,” “Frankenstein,” and “Wuthering Heights”: an obsessed polar explorer pushes his crew to unreasonable lengths while the ship’s doctor suspects that he is running away from something in his past. When the old seafarer disappears one night, seen chasing a female-shaped swirl of frost, the doctor is forced to make some informed guesses about his disastrous love life.

10. THE COLD EMBRACE

– mary elizabeth braddon.

Another tale of a wronged lover returning from the grave follows an arrogant, cold-hearted artist who seduces and then abandons a girl who loves him with her whole soul. He is shamelessly unmoved when she drowns herself in sorrow, but he does begin to grow concerned when his dog starts bristling at unseen figures, the air grows unexpectedly cool, and he feels the pressure of two wet arms ringing around his neck.

9. MAN-SIZE IN MARBLE

A literary powerhouse, "Man-Size in Marble" is one of the most famous ghost stories ever written. It follows two honeymooners as they create a life together in a rural cottage down the road from an ancient, Norman church. Locals say that on Halloween the two sinister funerary statues of Norman knights (men renowned for their violence and lust) sit up and walk out of the church. The husband laughs this off, but it terrifies the wife, and on Halloween night a series of strange happenings -- and a brutal discovery -- change their lives forever.

8. THE SHADOW

An old maidservant spends a stormy night with a bevy of bubbly young girls, who goad her into reluctantly telling them the story of her only romance: with her best friend's husband. She had lived with the two, nursing her friend during a troubled pregnancy, but began to be haunted by an amorphous, towering Shadow that seemed to represent something unspoken and terrible. The husband is also troubled by visions of this Shadow, and he wastes away and dies shortly after her friend dies in childbirth... The story has an unexpected sequel when we realize the twist-identity of one of the girls, and the servant is horrified by the sight of the looming Shadow -- coming for her one last time.

7. THE DEMOISELLE D’YS

Roaming the moors of Brittany, an American tourist becomes lost, and is grateful when a strange woman appears and leads him to her home -- a 16th century castle. The readers will gradually become increasingly concerned by her out-of-touch lifestyle, but the tourist doesn't seem even to notice the Medieval tenor of her clothes, hobbies, and behavior. It is only after they fall in love and he is bitten by a snake that he wakes up to find himself alone in a ruin. The ending is one of the earliest examples of the "Phantom Hitchhiker" trope.

6. THE OVAL PORTRAIT

– edgar allan poe.

Artists have a reputation about being obsessive in their love and art, and the villain of this very, very short story is guilty of both. According to the legend of a local chateau, he brought his new bride there and forced her to sit for him for weeks as he tried to paint her portrait -- a portrait so lifelike that it would possess her very spirit. When he finishes the final stroke he is shocked at the results and the change -- to both the painting and the sitter.

5. THE MAKER OF MOONS

A rich and elaborate fantasy story, "The Maker of Moons" is part spy thriller, weird tale, science fiction, and romance. Its protagonist is part of an investigation into counterfeiters' alchemical experiments in the New York hill country where he meets an otherworldly woman who claims to come from another dimension. At first he thinks she is a hallucination, but several encounters prove her reality, and when he learns of her connection to the counterfeiters, he is exposed to a villainous plot of cosmic dimensions.

The narrator of this trippy story about willpower and desire remembers his first wife with a mixture of awe and terror. He doesn't remember anything about her past but was impressed with her spiritual depth, intelligence, and brutal will. When death beckoned her away from him, she swore that even death could be dominated by will. After her death, he remarried her polar opposite: a wilting blonde so different from the authoritative brunette. But when his new wife becomes deathly ill, he wonders if Ligeia's curse is coming true.

3. THE RING OF THOTH

One night a young student accidentally falls asleep studying in the British Museum and stumbles through the dark towards the door. On his way he sees a light and finds a wrinkled old man (a museum guide whom he had noticed earlier) bowing over a female mummy in the Egyptian room, chanting determinedly. Annoyed at the interruption, the ancient guide proceeds to tell the man his story: how he learned the secret of immortality in Thebes 4,000 years earlier, but was unable to save his lover from dying. Tonight, he vows, he is determined to either bring her into immortality with him, or join her in death.

2. THE TOMB OF SAMARIS

Borrowing from Conan Doyle, Chambers' "Tomb of Samaris" is a rarely anthologized excerpt from his novel, The Tracer of Lost Persons . A young man is on expedition in Egypt when he stumbles on an unopened tomb. Worming his way into its heart, he discovers a beautiful woman suspended in time, and a dissolving skeleton at her feet, clutching a scroll. Entranced by her beauty, he goes to the Tracer of Lost Persons -- a mystical detective -- who helps interpret the scroll and its invocation which will bring the Egyptian slave girl Samaris into the 20th century.

( READ IT HERE -- Chapters XVII - XX )

1. UNCLE ABRAHAM’S ROMANCE

One of the sweetest and saddest ghost stories ever written concerns the childhood romance between the now-old, crippled Uncle Abraham and the youthful ghost who took pity on him as a young man. Although he never married, Uncle Abraham assures his nieces that he has known love: lonely and isolated because of his crutches, the teenaged Abraham tarried in the cemetery where he would meet a sweet-faced girl. They pledged their love to one another -- both stricken with loneliness -- and although Abraham had to leave town on a trip he swore to return to her, but they never met again, and what he found in the graveyard where they met has haunted him to this day.

If you'd like to have these stories -- and more -- on your bookshelf, you can also find them in our collection of Romantic Ghost Stories for Valentine's Day , HERE!

#valentinesday #romance #spookyspotlight

This is the greatest love story and ghost story

When my husband died at 37, i needed a sign he was ok. i got it -- but could my new love handle a real ghost story, by leslie pietrzyk.

Steve, the man who would become my second husband, thought he had heard everything he needed to know about my first husband, Robb. That he had died at 37, unexpectedly, of a heart attack. That we had met in college. That I stayed in touch with his family. That we had been married 10 years. That the experience of his trying to teach me how to parallel park had so traumatized me that I remained phobic about parking. Steve understood that I had a history, a previous life. He had one, too: He’d been divorced six years before meeting me.

The two of us were on a weekend trip to Charleston, South Carolina, a city I had visited with Robb. I was trying not to push my memories of must-sees, but I envisioned Steve walking the promenade along the Battery with me, admiring the antebellum mansions overlooking the water, our steps perfectly matched in a quintessentially romantic moment. We had taken a tour earlier in the day, and when the guide recommended a stroll along the promenade, I used his suggestion as the excuse for my own.

The houses we passed were vast, boxy mansions, as lavish and as importantly grand as wedding cakes, with columns and pastel paint and porticos and wrought iron. Maybe it was how our tour guide’s gossipy stories of past and present intertwined melodramatic deaths with mournful ghosts—having learned tourists tip better on ghost stories. Hand in hand on a sunny afternoon, the houses swelling on one side of us as water sparkled on the other, with Fort Sumter on the horizon and dinner plans for shrimp and grits, I asked Steve, “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

He fumbled an answer, that he hadn’t, but that he didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts while also not disbelieving in them. Of course he ping-ponged the question back: “So have you seen a ghost?” I knew it wasn’t supposed to be a real question, just as I had surely known that once I asked him, he would ask me in return.

“Yes,” I said. A pause.

“Yes? Is that all?”

I want to say a cloud charged overhead, but the sky remained luminous and blue. Or that a chill snaked my spine, sending that “shut-the-hell-up” warning. I want to think that I reconsidered for half a second the story I was jumping in to tell, because it wasn’t the casual story pulled from my repertoire. I had a perfectly fine—and safe—story about a ghost, waking up one night to a green glowing presence in the bedroom, so forceful I thought someone had broken in. With embellishment, it’s a good story when I spin it. Like the tour guide, I understood that people tip on ghosts.

But the story I was going to tell wasn’t safe, and it wasn’t actually a ghost story. I didn’t go around telling this story, not even after a couple of drinks, but I told it anyway, fearlessly, perhaps unwisely to my boyfriend—how, after Robb died, the only thing I wanted was some sign of him. How I knew I’d survive this awful thing if I had one tiny sign: “His face peering around the corner, or his voice, just something,” I said. I couldn’t imagine that Robb wouldn’t do that for me. But he died on a Sunday, I explained, and there was nothing when it happened, and then there were all these people around and I was waiting and waiting and still nothing, day after day. I was praying. “This is when I was a practicing Catholic,” I told Steve, “so I would literally get on my knees—in church, at home, at the side of my bed—literally drop to my knees and beg God to let Robb give me a sign that he was OK. I mean, whatever OK means in this context.”

This was where Steve found a convenient excuse to drop my hand: itchy nose, lash in his eye.

But I plowed ahead, telling him about a garish, purple fleece bathrobe that Robb had given me for Christmas because he was the hugest Northwestern Wildcats football fan in college. Their colors: purple and black. “I wore that purple robe a million times, washed it a million times,” I said. “And there was a white nightshirt of mine that Robb loved—kind of Victorian with buttons and lace on the placket”—my fingers trailed down my chest to show where a placket went—“that, I’d also washed a million times.” The week after Robb died, I wore it every night, to think of him. I told Steve how exhausting that week was, friends and family crowding around asking how I was, no sleep, waiting five days for the memorial service because our church was booked up. “Five days was forever,” I said.

The morning of the funeral: I still hadn’t had a sign.

I paused, sucked in a breath. Steve was silent, so I pretended he was rapt. “After my shower, I went to the bedroom, hung up my robe, about to shove my nightgown in a drawer when I looked down and saw a jagged splotch the size of a fist right where my heart would be.”

I looked at Steve. He was squinting because of the sun. He hadn’t spoken or even murmured a half-hearted “go on.”

“That was my sign! What I’d been waiting for. That purple stain. I fell to my knees,” I said, and I almost cried again as I told Steve how I was sobbing then, thanking God over and over. There was no way dye rubbed off that robe that had been washed a million times. “No way,” I said quietly. “God did that—Robb did that. Wherever he was, I knew he was OK.”

Steve spun around and began walking—fast—off the promenade, into town, toward the hotel, to where the houses were only old, not old and haunted. I hurried after him.

“You shouldn’t have told me that,” he said when I caught up.

“You asked if I’d seen a ghost,” I said. A lame response.

“That story freaks me out.” He folded his arms against his chest. “I want to forget it. I want never to have heard it.”

“No one hardly even knows that story,” I said. “I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have told me.”

“It’s an amazing story,” I said, my voice edging into anger.

“No, it’s not,” he insisted. “It’s … unnatural.”

I want to say that we talked things through, talked until we understood why I felt compelled to tell that story and why he didn’t want to hear it. I want to say that by the time we ate our shrimp and grits that night we were laughing and holding hands, but that wasn’t exactly the case.

I stopped telling that story, until now. Even when I finally tiptoed into writing about my first husband’s death, I couldn’t bring myself to write that ghost story because that purple splotch remained on the white nightgown for years, and I continued wearing the bathrobe and nothing else ever stained. Some stories shouldn’t be true yet are, and those are the stories our souls crave and fear.

That’s how much he loved me , is what I want for the tidy conclusion of this piece, but whether it’s God or Robb who is the “he,” I can understand that it may not be possible for Steve—or for anyone else—to be comfortable hearing my ghost story that way. I think we all have similar secret stories we don’t share. Or maybe—and this is just as likely—maybe it’s Steve who is the “he,” listening to this ghost story of mine, knowing more must lurk, and choosing to marry me anyway.

Award-winning Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of two previous novels, Pears on a Willow Tree (Avon) and A Year and a Day (William Morrow). Her upcoming book of short stories, THIS ANGEL ON MY CHEST is the winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and will be out this October from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Related articles.

10 Ghost Story Paranormal Romance Novels That Are Actually About Ghosts

Photo by Erik Müller on Unsplash

I love ghost stories, especially ones with a little bit (or a lot) of romance thrown in. I like them so much, I wrote a series of romantic ghost stories , and I've got another one in the works. Unfortunately, finding a good paranormal romance ghost story on Amazon can be difficult. When you look at the top 100 best selling ghost romances, the list is populated with mostly books about shifters, vampires, and other fantasy-type creatures.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good shifter book (I'm working on my own werewolf series now). Vampires are awesome too. I've written a couple of vampire books myself. But sometimes, I just want to read a good, spooky ghost story, where the main characters are normal (or psychic) humans. And those can be hard to find.

