10 spicy paranormal romances that will have you hunting ghosts

As the days get colder, I refuse to talk chunky knits and pumpkin spice before we’ve discussed the things that go bump in the night that you also wish would go bump between the sheets. If the paranormal already gets your pulse racing, wait until you meet a demon who reads the room and the FMC’s body better than half the men on dating apps. Or maybe we just like our book lovers with a little something extra: wings, a sarcophagus, a centuries-old ego. 

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Whatever your poison, I've rounded up ten paranormal romances that'll have you wandering abandoned churches with a torch and a dangerously open mind. Before you light the candles and summon anything, remember to check your content warnings, darling.

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(Heads up, darling: this post contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you)

Her Soul to Take by Harley Laroux

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Who's haunting you: A sarcastic, cat-loving demon with a split tongue and a very specific asking price.

Rae is a ghost-hunting YouTuber who'll do anything for good footage, which is how she ends up drawing a summoning circle in an abandoned church with chalk and a quick Google. Congratulations, babe, you've caught a demon. Leon is bound to a cult that wants Rae as its next sacrifice, and he'll protect her for one small price: her soul. He's blond, filthy-mouthed and will fight a beast from the woods to save her cat. I’m still recovering from that tongue and a graveyard scene I won't say another word about. Fair warning: he drops a "baby girl". Book one of the Souls Trilogy.

Phantasma by Kaylie Smith

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Who's haunting you: A phantom with an ego (amongst other things…) as big as the haunted mansion he's stuck in.

When necromancer Ophelia Grimm's sister runs off to enter Phantasma, a deadly contest in a haunted manor with a single wish as the prize, Ophelia follows. Nine trials, each inspired by a circle of hell. Two rules: stay alive, and don't fall in love. Enter Blackwell, charming, arrogant and very much dead, who'll guide her through for ten years of her life. Ghosts shouldn't be this flirtatious, or this good with their hands. Expect "who did this to you" energy, a "good girl" or two, and spice at gloriously inappropriate moments. The OCD rep has left many a smut girlie in happy tears. A standalone (with a ghost cat.)

Nightshade by Keri Lake

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Who's haunting you: A raven-winged recluse who's waited centuries to find you again.

Farryn has spent her life chasing the signs her father swore were real. They lead her to Nightshade, a purgatory-like underworld, and to the recluse living in a crumbling cliffside cathedral. Jericho Van Croix is known as Death, he has wings, and he would burn down a city for one woman. That woman might just be Farryn. It's a gothic slow burn across past and present timelines, with angels, demons and a love that refuses to stay buried. Two words: feather play, darlings. Book one of a duology.

Gothikana by RuNyx

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Who's haunting you: A silver-eyed part-time professor with a very dirty mouth.

Outcast Corvina Clemm takes her admission letter to a mysterious mountaintop university as a sign from the universe. Verenmore is all fog, gargoyles and secrets, with people disappearing every five years for the past century. Then there's Vad Deverell, the part-time professor who calls her "little crow", tells her to stay away and looks at her like she's dessert. The library. The car. The monologues mid-act. The smut girlies are split between swooning and snorting, and I love that for us. Go in for the vibes rather than neat answers, because this BookTok darling famously leaves a few mysteries unsolved.

Bewitched by Laura Thalassa

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Who's haunting you: A cursed sorcerer who's spent two thousand years in a tomb and wakes up calling you his queen.

Selene's magic is powerful, but every spell costs her a memory. On a quest to earn her place at Henbane Coven, she survives a plane something tries to drag from the sky, picks up a panther familiar and accidentally wakes Memnon the Cursed. He's convinced she's his long-dead wife, the one who betrayed him, and he wants her love and his revenge in equal measure. Possessive, unhinged and utterly devoted, he spends a lot of time in Selene's head. And her dreams.

Die for Me by Shirlene Obuobi

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Who's haunting you: A brooding younger man who isn't quite as young (or as human) as he looks.

Sean is the only female, let alone Black, interventional cardiologist at her hospital, and after healing from an abusive ex, she's off the market. Then she meets Julian at a wedding: beautiful, brooding and eleven years her junior. If men can date younger, why can't she? But Julian's pursuit sets off alarm bells, and Sean starts suffering memory lapses, exhaustion and dreams that feel far too real. What he is, I'm not telling. A reverse age gap with an FMC in her late thirties? We love to see it.

Bonetide by Karina Halle

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Who's haunting you: The naked stranger who swims in the loch at night and really, really wants to come in.

Freshly divorced and skint, Iris inherits her great-aunt's cottage on a remote Scottish loch, as long as she lives there for a year. The salt lines on the windowsills are odd. So are the local disappearances. And her aunt's letters are clear: never let him in. "Him" may or may not be Alasdair, the gorgeous neighbour who lives in a ruined castle and swims in the nude. Iris clocks his assets from across the loch and promptly loses all sense. Same. Expect "lass", a filthy mouth and a cosy start that turns very dark (and very weird). Not everything about him is human.

Florescentia by I.V. Ophelia

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Who's haunting you: A star-born eldritch beast with, shall we say, a creative approach to anatomy.

In Astraea, a glowing, star-worshipping 1890s New York, inventor Lucia Fairfax harvests luck from the shadows. When a ritual fails and her husband dies, her fortune runs dry, and her desperate attempt to win it back summons Altair, a cosmic entity born of an ancient constellation. Human and not, impossibly seductive, he wants her for eternity. Monster romance lovers, step forward. The smut girlies with early copies say the spice is unlike anything they've read, and that Altair's anatomy is, let's say, ever-shifting.

Kiss of Seduction by Rawnie Sabor

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Who's haunting you: A succubus whose kiss kills everyone but you.

Evie has spent over a year as a captive of the vampiric Court of Night, prized