So I did some searching, wading through the different types of paranormal books to compile a list of 10 paranormal ghost romances that are actually ghost stories. This isn't an exhaustive list; it's just 10 books that caught my attention that might be worth checking out if you like romantic ghost stories. If the book is part of series, I've only listed book 1.

Ghost by Charmaine Ross

What happens if you could suddenly see ghosts? With amnesia?

Cassie Hunter wakes to find a man with serious green eyes staring down at her in the morgue, but her initial confusion turns to absolute horror when she realises this man has been dead for over seventy years.

Elliot Stone doesn’t know he’s dead. Or how he came to end up in the morgue. Or why he can’t keep his eyes off the sexy doctor. Or anything else, for that matter.

But the truth is, the family curse has awakened. Something Cassie went out of her way to prevent from happening. How can she turn away the soulful, amnesiac detective who strikes a chord in her like no—living—man has ever been able to do?

Ghost is a powerful new paranormal romance series that will captivate your imagination. Follow Cassie on her journey through perilous dimensions of reality to fight for the love of her life.

A Gift of Ghosts by Sarah Wynde

Akira has secrets. But so does the town of Tassamara.

Akira Malone believes in the scientific method, evolution, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. And ghosts.

All the logic and reason in the world can’t protect her from the truth—she can see and communicate with spirits. But Akira is sure that her ability is just a genetic quirk and the ghosts she encounters simply leftover electromagnetic energy. Dangerous electromagnetic energy.

Zane Latimer believes in telepathy, precognition, auras, and that playing Halo with your employees is an excellent management technique. He also thinks that maybe, just maybe, Akira can help his family get in touch with their lost loved ones.

But will Akira ever be able to face her fears and accept her gift? Or will Zane’s relatives be trapped between life and death forever?

Love & Ghosts by Carrie Pulkinen

He sees dead people.

She refuses to believe they exist.

Psychic medium Sean LeBlanc runs the most popular haunted tour company in the French Quarter.  For years, he's been challenged by the loudest, most unbelieving critics, but he's always come away changing their minds.

When the toughest skeptic he’s ever met turns out to be the woman of his dreams, he makes it his mission to win her heart and dispel her disbelief.

Communicating with the dead is easy. Convincing her his ability is real?

Not so much.

Emily Rollins is a rational woman who doesn’t believe in ghosts, so when a mysterious wooden box arrives on her doorstep, she brings it inside without a second thought.

But the box contains a sinister force that threatens her sanity and her life.

She’s starting to fall for the alluring psychic, but if he can’t convince her to exorcise her demons—from her apartment and her mind—they both might end up communicating from the other side…

If you like intrigue, mystery, and suspense, you'll love this steamy, heart-melting romance.

Sinister Summer by Colleen Gleason

Welcome to Wicks Hollow: a cozy town near Lake Michigan filled with quaint houses, eccentric residents, and more than its share of ghosts, murders, and romance.

Diana Iverson needs a break--from her stressful job, from her philandering boyfriend, and from the rest of her fast-paced life. When she inherits her eccentric Aunt Jean's home on Wicks Lake, Diana takes a much-needed vacation in the cozy little town.

But when the lake house becomes the scene of multiple break-ins and other unsettling events, Diana begins to suspect Aunt Jean’s death was not as innocent as it seems.

And then there’s Ethan Murphy, the sexy college professor who lives next door… He appears to know a lot more about Aunt Jean than he should, and Diana doesn’t trust him.

But most of all, there's Aunt Jean herself…who seems determined to communicate with Diana—from beyond the grave.

A ghost story romance set in a small town, featuring a cozy mystery about a ghost that just won’t rest until justice is served. The perfect blend of romance, suspense, and ghosts.

Ghostly Liaison by Stacy McKitrick

Avoiding love is hard. Catching a killer can be fatal…

When Rob’s sister passed away, she left him her dog and her house. He can handle the dog part, but he doesn’t need another home. Especially a fixer-upper the neighbor swears is haunted. Then he meets Bridget, who’s working on getting her life back together after a car accident left her scarred in more ways than one. She can’t pass up Rob’s offer of free lodging, regardless of the shape it’s in. Or the roommate that’s part of the package. She’s never believed in ghosts, but now she’s living with one who wants Bridget’s help in catching a killer. There’s only one problem: the killer has unfinished business…

Haunted on Bourbon Street by Deanna Chase

Jade loves her new apartment—until a ghost joins her in the shower.

When empath Jade Calhoun moves into an apartment above a strip bar on Bourbon Street, she expects life to get interesting. What she doesn’t count on is making friends with an exotic dancer, attracting a powerful spirit, and developing feelings for Kane, her sexy landlord.

Being an empath has never been easy on Jade’s relationships. It’s no wonder she keeps her gift a secret. But when the ghost moves from spooking Jade to terrorizing Pyper, the dancer, it’s up to Jade to use her unique ability to save her. Except she’ll need Kane’s help—and he’s betrayed her with a secret of his own—to do it. Can she find a way to trust him and herself before Pyper is lost?

Ghost Gifts by Laura Spinella

All Aubrey Ellis wants is a normal life, one that doesn’t include desperate pleas from the dead. Her remarkable gift may help others rest in peace, but it also made for an unsettling childhood and destroyed her marriage. Finally content as the real estate writer for a local newspaper, Aubrey keeps her extraordinary ability hidden—until she is unexpectedly assigned the story of a decades-old murder.

Rocked by the discovery of a young woman’s skeletal remains, the New England town of Surrey wants answers. Hard-nosed investigative reporter Levi St John is determined to get them. Aubrey has no choice but to get involved, even at the terrifying risk of stirring spirits connected to a dead woman’s demise and piquing her new reporting partner’s suspicions.

As Aubrey and Levi delve further into the mystery, secrets are revealed and passion ignites. It seems that Aubrey’s ghost gifts are poised to deliver everything but a normal life.

Electricity by Claire Gem

She’s an electrician starting over with her son. New job. New town. New life.

He’s a coworker who’s interested in more than her ability to run conduit.

The building they’re rewiring was once an insane asylum…but it appears some of the patients never left.

Mercedes Donohue pulled up roots in Atlanta when her marriage imploded. She’s come back to New England, to the place where she was born. Mercy’s focus is to stabilize her teenage son’s life—he took the breakup pretty hard—and to establish her place, gain the respect of Progressive Electrical’s team.

She never expected so many sparks to fly so soon, both on the job and after hours.

Daniel Gallagher has been alone since his fiancé’s death. He’ll never feel that way about any woman again, and certainly won’t try with another independent, strong-willed one. Then Mercy short-circuits his plans.

Although the asylum closed its doors over thirty-five years ago, Mercy & Daniel quickly realize the abandoned building is very haunted.

If you like a heart-melting romance laced with healthy dose of supernatural thrills and chills, you’ll love Electricity.

Ghost Walk by Heather Graham

Yes, she believed in ghosts, or if not ghosts, per se, a memory that lingered in certain places.

It sure as hell wasn't something she was going to share with anyone.

Nikki DuMonde's newest employee is standing at the end of her bed at four o'clock in the morning begging for help. It's a joke, right? Besides, as manager of a successful New Orleans haunted-tour company, Nikki doesn't scare easily. But in the light of day, harsh reality sets in as a police officer informs her that Andy was brutally murdered—at the exact time Nikki swears the distraught woman was in her room.

No one believes her except for Brent Blackhawk, a paranormal investigator desperately trying to forget his tragic past. Half Irish, half Lakota—and able to communicate with the dead—Brent is used to living in two worlds. But when he realizes the ghost of a slain government agent is also trying to reach out to Nikki, he knows that she, too, must listen to the dead…if she wants to keep living.

Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts

Declan Fitzgerald had always been the family maverick, but even he couldn't understand his impulse to buy a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans. Ever since he first saw Manet Hall, he'd been enchanted—and obsessed—with it.

Determined to restore the mansion to its former splendor, Declan begins the daunting renovation room by room. But the days spent in total isolation in the empty house take a toll. He is seeing visions of days from a century past and experiencing sensations of terror and nearly unbearable grief. Local legend has it that the house is haunted, and with every passing day Declan's belief in the ghostly presence grows.

Only the companionship of alluring Angelina Simone can distract him from the mysterious happenings in the house, but Angelina has her own surprising connection to Manet Hall—a connection that will help Declan uncover a secret that's been buried for a hundred years.

There you go! Ten paranormal ghost romance books that are actually about ghosts. I hope this helps you narrow down your search next time you're looking for a spooky, romantic ghost story!

Did these books pique your interest?

Be sure to check out these posts:

10 Psychic Paranormal Romance Books That Are Actually About Psychics

10 Angel Paranormal Romance Novels That Are Actually About Angels

10 Paranormal Romantic Comedy Books to Make You Laugh Out Loud

10 Werewolf and Shifter Paranormal Romance Novels Worth Checking Out

10 Contemporary Romance Books with a Touch of Magic (aka Light Paranormal Romance)

10 New Orleans Romances to Spice Up Your eReader

7 thoughts on “ 10 Ghost Story Paranormal Romance Novels That Are Actually About Ghosts ”

• Pingback: 10 Werewolf and Shifter Paranormal Romance Novels Worth Checking Out – Carrie Pulkinen
• Pingback: 10 Angel Paranormal Romance Novels That Are Actually About Angels – Carrie Pulkinen
• Pingback: 10 Contemporary Romance Books with a Touch of Magic (aka Light Paranormal Romance) – Carrie Pulkinen
• Pingback: 10 Psychic Paranormal Romance Books That Are Actually About Psychics – Carrie Pulkinen

Proving, once again, that the ghost genre is not dead! (Pun intended)

A new book in this subgenre was just released in October: The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller. I read it and loved it!

I’ve discovered two more books that are clean paranormal romances with ghost stories in them. “A Bend in Time & Pamasaw’s Song,” and “Joshua’s Legacy.” They are both by C.M. Morgan and are very good.

Comments are closed.

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar

Maryse's Book Blog

Following my heart, one book at a time...

Ghost Romance Books & Love Stories – Falling in love with a ghost…

June 11, 2015 By Maryse 34 Comments

Why? Because of a certain angsty twist. The impossibility of that kind of love with that particular person. ‘Cause what happens when the love of your life… is a ghost? *sigh* I always seem to fall for the love stories where the human falls for the ghost.

Every time I see one of these angsty-sounding book blurbs, my HEART ACHES right on the spot. GOD I LOVE how the authors explore this subject. Because sometimes… there’s a solution. Whether it be a crazy plot twist that makes it feasible (*phew*), or finding each other in the “after”. Or maybe something “magical” that allows true love to actually “be” (even on “ghost” form). V and Jayne anyone? 😉

But sometimes… there is no HEA. The truth has to be faced, and sometimes they have to let go, even though they will hopefully meet again in the afterlife, or in another life. *sob* And Kim inspired me to create this list, because we could all use a little angsty/devastating/sweet and magical “true-love” in our lives.

Kim: I’m reading Haunted Love I’ve been on a serious Ghost Romance kick I almost asked if you had any recommendations on ghost romances or your followers. I don’t read a ton of paranormal but I’m seriously obsessed right now lol Maryse: Oh great list idea Kim!!! I’m on it. I LOVE those kinds of books and have read a bunch and can’t resist ’em. They get me EVERY time. Kim: Yay!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so happy you’re doing this lol

Here is a list of all of these kinds of stories. Whether you’re into paranormal or not, I dare you not to lose yourself and your heart, in this kind of love story.

Our (and my) recommendations (tried & true!!)

Dark Needs at Night’s Edge (Immortals After Dark, Book 4)  by Kresley Cole <—  Hey Kim! Here’s one that will devastate you in angst!! THIS ONE!!! ( my review )

Connected (Twists of Fate Book 1)  by Jolyn Palliata <— And this one!! I was just looking back to my reviews from 2012, and here’s a book I reviewed. I loved it, and it’s one of the ones I was thinking about in a few days ago… in regards to falling in love with a “ghost”… IT WAS SO GOOD! P.S. The “now ghost” is a super-famous rock star! ( my review )

Grave Refrain  by Sarah Glover <— Sheri recommends this one! “Grave Refrain is another great, great book. I found the author’s writing style to be similar to Sylvain Reynard’s & I loved, loved, loved the Gabriel books. Grave Refrain (by Sarah Glover) is a ghost/love story, but not a scary ghost story (I don’t like scary/horror stories). There’s romance, light humor, & light angst. It was a beautiful & awesome tale.” and Traci agrees: “Grave Refrain by Sarah Glover. Obsessed with Andrew. Kind of reminds me of Cole from the Shiver series.”

Haunted Love  by Jessica Frances <— Kim says: “Yes you MUST read Haunted Love!!!!!! It was sooooooo good!!!!!!” <— Oooooooh!!! She was murdered but has a chance to come back… temporarily. “ I wanted to say a proper goodbye. I needed justice for what happened to me. But even in death, things rarely go to plan. I never expected to meet him. I didn’t anticipate falling in love. I hadn’t considered the repercussions of coming back. ”

Ghostly (Darkly Devoted Book 1)  by Brooke Kennedy <— Briana recommends this one! “It’s reminds my of American horror story! Need more Tate.” Wow… it sounds exciting!! “ Cade Michaels seems like the perfect boy next door. He’s attractive and the only other person in St. Augustine that sports the gothic style. The only thing is, there seems to be something he’s hiding, and Briar can’t quite put her finger on it.   Briar never expected to end up in a haunted house ready to claim her for its own devices. It’s no longer easy to tell who’s alive and who’s not. ”

Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna Dressed in Blood Series Book 1)  by Kendare Blake <— Kylie recommends it! “It’s more on the YA side, but I loved that it was told from the male’s POV, and the ghost is female 🙂 ”

Slow Dance in Purgatory (Purgatory Series Book 1)  by Amy Harmon <— Carissa suggests these! “The Purgatory books by Amy Harmon. Love them!” Oh. Em. Gee. YES!!! “ …17-year-old Maggie O’Bannon finally finds a permanent home with her elderly aunt in a small Texas town. Working part-time as a school janitor, she becomes enmeshed in a fifty-year-old tragedy where nothing is as it seems and the boy of her dreams might vanish when the bell rings. This volatile and mismatched romance is doomed from its start, as Maggie struggles to hold on to yet another person she is destined to lose… ”

Cold Kiss  by Amy Garvey <— Amy recommends this one! “ Oh hey, I have a rec! Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey. Not really a “ghost story” and is more YA but still deals with the dead and is really good. Just try to read that blurb without your heart clenching. She didn’t think of what would happen once he was back, and when she finally realizes the repurcussions of what she’s done and now what she must decide to do…oh, my freaking heart!! That. One. Hurt. ”

The Ghost Bride: A Novel (P.S.)  by Yangsze Choo <— bev found it! “Duh! I have a book, too. The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. Have not read it, so not sure how the ghost angle plays out, but very high on my tbr. On sale. Beautiful Cover.” OMG OMG OMG!!!!! This one sounds CRAZY and I LOVE asian ghost stories!!!!! But this??? WHOA. It’s on all sorts of bigs lists too. “ Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family’s only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price. ”

Laura: It’s a must it’s a ugly cry one for me Amy will love it lol Maryse: LOL!!!! Oh gosh… and she’ll throw things at us. Laura: Well I will just get my peanuts ready now cause I know she hasn’t read this lol. Haha I will have to teach her some new Scottish cuss words so she can chew me out in a way I will understand lol oh u have to read it it’s sort of love triangley <– not even a word but it’s good she will like it Lee: WHERE ONE GOES!!! ** grabs peanuts while looking at Maryse** Kimberly: Where One Goes by Author B N Toler Jeanie: Where One Goes by BN Toler!!! Soooo good!!! Maryse: Ruh Roh… the peanuts are a flying!!!!

And here are some finds that sounds so perfect for us !

• The Ghost In My Bedroom  by Heather Jones <— “Lucy Warner has managed to fall in love with her roommate Ryan – who has been dead for about 25 years. Since he’s been haunting her bedroom from the time when she was a baby, they have grown to be very close friends; a secret no one else knows about…”
• For Always  by Janae Mitchell <— “Malyn Reed meets, and quickly falls in love with, Beau Brogan, who seems to be perfect in every way… Except for the fact that he died in 1910…” and Jamie recommends it!!
• The Deepest Cut (MacKinnon Curse novel Book 1)  by J.A. Templeton <— “Riley believes her life couldn’t get worse––that is until the ghost of nineteen-year-old Ian MacKinnon catches her purposely cutting herself. An uneasy truce quickly turns into friendship, and soon Riley’s falling hard for Ian.”
• Saving Mercy  by Nicole Tillman <— she falls in love with the ghost in the place that she just moved into… ooooh I think I wanna cry already over this one!! “ Mercy is convinced it’s her job to help Ryan cross over, but as she grows to know him, she’s not entirely sure she’s selfless enough to let him go.   As they struggle through the complexities of their relationship, they realize that the collision of their worlds isn’t just coincidence. It’s fate. “
• Won’t Cross Over  by Amanda Kay <— *sob*!!! OMG listen to this one: “ He’s still here, I feel him all around. At night his arms wrap around me and I can breathe again. I know he should go. I know he no longer belongs here, but I’m selfish and I don’t want him to leave me. “
• Spiritus, a Paranormal Romance (Spiritus Series, Book #1)  by Dana Michelle Burnett <— “ Becca accidentally makes contact with a one hundred and sixty year old ghost, Alastor Sinclair, that haunts the halls of her new home.To Becca, Alastor is a seductive spirit that seems to see straight into her soul. To Alastor, Becca is what he has waited a century for–A second chance. “

And while we’re at it how about a few ghost-movie love stories?

• Just Like Heaven  <— Bev recommends this one: “There is also Just Like Heaven with Reese Witherspoon & Mark Ruffalo.” and I agree!! It was good, and I loved how the whole thing played out. Very smart!
• The Ghost and Mrs. Muir  <— Another bev recommendation! She says: “You should give The Ghost & Mrs. Muir a shot. If you don’t mind old movies. It’s with Rex Harrison, Gene Tierney (that face!), and a young Natalie Wood. Hmm, review it, lol. Cause you know we don’t hound you to do enough just with books.” <— LOL! I do like movies and reviewing ’em. Hmm… maybe I should do more of that?
• LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER  <— And well… while we’re on a bev movie recommendation roll, why don’t we check out this recommendation, too! She says: “ Speaking of Natalie Wood, she was in a movie with Steve McQueen (that face!) that if I remember correctly is a bit like some of the books we like in feeling. Though been along time since I’ve seen it. Its called Love with the Proper Stranger. I swear I read a book(or another movie?) were it was the heroines favorite and it was pointed out to her that maybe she should try a more realistic story, lol. “

Amy… there’s a dedication to you in this one. Okay… maybe not “dedicated” but recommended due to ugly crying. LOL!!

I have not read many with this story line. I remember loving the movie The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

Oh I gotta look that one up.

And what about “Ghost” with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. Still an absolute CLASSIC love story.

OMG, do I have one for you!!!! Apartment 2B by K Webster. Read it last year and still think about it sometimes. Many similarities to “Where One Goes” (but better) which is the only other one I’ve read from this list. Yeah, really, really good.

LOL!!!! Y’all know me so well!! Ugly cry is such a magic word for me. 😀 I actually have Where One Goes, and this post made me get flutters in my tummy so guess what’s just moved to the top of my TBR list!

Let’s see…going down the list, I already have but haven’t read Haunted Love, The Last Hour, Slow Dance in Purgatory and Saving Mercy. And of course The House come October…OMG, perfect for the Halloween month! Oh! I’m also one-clicking Won’t Cross Over ’cause *SOB*!! I’m making a new collection in my Kindle app for these!!

Oh hey, I have a rec! Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey. Not really a “ghost story” and is more YA but still deals with the dead and is really good. Just try to read that blurb without your heart clenching. She didn’t think of what would happen once he was back, and when she finally realizes the repurcussions of what she’s done and now what she must decide to do…oh, my freaking heart!! That. One. Hurt.

Okay I’m adding ’em!!! 😀 YAY LOVE-GHOSTS!!!

Yes, Ghost, ditto. There is also Just Like Heaven with Reese Witherspoon & Mark Ruffalo. You should give The Ghost & Mrs. Muir a shot. If you don’t mind old movies. It’s with Rex Harrison, Gene Tierney (that face!), and a young Natalie Wood. Hmm, review it, lol. Cause you know we don’t hound you to do enough just with books. Speaking of Natalie Wood, she was in a movie with Steve McQueen (that face!) that if I remember correctly is a bit like some of the books we like in feeling. Though been along time since I’ve seen it. Its called Love with the Proper Stranger. I swear I read a book(or another movie?) were it was the heroines favorite and it was pointed out to her that maybe she should try a more realistic story, lol.

Okay I added Chris’s and Amy’s. 😀 The both sound AWESOME!

Duh! I have a book, too. The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. Have not read it, so not sure how the ghost angle plays out, but very high on my tbr. On sale. Beautiful Cover.

Okay I’m adding it too!

OH MY GOD BEV!!!!

That sounds AWESOME. I’m an addict of asian ghost stories… and that sounds beyond unique!!!!

I gotta read it. I’m totally one clicking it right.

Bev…I just got the chills from that blurb. Have you ever seen Raise the Red Lantern? It’s set in China and is based on a novella from a book of the same name (haven’t read it though) and it is haunting…not in the same way as these ghost books but haunting in the sense of where the stories go. Your rec reminded me of it…

Do you have any idea how much I appreciate y’all? For SO many reasons, but one big one being the books that you guys have introduced me to! 😀

I one clicked it so darn fast I forgot to say “now”. I stopped at “right”.

Amy… OMG I could TOTALLY do a post on my favorite asian ghost stories… or just even the “haunting” ones. Doesn’t even have to involve a ghost.

I AM AN ADDICT!!!!

Lol, Maryse. I bought last month and keep it on my home screen so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. Amy I haven’t seen that. Looks very interesting, I’ll have to check it out sometime.:-D I thought for a sec you meant it was a horror. Those scare me, my love of WD besides. I’d drive you nuts the way I watch it. I have one scary book, Bird Box, that I bought last Halloween on sale. Very positively rec’d on a blog I visit, but scary. I mean to read it sometime straight through no peeking. Someday.

Wished Away by S.P. Cervantes – it’s book 2 in A Broken Fairytale series. It’s sort of a mix between The Last Hour & Where One Goes. Had me bawling my eyes out because I loved Dave (the ghost/spirit) so much!!!

What about Sublime by Christina Lauren. A bit dark but a ghostly love story.

Also Emma Hart’s Deeper. Bess returns to the seaside town where she met and loved a wild local boy when she was young. She’d always wondered what happened to Nick….and his ghost has been there all the time just waiting for her to return.

Okay Saving Mercy I really ended up loving it!!!

Grave Refrain is one of my favorite books!!!! Same with Connected!!!!

I’m laughing cause I’ve been searching for ghost romances and I had 3 on the list I haven’t read DUH……

I ALSO one clicked yippee

Spiritus, a Paranormal Romance (Spiritus Series, Book #1) is free at amazon right now!

I keep forgetting about The Last Hour! I have it from back in the day, hopefully I can read it without reading the others? Bumping it up…

For ghost stories you have to include Kristen Ashley’s ghost & reincarnation books. Classic KA with a ghost twist.

Also Christine Zolendz’s Fall From Grace/Saving Grace, although more paranormal than ghost and the paranormal part doesn’t really play in until the second and third books, it is still way to good to pass up.

Lisa I read Deeper by Emma Hart about a year ago. First time I read something in this genre. Went in blind! Balled my eyes out so I’ve avoided this genre since. I mean I snotty cried!!! Don’t “wike” that feeling!

I’m looking for Deeper by Emma Hart and can’t find it anywhere. Or any mention of it… does anyone have the link?

I know Linda…I ugly cried over Deeper too. But kept thinking about it long after it ended. Maryse I read the old fashioned, dog-eared, soggy pages (from tears), real book smell version I picked up on a whim at a book store. It’s on Amazon but a bit $$$ https://www.amazon.com.au/Deeper-Megan-Hart-ebook/dp/B00CNZIJJO/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434158573&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=deeper+emma+hart

Lisa, that’s the one! It’s by Megan Hart…here’s the link for it on the U.S. Amazon site. https://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/kcp/tos.html#stos-bookmark

I don’t mind paying more for a book if it promises an ugly cry. 😉

So many good titles here, and I love a lot of these and am adding others to my TBR. Another favorite ghost, love story is Come to Me by Sofia Grey.

I’ll second “Come to Me,” by Sofia Grey, and add her “Dreaming of a Wolf.”

Is it bad that I just clicked on this post to check if Maryse added Where One Goes and Haunted Love??

I was ready to use shouty caps.. LOL

Hey! Have you tried reading The Mediator series by Meg Cabot? There are 6 books-kind if small too-and while the romance is slow coming between the girl and the ghost (who haunts her room), it’s a GREAT series. I think the series was started in 2000…

WOW! What a totally inspirational list. I just finished writing a paranormal time travel murder mystery romance and wondered if anyone would read it. I need to do a lot of editing and hit the query trail. But I’m thrilled to know someone else shared my obsession! Woo hoo.

I’ve always loved to read ghost stories, but became obsessed with writing them a few years ago with a collection of short vintage romantic ghost stories.

Now, I’ve got to go find these books and read them. Thanks for your post!

I really find this website a treat to my eyes. I read all the books recommended in here but i guess i’m in love wit “The Ghost Bride”. I also where one goes<<<< this one was worth an ugly cry as u call it. Now i also discovered this book "Enchanted by those Magnificent ruins" a little interesting in that respect.I guess its worth a try. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HVED6MG

Thank you for your sweet comments, AND for your book recommendations!! 😀

Separated by death, all seems tragically lost for Jane and Nathan, her first love and the love of her life. Against seemingly impossible odds, Jane miraculously finds a way to reconnect with Nathan but is it enough to rekindle their love?

With distractions in the form of Barry her hapless ex-husband, and James the perfect lover, is the veil between Jane and Nathan thin enough for their love to survive or is it lost for ever?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wired-Barbara-Neill/dp/1791580289/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1564132683&refinements=p_27%3ABarbara+Neill&s=books&sr=1-2

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace by DT Max – review

D avid Foster Wallace is one of those novelists who seem to push along the evolution of the form. You can recognise his prose style by a single sentence. He mixed high and low references, postmodern philosophy and popular television, maths theory and stoner slang. The people he wrote about tended to be well-educated and not very happy, for reasons that had something to do with the zeitgeist and something to do with America. Everything they experience has been packaged for them by one kind of experience-packager or another (advertisers, tennis academies, production companies, etc) and they respond to this fact with habitual irony that turns out to be just as hard to escape or stomach as the packaging.

One test of good writing is whether it expands the scope of what seems literary. Wallace wrote about feeling stressed out while you wait for your drug dealer to arrive and project-managing corporate focus groups. He died while working on a novel about the IRS. His sentences spliced over-the-top grammatical pedantry into lazy, semi-ironic college-kid run-ons. Somehow he managed at the same time to be a nerd and a dude.

And yet his reputation as a novelist isn't straightforward. People talk about his nonfiction at least as much as the fiction: the Federer piece , the cruise-ship piece , the State Fair piece … His most famous novel, Infinite Jest , is so long that even at his publisher's marketing meetings people used to joke: "Has anyone here actually read this thing?" For all the sophistication of his prose, he sometimes gives the impression of a writer who never outgrew his precocity. Infinite Jest is about a rogue video so absorbing it renders anyone who watches it completely passive. There's a subplot involving the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.). One of his short stories describes an artist who becomes famous for what he shits. Of course, this kind of thing is supposed to be funny, but it isn't just the humour that seems sophomoric. Wallace's obsession with the problems of irony and authenticity and boredom, with TV and advertising and pot, suggests that his sense of what matters to people remained fundamentally shaped by his college years.

One thing DT Max's new biography makes clear, though, is that this is a guy who suffered. Wallace hanged himself in 2008, at the age of 46, after years of carefully medicated depression. Max has written the book before his subject's literary reputation has had a chance to settle, but the biography itself feels fresh rather than hurried. You get the painful sense of a life that should still have been in progress. One problem with literary biographies is that their subjects tend to analyse themselves better than their biographers can. Max solves this by mining Wallace's own work, particularly Infinite Jest , for sophisticated expressions of the author's mental states. The technique not only brings Wallace to life, it brings the work into play as well. As it happens, Max is a very smart writer himself and has managed to write the biography without falling in love or out of love with his subject.

This can't have been easy, for Wallace doesn't always come across as easy to like. He grew up in Urbana, near the campus of the University of Illinois, where his father taught philosophy, on a street just a few blocks from prairie land. He told an interviewer that his father read Moby-Dick to him and his sister Amy when they were five and three years old. (Their father denies this.) His mother used to cough ostentatiously when her kids made grammatical mistakes. On a summer road trip, they once decided to replace any mention of the word "pie" with 3.14159 – that was the kind of family he belonged to.

When he was nine, he suffered his first episode of "depressive, clinically anxious feelings" – what his mother later referred to as the "black hole with teeth". Even if the depression went away, he was turning into an anxious kid. He wasn't very good at sports, he sweated a lot, puberty gave him a bad case of acne. As a teenager he discovered pot and tennis and tried to discover girls – but they were harder to figure out than the "trajectory of a tennis shot". He watched a lot of TV. But he also found his schoolwork easy, and since he liked winning, he devoted a great deal of his obsessive energy to doing well.

Wallace went to Amherst, the prestigious liberal arts college in Massachusetts, and eventually graduated top of his class – having become a well-known, almost cultish figure on campus. But he had also taken time off to cope with depression. "What's wrong?" his room-mate asked him once, seeing Wallace sitting on a packed suitcase. "I don't know. There's something wrong with me," he said. (The room-mate was Mark Costello , who turned into a pretty good novelist himself.) He was eventually diagnosed with "atypical depression" and put on a drug called Nardil to deal with it – which he took for much of the rest of his life. At Amherst he fell in love with technical philosophy and maths theory (he turned out not to be very good at the maths itself), and then moved on to postmodern fiction. Some of his friends were discussing The Crying of Lot 49 , so Wallace read it. As Costello remembers, it was like "Bob Dylan finding Woody Guthrie". For one of his senior projects, Wallace wrote a novel, which eventually became The Broom of the System , his first published book.

The rest of his life followed the pattern he set up at Amherst. School and writing, studying and teaching, interrupted periodically by bouts of depression and time in rehab to cope with addiction. Pot was always a problem for him, but during one visit to Yaddo , the writers' colony in upstate New York, he fell under the wing of Jay McInerney and started drinking a lot, too. Wallace once joked about the difficulties his future biographer would face: "Dave sat in the smoking lounge of the library, pensively taking a drag from a cigarette and trying to think of the next line." As it happens, Max's biography does a good job of dramatising not only the struggles of composition but the slightly depressing fun of a writer's life – these visits to Yaddo, the book tours (what Wallace referred to as facing the "eye of Sauron"), the groupie sex. (He once ditched Costello at a book launch when a young blonde came up to him and said: "Do you want to meet my puppy?") Michael Chabon has written about the need for writers to have "manageable vices" – Wallace had a pretty hard time managing his. During one period of self-doubt, he signed up for postgraduate work in philosophy at Harvard, then checked himself a few months later into the psychiatric institute at McLean Hospital. The four weeks he spent there, Max writes, "changed his life" – he got clean and spent the rest of his life as a recovering addict.

The novel that grew out of this difficult period became Infinite Jest – which included many of the voices and stories he heard in his recovery sessions. Wallace remained an experimental writer, but the hip irony of his first two books had been replaced by what he called "single entendre" writing. Rehab had taught him the power of sincerity. Rumours of the novel made their way through New York publishing circles – this was going to be Wallace's "big shit", as he put it himself. Even after ferocious editing the book weighed in at 484,000 words. By the time of its publication, Wallace had started to make a name for himself, not only as a cutting-edge fiction guy, but as a magazine writer who covered kitsch events in a literary, humorous, memoiry way. The world was ready to take him seriously, and Infinite Jest became a big hit. Wallace's readings sold out, celebrities showed up to hear him talk, he had become a celebrity himself.

Celebrity brought its own problems. He once complained to Jonathan Franzen that his destiny in life seemed to be to "put my penis in as many vaginas as possible". This is a typical Wallace line – candid, self-mocking and boastful at the same time. The boy once known as "mushface" took pleasure from the fact that he had figured out how to get the girls into bed. But sex also brought out the worst in him. He tried to push one girlfriend in front of a moving car, he threw a coffee table at her; once he even arranged to buy a gun to kill her husband. Then there was the sheer number of his relationships. He once told a friend that he had slept with an underage girl. As Max writes, "He saw that the need to make every woman fall madly in love with him had made him highly manipulative." It made him, as Wallace put it himself, not so different from "the people selling Tide". Of course, what partly redeems a writer is his gift for self-exposure, and Wallace managed to turn his sexual boastfulness and self-doubt into interesting fiction: the short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men .

But Max finds more to admire about Wallace than his prose. He could be very generous towards other writers – such as Franzen, whose first book Wallace read and loved at a time when his own writing was going particularly badly. And in more practical ways, too. When he started making money, not just from the fiction, but from the MacArthur "genius" grant , which he won in 1997, he began giving it away to help his friends. And many of these friends came from the people he met at recovery meetings, who seem to have treated Wallace like something of a holy fool. He worked very hard for his students, triple-marking their submissions in different coloured pens. And he got over his womanising phase, and married a woman with a teenage son, and managed to be happy with ordinary domestic existence, in spite of the fact that his work – on The Pale King – wasn't going well. Until he decided to come off the Nardil, just to see if that was the problem, and if maybe he was ready to live an entirely drug-free life.

After that, nothing went right or felt right any more – Max's account of those last years is harrowing. And Wallace himself emerges as something of a hero. First, he tried living without any medication, then he tried one kind after another, and all this tinkering produced an ever more fragile sense of his relation to the world. Throughout the book Max makes a strong case that Wallace's analysis of what's wrong with America and modern life is deeply grounded in his own struggles and issues – the various insecurities and obsessions, the whole problem of a sophisticatedly mediated existence. Eventually, he went back on the Nardil. It takes a while to reach some kind of balance with these drugs, but Wallace was finding it harder and harder to keep going. You get the picture of this incredibly smart, increasingly humble man trying to figure out, for reasons both personal and literary, how to be alive in the universe, and failing.

Towards the end his wife put him on a more or less constant suicide watch. At one stretch, she didn't leave the house for more than a week. But then he seemed better and one day Wallace persuaded her to go out. "You don't go to the chiropractor if you're going to kill yourself," she thought. When she came back to the house he had hanged himself from a trellis on the patio. He left her a two-page note and a stack of what he could salvage from that difficult last novel among the lamps in the garage where he used to write.

Benjamin Markovits's most recent novel is Childish Loves (Faber)

• David Foster Wallace
• The Observer
• Biography books

Most viewed

10 Ghost Romances to Ring in the Halloween Season

Jessica Pryde

Jessica Pryde is a member of that (some might call) rare breed that grew up in Washington, DC, but is happily enjoying the warmer weather of the desert Southwest. While she is still working on what she wants to be when she grows up, she’s enjoying dabbling in librarianship and writing all the things. She can be found drowning in her ever-growing TBR and exclaiming about romance in the Book Riot podcast ( When in Romance ), as well as on social media. Find her exclamations about books and pho on twitter ( JessIsReading ) and instagram ( jess_is_reading ).

View All posts by Jessica Pryde

This list of romance novels about ghosts is sponsored by Shadow Mountain Publishing .

We’ve all fallen in love with a ghost once or twice, right? Whether it was Rex Harrison on a widow’s watch, Hot Ghost in The Spirit of Christmas , or every Millennial’s first ghostly love, Devin Sawa, there’s something particularly romantic about ghosts. Sometimes they’re the thing bringing people together, and other times they’re the thing people are falling in love with. But when done right, they’re the best combination of creepy and cute.

Halloween Boo by Sarah Spade

The last thing Dani wants to do when she moves to Salem, Massachusetts, for work is to get mixed up in the witchy supernatural business. Of course, that’s before she realizes that her apartment is haunted. But it’s okay, because she’s got her own Casper. Zachary has been trapped in the apartment for as long as he can remember, but he’s getting over it now that he’s got Dani to haunt. And on October 31, he’ll be able to take human form. Ghosts might not have bones, but…well, you get the joke.

Not Dead Yet by Jenn Burke

When you’re not quite dead, and have the ability to go between planes, you can find a pretty lucrative job as a hired thief. But when Wes comes across a real dead body, he finds himself in the path of an ex-lover—who is also a police detective. The two work together to find the murderer, and might end up taking care of some unfinished business…if they survive this whole thing.

The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller

Alva inherits an old house that everyone says is haunted. Unsure of the existence of ghosts but certain something is going on, she enlists the help of Samuel Moore, the eccentric genius who shows up to offer her his assistance with whatever secrets the house is hiding. I’m gonna be honest. For days after I heard the publicist for Berkley Romance talk about this book, I called it “The Widow of Ghost House.” All I could remember was that there was a woman, she had a ghost, and the guy she got to help her deal with it was like Chris Hemsworth in Ghostbusters but smarter. I was sold.

Lex Files by Celeste Castro

Get it? LEX files? Here, a small town is being terrorized, and it might be because of a ghost. Or some other kind of creature. FBI agent Winifred Ford has a history with whatever creature is lurking, and she’s ready to partner with State Fish & Wildlife Officer Daya Soto to get to the bottom of it. Between the pair of them, there’s a battle between logic and belief, but the truth is out there, and they’re going to find it.

P.S. I Spook You by S.E. Harmon

For some reason, ghosts seem to often come with ex-lovers in tow. This time, Rain can’t help seeing the ghosts that he’s seen, but he’s now the laughing stock of the Bureau. Sent to a small town to help with a cold case, he can’t help it that he just keeps seeing ghosts. The sightings continue as he works with Danny, his ex, to solve the case of a missing person in his hometown.

The Ghost and Katie Coyle by Anne Kelleher

Irish history professor Katie Coyle moves into a house that might not be completely empty. There’s a man she can only see by the beach, and there are rocks, and from the subtitle I can determine that there’s some kind of time travel. The atmospheric voice of this book leans hard into its gothic roots.

Angelborn by L. Penelope

Caleb is an angelborn who gives off the appearance of a ghost but swears he isn’t dead. Maia sees the dead just like he sees the living, and is the one person who can keep him from living soulless for eternity. But she’s a distraction he can’t take on, because dangerous angels are hunting him.

Lord of the Last Heartbeat by May Peterson

Young mage Mio does bad things for his sorceress mother, and the only thing he wants is to make it stop. When he meets Rhodry, he solicits his help, and finds himself in Rhodry’s haunted mansion. Nobody who enters Rhodry’s property lives to tell the tale, and he’s certain that the assailant is his ex wife…who is a ghost on the property.

Phantasm by J.L. Campbell

Josette was riding high until an accident took her husband away from her. Now, she hasn’t completely made it out of her grief, and Dwayne has started appearing to her. But not as a loving spirit…his apparitions border on torture. Good thing Mario is there to fight for her, because she’s not in a place to do it herself.

An Unnatural Vice by K.J. Charles

Okay, so this one is a stretch, but it’s delightful so I couldn’t help but include it. Justin Lazarus, the Seer of London, is famous for his ability to communicate with the other side. Nathaniel Roy is determined to expose him as a crock. Fun abounds, particularly in the Séance room.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but there definitely should be more ghost romances . Because ghosts are great, and everyone should have the chance to fall in love with one. Or vanquish them while they fall in love. Whatever. As long as there are ghosts, it’s all right.

And yes, I did write this with Casper playing in the background. Because ghosts are the best.

You Might Also Like

Authors & Events

Recommendations

• New & Noteworthy
• Bestsellers
• Popular Series
• The Must-Read Books of 2023 (So Far)
• Popular Books in Spanish
• Coming Soon
• Literary Fiction
• Mystery & Thriller
• Science Fiction
• Spanish Language Fiction
• Biographies & Memoirs
• Spanish Language Nonfiction
• Dark Star Trilogy
• Ramses the Damned
• Penguin Classics
• Award Winners
• The Parenting Book Guide
• Books to Read Before Bed
• Books for Middle Graders
• Trending Series
• Magic Tree House
• The Last Kids on Earth
• Planet Omar
• Beloved Characters
• The World of Eric Carle
• Llama Llama
• Junie B. Jones
• Peter Rabbit
• Board Books
• Picture Books
• Guided Reading Levels
• Middle Grade
• Activity Books
• Trending This Week
• Top Must-Read Romances
• Page-Turning Series To Start Now
• Books to Cope With Anxiety
• Short Reads
• Anti-Racist Resources
• Staff Picks
• Memoir & Fiction
• Features & Interviews
• Emma Brodie Interview
• Gabriella Burnham Interview
• Nicola Yoon Interview
• Qian Julie Wang Interview
• Deepak Chopra Essay
• How Can I Get Published?
• For Book Clubs
• Reese's Book Club
• Oprah’s Book Club
• happy place " data-category="popular" data-location="header">Guide: Happy Place
• the last white man " data-category="popular" data-location="header">Guide: The Last White Man
• Authors & Events >
• Our Authors
• Michelle Obama
• Zadie Smith
• Emily Henry
• Cormac McCarthy
• Colson Whitehead
• In Their Own Words
• Qian Julie Wang
• Patrick Radden Keefe
• Phoebe Robinson
• Emma Brodie
• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Laura Hankin
• Recommendations >
• only murders in the building " data-category="recommendations" data-location="header">Books Like Only Murders in the Building
• Books With New TV and Movie Adaptations
• Horror Classics You Need to Read
• Historical Fiction With Female Protagonists
• Best Thrillers of All Time
• Manga and Graphic Novels
• happy place " data-category="recommendations" data-location="header">Start Reading Happy Place
• How to Make Reading a Habit with James Clear
• Why Reading Is Good for Your Health
• Vallery Lomas’ Blueberry Buckle Recipe
• New Releases
• Memoirs Read by the Author
• Our Most Soothing Narrators
• Press Play for Inspiration
• Audiobooks You Just Can't Pause
• Listen With the Whole Family

Look Inside

Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story

By d. t. max, category: arts & entertainment biographies & memoirs | literary figure biographies & memoirs | psychology.

Aug 27, 2013 | ISBN 9780147509727 | 5-1/2 x 8-7/16 --> | ISBN 9780147509727 --> Buy

Aug 30, 2012 | ISBN 9781101601112 | ISBN 9781101601112 --> Buy

Buy from Other Retailers:

Paperback –

Aug 27, 2013 | ISBN 9780147509727

Aug 30, 2012 | ISBN 9781101601112

Buy the Ebook:

• Barnes & Noble
• Books A Million
• Google Play Store

About Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story

The acclaimed New York Times –bestselling biography and “emotionally detailed portrait of the artist as a young man” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ) In the first biography of the iconic David Foster Wallace, D.T. Max paints the portrait of a man, self-conscious, obsessive and struggling to find meaning. If Wallace was right when he declared he was “frightfully and thoroughly conventional,” it is only because over the course of his short life and stunning career, he wrestled intimately and relentlessly with the fundamental anxiety of being human. In his characteristic lucid and quick-witted style, Max untangles Wallace’s anxious sense of self, his volatile and sometimes abusive connection with women, and above all, his fraught relationship with fiction as he emerges with his masterpiece  Infinite Jest.  Written with the cooperation of Wallace’s family and friends and with access to hundreds of unpublished letters, manuscripts and journals, this captivating biography unveils the life of the profoundly complicated man who gave voice to what we thought we could not say.

About D. T. Max

D. T. Max is also the author of The Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Medical Mystery. A staff writer for the New Yorker, he lives outside New York City with his wife and two children.

Product Details

Category: arts & entertainment biographies & memoirs | literary figure biographies & memoirs | psychology.

Portraits and Observations

World Within a Song

Stephen Sondheim

Letters of Note: Music

The First Four Notes

Light and Shade

In the Pleasure Groove

What You Want Is in the Limo

“All readers, even those who know nothing of Wallace, will be moved by the portrayal of one man’s honest struggle with mental illness…the book’s] poignancy is in its emphasis on Wallace’s years of hard-earned survival and his efforts, though unrealized, toward artistic transformation.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“A well-crafted, insightful chronicle of this singular writer’s life and literary work…Max’s biography succeeds on multiple levels: through his astute interpretations of Wallace’s literary output and liberal quotes from the writer himself, this book very much embodies the spirit and life of Wallace…for this reader, the biography provides a measure of solace – that is this great writer can’t be among us, at least he can be remembered in all of his genius and complexity.” —S. Kirk Walsh, The San Francisco Chronicle

“I’m having trouble remembering when I was last so consumed by any piece of writing, fiction or non…Max’s focus is, not surprisingly, more or less resolutely on Wallace’s life as it related to his art. This decision to strip the story down to its narrative essentials pays off in terms of compulsive readability…In providing a more complete sense of Wallace than we ever had while he lived, it makes his death feel more real, somehow more irrefutable. And, for anyone who felt a profound emotional connection to Wallace and his work, there’s a strenuously cathartic dimension to this: the experience of knowing him more fully, and of thereby feeling more completely the force and finality of his absence.” —Mark O’Connell, Slate.com

“You find it painful, frightening, and, yes, gripping, to read about someone in chronic and severe emotional distress. In writing a chronologically narrated, thoroughly researched, objective-as-imaginable biography, Max has created a page turner.” —Rivka Galchen, The New York Times Book Review

“Max’s long-awaited bio, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story , helps us understand the man behind the words, and the mind behind the suicide…[Max] makes Wallace begin to cohere and become more approachable, more real…necessary reading if you care about DFW or the cultural moment that shaped him and then felt his impact.” —Evan Hughes, GQ.com

“Documenting the life of a writer as revered and tormented as the late David Foster Wallace is a fraught task at best. D.T. Max has done an admirable job with Every Love Story is a Ghost Story …what emerges is a vivid portrait of an artist whose verbal brilliance was continually hampered, and ultimately silenced, by debilitating mental illness.” —Steve Almond, The Boston Globe

“Max’s long-awaited biography of David Foster Wallace has been the end-of-summer book for readers of literary fiction. It has inspired countless reviews, conversations, and online outbursts…Max somehow manages to tell a compelling story that peels back the public image of Wallace without stripping it bare, creating a portrait of a troubled and gifted man who crafted some of our time’s best writing and giving readers a fuller sense of the relation of the work to the life.” —Samuel Cohen, The Believer

“While Max appears to greatly admire Wallace as a writer and feel compassion for him as a man, he is never starry-eyed, or pulls his punches.  Every Love Story is a Ghost Story is as illuminating, multifaceted, and serious an estimation of David Foster Wallace’s life and work as we can hope to find.” —Elissa Schappell, Vanityfair.com

“Brilliant and compulsively readable…Max’s new biography deftly reassembles the life of David Foster Wallace…strips away the legend and gives us an all-too-human writer…a convincingly intimate and lucid narrative…Max is respectful throughout – and his account of the writer’s final days is devastatingly measured.” —Taylor Antrim, Vogue.com

“Full of all kinds of strange surprises, painting the most complete, and warmest, portrait of Wallace yet.” — Rolling Stone

Related Articles

Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

Raise kids who love to read

Today's Top Books

Want to know what people are actually reading right now?

An online magazine for today’s home cook

Stay in Touch

By clicking "Sign Up", I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and understand that Penguin Random House collects certain categories of personal information for the purposes listed in that policy, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information and retains personal information in accordance with the policy . You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime.

Become a Member

Start earning points for buying books! Just for joining you’ll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members.

Point Status This is where you’ll see your current point status and your earned rewards. To redeem, copy and paste the code during the checkout process. See Account Overview

Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story: Romance Is The Secret Weapon Of 'The Conjuring'

The Conjuring Universe is one of the most successful horror franchises of all time, and there's a secret to that success. Although secret perhaps isn't the right word, because it's always been there, front and center. It's just only gotten stronger with each subsequent film. If every love story is a ghost story,  The Conjuring and its sequels, including the newly released The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It , might just tell one of the best love stories we have on the big screen right now.

Because when you look beyond all the demons, all the witches, all the haunted dolls, and scary nuns, you find the tender romance between a ghost-hunting couple that transcends all the scares...and even the far less romantic truth behind the real people who inspired these characters can't ruin the power of these fictional versions.

The Real Ed and Lorraine Warren

Ed and Lorraine Warren were real people, and their real-life legacy is a complicated one. The couple really did chase after the supernatural for decades, and they really did investigate some of the biggest paranormal stories that have found their way into our cultural zeitgeist, like the infamous (and pretty much debunked) Amityville Horror case. Ed billed himself as a self-taught demonologist while Lorraine claimed to be clairvoyant, and the couple began their work in earnest in 1952, when they founded the New England Society for Psychic Research.

The official New England Society for Psychic Research, or N.E.S.P.R., website offers a biography of the couple, telling us that in 1944, when Ed was 16, he was working as an usher at The Colonial Theater in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Lorraine, who was 17 at the time, was a regular patron at the theater, and after befriending each other, these kids were soon dating. It sounds like a meet-cute from a rom-com, and like most stories about the Warrens, we should probably take it with a grain of salt. And yet, it also seems wholly believable that these two kids from Bridgeport would catch each other's eye.

When Ed turned 17, he enlisted in the Navy, and about four months later, his ship was sunk. Ed was sent home on a 30-day "Survivor's Leave," at which point he and Lorraine got hitched. That was 1945. In 1951, the couple had their first – and only – child, Judy. Ed also enrolled in art school at this time – something the movies touch on by showing Ed's fondness for painting (of course, he tends to paint things like killer demon nuns, but I digress). A year later, the couple founded the N.E.S.P.R. As the site tells us, "When [Ed] heard any report of a structure being haunted, he & Lorraine (a skeptic at the time) would travel to the site to investigate. Ed would stand out in the street and sketch the house, then approach the homeowners with the sketch as a friendly gesture to get invited into the home. It worked."

This scenario sounds...a bit harder to believe than the "two kids meet at the movies" story. But in any case, the married couple founded their paranormal society and soon made names for themselves as what we'd today call ghost hunters. And the rest is history – but it is history filtered through a specific, rose-colored lens. Whether or not you want to believe in the Warrens depends on whether or not you want to believe in the supernatural, and the paranormal, and the preternatural. If you are the type of person who believes that ghosts and demons are real, you will likely have no problem believing that Ed and Lorraine Warren encountered them.

If you're a skeptic, though, things get a little sticky. Because that means the Warrens must fall into one of two categories. Either they were full-blown con-artists scamming people, or they were incredibly naive and maybe even delusional. While the Warrens didn't charge people for their investigations, they did make a healthy living from selling books about their cases, which lends the "con-artists" theory some credence.

Things get even murkier when you dig further into their lives. In 2017, after the release of the first two  Conjuring films and around the same time  Annabelle: Creation was headed to theaters, The Hollywood Reporter published a story that cast the real Warrens in an extremely negative light. The story revealed that a woman named Judith Penney had "said in a sworn declaration that she lived in the Warrens' house as Ed's lover for four decades." To further complicate matters, Judith Penney was 15-years-old when all this allegedly started.

At the time the THR article surfaced, Ed Warren was dead, so he could neither confirm nor deny the accusation. Lorraine was 90, and her lawyer, Gary Barkin, said that his client was "in declining health and unable to respond to the allegations." (Lorraine died two years later.) It's a disturbing allegation, and while it may not cast a doubt on the Warrens' supernatural work, it certainly calls their character into question.

According to Penney, Lorraine was aware of the alleged relationship and seemingly fine with it. Then, in 1978, while in her 30s, Penney alleges she became pregnant with Ed's child and claims Lorraine talked her into having an abortion, worried the scandal would ruin the Warrens' ghost-hunting business. Barkin, Lorraine's lawyer, countered these allegations by saying, "The Warrens opened their home to Ms. Penney when she was 18 and had nowhere else to live following a childhood of neglect. During much of their career, Ed and Lorraine were on the road, working on cases and giving lectures — and Ms. Penney lived at and watched their house."

Like the supernatural claims, these allegations require either belief or skepticism. The fact that this story only came to light after  The Conjuring became a big blockbuster franchise will no doubt make some people raise an eyebrow or two. But is Penney's story really so hard to believe? What, if anything, do we really know about the  real Ed and Lorraine Warren? The Warrens' story comes directly from the Warrens – and now, the Conjuring films – and we can either take their word for it or consider it a tall tale. But it's probably worth noting that when Lorraine eventually signed the rights to her name and story away for  The Conjuring  series, she stipulated in her contract that the movies could never portray either of the Warrens "as participating in an extramarital sexual relationship."

Every Love Story is a Ghost Story

Me, I'm a skeptic. I'm a horror fanatic, so I love stories about ghosts and demons – but I don't believe in them. Which means I don't believe in the Warrens – and if the allegations above that Ed entered into a sexual relationship with a minor and Lorraine was fine with that are true, I don't much like them, either. But I  love the Warrens as they're presented in  The Conjuring films.

What, then, are we to make of the movie versions of the Warrens? Are we being willfully manipulated, and contributing to their self-built mythos? Yes, we are. There's no way to deny that. But we should also be able to look beyond that and acknowledge that while Ed and Lorraine Warren were real people, the characters we see in  The Conjuring films are not. They may share the names Ed and Lorraine Warren, and the movies they appear in may boast that they're "inspired by the true story." But that's marketing; each film still ends with a disclaimer stating that "Dialogue and certain events and characters contained in the film were created for the purposes of dramatization."

As much as  The Conjuring films may draw on true stories, they're still fiction. Fiction based on a true story is still fiction, and these films require that acknowledgment in order to separate themselves from the muddled legacy of the real Warrens. Because while the real-life Warrens may not have been the noble, truth-telling ghost hunters they're portrayed as in the films, the Warrens as played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are exactly that. And that's the key ingredient to the series.

The latest  Conjuring  film,  The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It  ( read my review here ), continues this trend. Amidst all the horrors and jump scares is the enduring message that the movie versions of Ed and Lorraine Warren really love each other, unconditionally. They complete each other. They've never been with anyone else, and would never even dream of doing so. We even get a little flashback to young Ed and Lorraine on their first date.

"The most romantic moments I've had on screen are with Vera in a horror movie," Patrick Wilson said during a recent Q&A I attended. Vera Farmiga then added: "Lorraine loves Ed not only for who he is, but who she is when she's with him. She's able to do what she does because she has his support."

Wilson's Ed is a rough-around-the-edges guy who is skilled at strumming a guitar and fixing a car. He's a man's man – but not in some macho tough guy way. Instead, he's an idealized version of the man's man. He's both strong and sensitive. He can look the forces of evil right in the face, but he's also not above trying to cheer up a lonely widow and her scared kids. He cares deeply for Lorraine, and worries about her. In the first film, after an exorcism goes wrong, he's hesitant to let Lorraine get back into their work – but she insists on it. God brought them together for a reason, she insists. To help people. To help each other.

Farmiga's Lorraine is arguably the best part of the entire series. She plays Lorraine with the conviction of a true believer. The staunchest skeptic can easily be won over and accept that Lorraine really  can see ghosts simply because Farmiga is so convincing at selling us that. There's not a single wrong note in any of her performances in any of these films. We believe because she believes. That belief may evaporate like smoke once we leave the theater, but while we're sitting in the dark, we accept what we're seeing as some form of reality. Ghosts may not exist in the  real world, but we can believe they exist in the "real" world the film is giving us (call it the  reel world if you want to be a cheeky bastard).

One Person Can Change Everything

The Warrens in the  Conjuring films are entirely dependent on one another. They need to work as a team. Lorraine needs Ed watching out for her while she goes into a trance, and Ed needs Lorraine to warn him of danger.

In  The Conjuring 2 , Lorraine confides in young Janet Hodgson, a girl being plagued by terrifying visions of ghosts.

"I know what it's like to lose your friends because you're different," Lorraine tells the girl. "But I also know that one person can change everything, and you just have to open up to them."

"How did you know you could trust the people you opened up to?" Janet asks.

"I didn't, and sometimes I got hurt," Lorraine replies. "And it took a long time, but I finally found someone who believed me."

When Janet asks what Lorraine did then, Lorraine answers with a smile: "I married him."

It's an incredibly sweet moment. And it's also bullshit. As stated above, the officially sanctioned Warren story is that the two met when they were teenagers at the movies, and Lorraine was reportedly a full-blown skeptic until they started hunting ghosts as married adults. But in the world of  The Conjuring , Lorraine has always been blessed and cursed with her psychic powers, and Ed was the first person who really accepted and believed her. He was her lighthouse, her rock, her North Star.

This is a point hammered home again and again. The Warrens are an unstoppable team, the idealized version of a happy couple. We all want someone who completes us; who believes in us; who accepts us for who we are. And  The Conjuring movies give us a shining example of that, because these are love stories. The love the fictional Warrens share enables them to reach out to help others. They are almost saintly in their selfless attitudes, and this is where skepticism rears its ugly head again.

It's hard to believe in  real people who are this good; this helpful; this kind. And whatever you believe about the real Ed and Lorraine, it's almost certain that they themselves weren't this pure and generous. But that's all part of the magic of this series. Because while we may not believe in any of this, like Fox Mulder on  The X-Files , we  want to believe. And so we must draw a line in the sand. On one side of the line rests the real Ed and Lorraine and their complicated history and the secrets they took to the grave. And on the other side, we have Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, actors playing fictionalized characters. The real Ed and Lorraine Warren are dead. Long live the fictional, flawless Ed and Lorraine Warren in their stead.

• Biographies & Memoirs
• Arts & Literature

Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Video
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: $14.76 $14.76 FREE delivery: Tuesday, Oct 31 on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon. Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

• Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges
• Learn more about free returns.
• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select the return method

Buy used: $12.55

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the Author

Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace Paperback – August 27, 2013

• Kindle $14.99 Read with our free app

• Hardcover $29.94 44 Used from $1.18 7 New from $10.94 11 Collectible from $15.00
• Paperback $14.76 40 Used from $1.94 17 New from $12.48
• Audio CD $14.99 7 New from $12.52

Purchase options and add-ons

• Print length 368 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Penguin Books
• Publication date August 27, 2013
• Reading age 18 years and up
• Dimensions 0.9 x 5.4 x 8.4 inches
• ISBN-10 0147509726
• ISBN-13 978-0147509727
• See all details

Frequently bought together

Similar items that may ship from close to you

Editorial Reviews

“All readers, even those who know nothing of Wallace, will be moved by the portrayal of one man’s honest struggle with mental illness…the book’s] poignancy is in its emphasis on Wallace’s years of hard-earned survival and his efforts, though unrealized, toward artistic transformation.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“A well-crafted, insightful chronicle of this singular writer’s life and literary work…Max’s biography succeeds on multiple levels: through his astute interpretations of Wallace’s literary output and liberal quotes from the writer himself, this book very much embodies the spirit and life of Wallace…for this reader, the biography provides a measure of solace – that is this great writer can’t be among us, at least he can be remembered in all of his genius and complexity.” —S. Kirk Walsh, The San Francisco Chronicle

“I’m having trouble remembering when I was last so consumed by any piece of writing, fiction or non…Max’s focus is, not surprisingly, more or less resolutely on Wallace’s life as it related to his art. This decision to strip the story down to its narrative essentials pays off in terms of compulsive readability…In providing a more complete sense of Wallace than we ever had while he lived, it makes his death feel more real, somehow more irrefutable. And, for anyone who felt a profound emotional connection to Wallace and his work, there’s a strenuously cathartic dimension to this: the experience of knowing him more fully, and of thereby feeling more completely the force and finality of his absence.” —Mark O’Connell, Slate.com

“You find it painful, frightening, and, yes, gripping, to read about someone in chronic and severe emotional distress. In writing a chronologically narrated, thoroughly researched, objective-as-imaginable biography, Max has created a page turner.” —Rivka Galchen, The New York Times Book Review

“Max’s long-awaited bio, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story , helps us understand the man behind the words, and the mind behind the suicide…[Max] makes Wallace begin to cohere and become more approachable, more real…necessary reading if you care about DFW or the cultural moment that shaped him and then felt his impact.” —Evan Hughes, GQ.com

“Documenting the life of a writer as revered and tormented as the late David Foster Wallace is a fraught task at best. D.T. Max has done an admirable job with Every Love Story is a Ghost Story …what emerges is a vivid portrait of an artist whose verbal brilliance was continually hampered, and ultimately silenced, by debilitating mental illness.” —Steve Almond, The Boston Globe

“Max’s long-awaited biography of David Foster Wallace has been the end-of-summer book for readers of literary fiction. It has inspired countless reviews, conversations, and online outbursts…Max somehow manages to tell a compelling story that peels back the public image of Wallace without stripping it bare, creating a portrait of a troubled and gifted man who crafted some of our time’s best writing and giving readers a fuller sense of the relation of the work to the life.” —Samuel Cohen, The Believer

“While Max appears to greatly admire Wallace as a writer and feel compassion for him as a man, he is never starry-eyed, or pulls his punches.  Every Love Story is a Ghost Story is as illuminating, multifaceted, and serious an estimation of David Foster Wallace’s life and work as we can hope to find.” —Elissa Schappell, Vanityfair.com

“Brilliant and compulsively readable…Max’s new biography deftly reassembles the life of David Foster Wallace…strips away the legend and gives us an all-too-human writer…a convincingly intimate and lucid narrative…Max is respectful throughout – and his account of the writer’s final days is devastatingly measured.” —Taylor Antrim, Vogue.com

“Full of all kinds of strange surprises, painting the most complete, and warmest, portrait of Wallace yet.” — Rolling Stone

About the Author

Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; 2nd edition (August 27, 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0147509726
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0147509727
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.9 x 5.4 x 8.4 inches
• #86 in Comedic Dramas & Plays
• #317 in Author Biographies
• #790 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies

Important information

To report an issue with this product, click here .

About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Start Selling with Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Your Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

• Main content

21 haunting books to read this Halloween, from ghostly thrillers to paranormal romances

When you buy through our links, Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

• Ghost books are often horror stories or paranormal thrillers, but can also be romantic.
• Here are 21 of the best ghost books to curl up with this Halloween.
• Want more books? Check out the best Halloween books and horror books .

I try to read a little bit of everything, from lovey romances to timeless classics , but I'm hopelessly obsessed with a good scare . When autumn comes around and Halloween is right around the corner , I can't resist pulling out the books filled with haunted houses, creepy twists, and — best of all — ghosts. 

When you think of ghost stories, you may think of a classic haunted tale, but ghosts are in all kinds of literary genres, from paranormal romances to creepy true crime tales . 

To make this list of perfect ghost books for Halloween, I looked at bestseller lists on Amazon and Audible , plus readers' favorites from Goodreads . So whether you're looking for a good scare or a fun read with a ghostly twist, here are some of the best ghost stories to read this Halloween. 

The 21 best ghost stories to read this Halloween:

A paranormal horror classic.

"The Shining" by Stephen King, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.27

In what is considered by many to be Stephen King's best work , Jack Torrance is looking for a fresh start when he takes a job as an off-season caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, hoping to focus on reconnecting with his son and work on his writing. When a winter storm traps Jack and his family inside the building, it becomes clear that something sinister is happening — and only his son, Danny, can see the secrets of the hotel's dark past.

An iconic ghost story

"The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.27

First published in 1959 and considered one of the best ghost stories of the 20th century, "The Haunting of Hill House" is a haunted house classic from Shirley Jackson, who also famously wrote "The Lottery." "The Haunting of Hill House" is about four people who volunteer to participate in a paranormal study by staying in a haunted mansion that's more powerful than they ever could have imagined. 

The tale of a young boy growing up in a ghostly graveyard

"The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.27

"The Graveyard Book" is the young adult story of Nobody "Bod" Owens, who is a completely normal kid — except for growing up in a graveyard and being raised by ghosts. Bod's only rule is he must not leave the graveyard, as the dangers that lurk beyond the gates include the man who killed his family (and is waiting to finish the job). 

The story of a legendary ghost

"The Girl From the Well" by Rin Chupeco, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.99

The girl from the well is dead, hunting child murderers like the man who killed her 300 years ago. When a strange boy moves into the neighborhood bringing something eerie with him, the two set off on a terrifying and wicked journey that takes them to Aomori, Japan in this young adult paranormal horror story.  

A ghostly historical horror story

"The Deep" by Alma Katsu available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.99

"The Deep" is a historical fiction horror story set on the Titanic where the passengers believe something sinister is going on from the moment they set sail. Years after the Titanic sinks, Annie Hebbley survived the disaster and is now working as a nurse on the hospital ship Britannic when she comes across an unconscious soldier who she recognizes — but knows did not survive the sinking of the Titanic.

A powerful new ghostly thriller

"Mapping the Interior" by Stephen Graham Jones, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.99

When a young boy is wandering his house at night, he sees a strange figure who resembles his father who died mysteriously before his family left the reservation. When he follows the figure through the doorway, he discovers the secrets of their house and their family and finds he must risk everything to save his brother in this powerful and emotional paranormal thriller.

A newly released YA ghost story

"White Smoke" by Tiffany D. Jackson, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.19

In this new young adult thriller, Marigold is running from the metaphorical haunts of her old life when she moves to a Midwestern city with her new, blended family. Though their new house seems picture-perfect, strange things start happening, and when Marigold's younger sister can't stop talking about a friend who wants her gone, Marigold knows she must find out what's really happening in their home. 

The tale of a young girl whose best friend is a ghost

"City of Ghosts" by V.E. Schwab, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.78

After Cassidy Blake nearly drowned as a young girl, she was rescued by a ghost named Jacob and left with the ability to see the spirits around her. When her ghost-hunting parents take her to Scotland for their TV show, Cassidy meets Lara, another girl who can see the dead and believes they have an obligation to send ghosts beyond the Veil — permanently.

A creepy mystery about a haunted hotel

"The Sun Down Motel" by Simone St. James, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.40

In 1982, Carly's Aunt Viv was working as a night clerk at the Sun Down Motel when she mysteriously went missing and was never found. Now, Carly has taken the same job her aunt once had, determined to uncover the secrets around her aunt's disappearance before whatever frightening thing that haunts the motel can take her too.  

A spine-tingling ghost story set in Japan

"Nothing But Blackened Teeth" by Cassandra Khaw, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.86

When a group of five friends reunite in Japan for a destination wedding and rent a Heian-era mansion, they discover the bones of a long-dead bride. The group soon learns that when the bride's fiance died on the way to the wedding, she had herself buried alive beneath the house, waiting for his ghost to come home. Each year after, another girl was buried in the walls to keep her company. In this horrifying thriller, the five ghost-hunting friends are thrilled by the adventure of uncovering this haunted history — until their fun night quickly devolves into a nightmare.

Sign up for Insider Reviews' weekly newsletter for more buying advice and great deals. You can purchase logo and accolade licensing to this story here . Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at [email protected] .

Advertisement

Subscriber-only Newsletter

Read Like the Wind

Ghost stories.

A collection of spooky short fiction by Edith Wharton and a historical nonfiction narrative about a woman who claimed to be haunted.

• Share full article

By Sadie Stein

Dear readers,

We all have our forms of escapism.

Whenever something very difficult has happened in my life, I have taken refuge in ghost stories. In the case of bereavement, the reasons seem clear enough; and maybe in every other case too — the possibility of the unexplainable can be a balm when the world itself feels beyond our understanding. October is designated haunting season, but the uncanny is perennial. There are almost too many ghost stories to choose from — Sarah Waters’s “Affinity, ” Marghanita Laski’s“The Victorian Chaise-Longue” and Virago’s peerless collection of ghost stories have all gotten me through a lot — but your time is valuable, so I’ll limit myself here to two of my favorite comfort reads.

“Ghosts,” by Edith Wharton

Fiction, 1937

“‘No, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them,’ is much more than the cheap paradox it seems to many,” Wharton wrote in her preface to this collection. Wharton was not an avowed believer, but like many writers she found the ghost story to be the perfect medium (pun intended) for exploring questions of sexuality, class and consciousness. And given her mastery of all three subjects it should come as no surprise that the stories in this collection are a paradigm not just of the genre but of short fiction generally.

Because it collects stories written between 1902 and 1937, it’s a faithful chronicle of a changing world: Read “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” — featuring a full staff of servants — followed by “All Souls,’” among the last written in this collection, in which an elderly matron is left alone and helpless (one of the subtlest scary stories ever written, for my money). The relationship between classes is a recurring preoccupation; so is real estate; so is repression. Is my favorite “The Pomegranate Seed,” that amazing exploration of jealousy? Or “Miss Mary Pask,” a meditation on aging? Or maybe the Jamesian “The Eyes”? How to choose?

Read if you like: Any Edith Wharton novel; no Edith Wharton novels; if you love ghost stories; if you hate ghost stories Available from: NYRB Classics — and I do think this is one you’ll want a physical copy of, if only to better read before bed. But many of the stories can be found individually online. And here is a different version , not sequenced by Wharton, containing a number of the same stories.

“The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story,” by Kate Summerscale

Nonfiction, 2020

In 1938, a young matron in the London suburbs claimed to be the subject of a dramatic possession; as she recounted to the avid tabloids, her home was suddenly full of flying objects and her person regularly assaulted by violent attacks. She also suddenly had the ability to manifest live insects and pieces of jewelry. The story ultimately garnered the attention of a psychical researcher named Nandor Fodor, who became deeply invested in the case and made the woman, Alma Fielding, the subject of increasingly intrusive and public scientific tests. Was Fielding a fraud or a phenomenon — or was she just very unwell? The same could be asked of her investigator. And who, if anyone, was exploiting whom?

Summerscale, always a deft and humane storyteller, brings this deeply uncomfortable story to life with characteristic élan; the focus of one’s outrage and sympathy shifts from chapter to chapter, and the evocation of a (barely) between-the-wars Britain is vivid.

Read if you like: “Devil in the White City,” “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” Available from: Wherever fine books are sold. I like the Moravian in Bethlehem, Pa., because it’s supposedly haunted

Why don’t you …

See how it all started? I don’t think there’s a book in my library I recommend more than Deborah Blum’s “Ghost Hunters: William James and the Scientific Hunt for Proof of Life After Death.” (In fact, I seem to have loaned out both my copies!) Amid the spiritualism craze of the 19th century, a group of respected scholars, including Henry James’s brother, a titan of American psychology, seriously undertook psychical research — which proved thorny, inconclusive and utterly fascinating.

Hear a bump in the night? For obvious reasons, ghost stories make incredible audiobooks . Vernon Lee — the pen name of Violet Paget — was one of the great Victorian ghost-story scribes (often using the supernatural to encode queer themes), and “A Phantom Lover” is an atmospheric, eerie pleasure.

Get extra credit? One of Edith Wharton’s best ghost stories, “The Looking Glass,” is not in the collection I recommended above, but it is in her book “ The World Over. ” It’s about an aging beauty in thrall to spiritualism, and contains this incredible quote: “There was nothing she wouldn’t do for you, if ever for a minute you could get her to stop thinking of herself … and that’s saying a good deal, for a rich lady. Money’s an armor, you see; and there’s a few cracks in it. But Mrs. Clingsland was a loving nature, if only anybody’d shown her how to love. … Oh, dear, and wouldn’t she have been surprised if you’d told her that! Her that thought she was living up to her chin in love and love-making.”

Thank you for being a subscriber

Plunge further into books at The New York Times or our reading recommendations .

If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here . Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here .

Friendly reminder: check your local library for books! Many libraries allow you to reserve copies online.

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

In “Romney: A Reckoning,” the journalist McKay Coppins takes stock of Senator Mitt Romney’s career  as the politician prepares to retire from elective office.

In a new memoir, the actor John Stamos talks about honesty, sobriety and his grief  over Bob Saget’s death.

The novelist Jesmyn Ward is mapping new territory in an effort to reimagine Southern literature .

Do you want to be a better reader?   Here’s some helpful advice to show you how to get the most out of your literary endeavor .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

Short Stories♥

• Install Love♥
• Love no reason
• The Guardian Angel
• Salty Coffee
• Love for 100 days
• Could Have Been Us

A True Ghost Love Story

• Love Messages
• Letters in the Car
• The Breakup
• Loving the Imperfections
• The School Bus
• Light of Love
• The Last Words
• The Blessing You Didn't Know
• For the last time
• When Friendship Turns to Love
• Please Don't Lie To Me Again
• Follow Your Heart
• A Painful Regret
• Everlasting Love
• Words Cannot Express
• Love Story of the Century
• One More Time, One More Chance
• What it Feels Like to be Unloved
• happy without me
• Without your love, i would die
• Brave for Love
• That is the kind of love i want in my life
• Sign language
• I Want a Divorce
• Miracle of Toilet Paper

YOU ARE READING

Compilation of different Short Stories^^♥ I don't own this stories^^.. Thank you for reading^^ readers^^

# 100 # angel # blessing # break # bus # coffee # computer # days # ghost # imperfections # install # letter # light # love # motorcycle # salty # saranghae # school # text # words

• Post to Your Profile
• Share via Email

• Report Story

Yes, you can find true love in the weirdest places. Astoundingly, it is these stories that are the saddest. We all sometimes wish that our loved ones will stay by our side forever but alas, life seems to always have a cruel twist on love.

.....................................................................

This is a personal account of a ghost story that occured over 10 years ago. This "true experince" firml supported my theory that our departed loved ones can convey messages through dreams.

Back in 1989, being a fresh graduate Psychology graduate, I landed a job in the personnel department in one of the goverment offices in Quezon City. A male co-worker, Jun, was 11 years older than me. He became one of my friends while working there. Jun was king, loving, and romantic. He was the breadwinner of his family. His parents ang relatives liked me a lot. Being single and unattached, he courted me in 1990. I accepted his marraige proposal during the latter part of that year.

My parents did not approve of our relationship and when the first quarter of 1991 came, my parents made me quit my job. My dad, being a military man, even threatened Jun to Jun to stay away from me. To make our long story short, I left my job. I lost track of Jun I bussied myself with the family business. Basically, I went on with my life and tried to forget about him.

On the morning of June 2, 1994 I recieved a telegram from his aunt, saying that Jun had died the day before June1, 1994. Shocked I crumpled the short note and hurriedly phoned his aunt for confirmation. She told me that when we parted, Jun resigned from his job and drunk heavily each day. He naglected his death as well as his body. Pneumonia had caused his sudden death. "You know Jun. Everyday and up to his remaining hours, all her wanted was to see you. During his final moments, while suffering from delirium, he even told us that he still loves you very much," Jun's aunt said.

Sadly, my parents wouldn't allow me to go to his wake. I mourned quietly inside my room. There even came a point where I convinced myself that he wasn't dead.

On January 1995, just before my birthday, Jun visited me in a dream. I dreamed that I was inside a hospital room. I was wearing a hospital gown and I was sitting at the foot of my bed. Jun suddenly appeared before me, clothed in bright lights. We communicated mentally. I told him it wasn't true that he was gone. He replied that I must accept the fact that he was already dead but it didn't mean that he as leaving me. "I will always be beside you, gaurding you," he said

I cried saying, "I'm sorry I didn't have the guts to fight for our relationship."

He comforted me and soothed me by shrouding me with his bright light. The bliss I felt was interrupted by voice calling hi name "It's time for me to go," he told me. "But what about me?" I asked, tears in my eyes. " I will be here for you always," he replied,"and I will be waiting for you there. And don't ever forget that love you very much."

After saying this, he vanished before my eyes. I woke up crying. After this accident, I finished began to accept his death. And whenever I'm depressed I feel his presence beside me I know somehow out there he's still waiting patienly for me.

Are you afraid of the dark? You should be. Terrifying True Stories features real ghost stories, truly haunted places, and creepy paranormal experiences told by the actual person who lived through it! You'll be transported to an immersive world of evil spirits, supernatural creatures, and true horror. These are more than just "scary stories" - they are truly terrifying stories that will haunt your dreams. For a more extreme experience, listen with the lights off.

Terrifying True Stories Terrifying True Stories

• Society & Culture
• 5.0 • 4 Ratings
• SEP 30, 2023

My Haunted Childhood

What do you do when the ghost that haunted your childhood home follows you to your new house halfway across the country? That is exactly what happened to the person in tonight's story. Terrifying True Stories podcast features REAL ghost stories about haunted places and creepy paranormal experiences told by the actual person. Terrifying True Stories delivers you to an immersive world of evil spirits, supernatural creatures and true horror. These are more than just "scary stories" these are terrifying true stories that will make you feel like you are there.

Can't Get Out

Meet a man that lived in a historic bank building that was robbed by the notorious American bank robber Jesse James in 1876 where he encountered a tenacious entity that physically wouldn’t let him leave. Terrifying True Stories podcast features REAL ghost stories about haunted places and creepy paranormal experiences told by the actual person. Terrifying True Stories delivers you to an immersive world of evil spirits, supernatural creatures and true horror. These are more than just "scary stories" these are terrifying true stories that will make you feel like you are there.

• OCT 4, 2023

Cat From Hell

So who do you call when the sweet cat you raise from a kitten becomes possessed by something truly evil? Then it starts yelling at you in human voices. Then it tries to kill you. Tonight's guest called in the church when it happened to her and blood was spilled when they encountered the cat from hell. Terrifying True Stories podcast features REAL ghost stories about haunted places and creepy paranormal experiences told by the actual person. Terrifying True Stories delivers you to an immersive world of evil spirits, supernatural creatures and true horror. These are more than just "scary stories" these are terrifying true stories that will make you feel like you are there.

• OCT 11, 2023

The Soul Sucker

What do you do when there is something evil in your partner's house that is actively trying to steal your soul while you sleep?!? That's what tonight's guest experienced when she met "The Soul Sucker." Terrifying True Stories podcast features REAL ghost stories about haunted places and creepy paranormal experiences told by the actual person. Terrifying True Stories delivers you to an immersive world of evil spirits, supernatural creatures and true horror. These are more than just "scary stories" these are terrifying true stories that will make you feel like you are there.

• OCT 18, 2023

005: LA's Haunted Globe Theater

A photographer who is clairvoyant encounters a spirit “mid-torture” at one of the most haunted theaters in Los Angeles underneath the stage at LA’s haunted Globe Theater. That’s what our next guest encountered when she came face to face with a soul sucker. Daniel was a photographer at one of the most haunted theaters in Los Angeles. He also happens to be clairvoyant. Tonight’s story is about the entity he encountered underneath the stage at LA’s haunted Globe Theater. DANIEL: My name is Daniel and I’m a multimedia designer and photographer. What that equates to is I’ll go around and shoot a lot of nightlife photography videography for different groups across Los Angeles. At the time, this was pre pandemic, I think it was the fall of 2017. I was one of the Globe’s lead photographers in the sense, I would go into their spaces and shoot different nightlife like dance, burlesque shows, golf shows, dance parties, LGBT plus anything of that nature. So this whole experience happened on one of the nights in which I was there and photographing a friend’s burlesque group Cherry Poppins, at their Game of Thrones parody show.  Growing up, my mom probably came out to me at about the age of 13, or 14, that in her own words, she was a clairvoyant, the way she described at the time when she saw or sensed certain things. She had it very young, she always had it at the age of I think she said, seven or eight, she was actually getting a lot of just flack from her mother because at the age of seven, and eight, she was basically having dreams of like people dying, but she would recognize something about them, and then it would actually come true. And it got I think, as freaky as my mom predicted the death of one of her mom’s closest friends, because she saw in a dream and she predicted exactly how it happened.  So the interesting thing going into it was my mom always said that she has three kids. The universe speaks in threes, three different energy levels and stuff. My brother, who’s the oldest, he doesn’t like any of it. My sister who’s the middle child who’s three years older than me, she would always try very hard to have the certain ability or whatever, but she just doesn’t for whatever reason, not that mean, okay against it.  But then me. I would not even try but I was a natural sensor for things. So the Globe Theater, the idea of different I guess you’d say spaces or locations housing certain energies, theaters, in particular in Los Angeles are very fascinating, because theater, in that sense involves a lot of drama, there’s a lot of performance going on a lot of flair, things of that nature. So when you combine certain energies with it, and just over time, things can get a bit murkier. On the Globe’s history’s like, a bit dark, I would say dark in terms of I don’t, I haven’t dived in the history, like in full myself. But what I least perceived is a sense of like a certain I would say like a typical like mob or like a different organized crime like nature, fall 2017 to spring of 2018.  In this period of time, my friends will put on different shows. They had a Game of Thrones burlesque parody show. Dduring the show, there’s a certain jump that you have to do. By jump I mean, during the show, there’s a certain ground that you have to pretty much hop across to get from one photography vantage point to the other photography vantage point in the Globe. What’s hard about it is it’s built in a way that whateve...

• OCT 19, 2023

Terrifying True Stories - New Trailer

• © Copyright 2023. Terrifying True Stories. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Top podcasts in society & culture.

Ghost Love Story

Add a plot in your language

• See more at IMDbPro

User reviews

• October 30, 2011 (Hong Kong)
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed

CNN values your feedback

The cast of ‘living for the dead’ have their own ghost stories.

Ghost stories are getting new life in the upcoming Hulu series “Living for the Dead.”

Executive produced by Kristen Stewart and the creators of “Queer Eye,” the show features five LGBTQ+ ghost hunters, each with their own unique talent, traveling the country to investigate the paranormal.

According to the official synopsis from Hulu, the show aims to “explore some of the world’s most infamous haunted locations,” and “shed light on those not seen.”

Rob Eric, one of the shows producers, recently spoke with CNN about how Stewart came to them with the idea.

“We got a phone call from our agents that Kristen wanted to meet on a project and we were like, yeah, it’s Kristen Stewart, so then she got on and told us that she had this idea that what would it be like to have a ghost-hunting show that had an LGBTQ cast,” Eric said. “And we are the ‘Queer Eye’ guys. We know the way that our community sort of sees things is different than other communities and we’ve never seen this before and wouldn’t that be interesting.”

Eric said they met with Stewart, created a format, then set out to cast the show. They landed on ghost hunters Alex Le May, Juju Bae, Ken Boggle, Logan Taylor, and Roz Hernandez, who each have paranormal specialties.

Boggle, who is a medium and tarot cards expert, told CNN his most terrifying moment filming happened while they were investigating strange activity at The Clown Motel in Nevada, featured in one of the episodes.

“I am terrified of clowns and so my teammates, my friends, decided that we would go to this Clown Motel and that they would put me blindfolded in a room of clowns in the dark,” he said.

Bae, a witch, said she developed her intuitive strengths with practice.

“I actually developed this in my adulthood. Like, I wasn’t a kid talking to spirits or really into the woo woo at all. This is something that I was intentional about,” she said.

While filming, Bae said she got physically scratched by a spirit in Arizona.

“I go to sleep, I wake up and there’s just three scratches down my neck into my chest,” she recalled.

Taylor, who describes himself as “the psychic of the group,” told CNN he also had physical encounters with ghosts.

“There were places that I got my hair pulled,” Taylor said of filming the series. “There was actually a moment where I kind of got grabbed. I’m used to seeing them [ghosts], hearing them, but when they start touching me, it was scary. I’m telling you, it would make any skeptic a believer.”

Hernandez, who was cast due to the success of their paranormal comedy podcast, “Ghosted,” owns up to being ghost “obsessed.”

“I feel like the luckiest fan of these shows ever,” Hernandez told CNN. “Now I get to be in one and sort of be a little skeptical and try to get down to the bottom of what’s going on there.”

Le May, a “paranormal investigator,” was excited about analyzing supernatural incidents and sharing their findings.

“The scariest scene for me was when I crawled into where they kept the bodies in a morgue by myself and had a lovely conversation with a malevolent spirit,” Le May recalled. “But I really, really ate it up. I thought it was a blast, and I got so much good evidence out of that.”

Of the naysayers, Le May said “for people who are skeptics, I tell them to book a night at The Clown Motel and stay in room 111.”

“Living for the Dead” streams on Hulu starting Oct 18.

Headless women and stuffed bodies. Ghost stories to get you ready for Halloween

One of Halloween's most notorious ghosts is the Headless Horseman. The iconic figure on a black horse with a jack-o'-lantern in place of a face can be found in books, movies, decor and more.

But there is another headless ghost that haunts the western regions of our nation. And her tragic tale has been passed down by the tribe that lives near where she died.

Then we'll hear a second, different tale. One of stuffed heads collected inside a professor's home and a question posed. How far would you go for success?

It's week three of spooky season on Valley 101. Pluck up your courage and dive into these next harrowing tales of horror.

Listen to Valley 101 on your favorite podcast app or stream the full episode below.

Have a ghost story to share?

Click here to submit your ghost tales or questions about metro Phoenix for a chance to be chosen for the podcast.

Follow Valley 101 and all azcentral podcasts on Twitter and Instagram .

Contact the producer at  k aely.monah[email protected] . Follow her on Twitter  @ KaelyMonahan .

Ghost Stories: A Steamy Short Story Collection

Publisher description.

Just because they no longer have physical form, doesn't mean they don't still long for intimacy.... Ghost Stories: A Steamy Short Story Collection contains six hot tales featuring... you guessed it - ghosts! In each of these sizzling snippets, ghosts get another chance at that most mind-blowing part of being human... sex.

More Books by Heather Kinnane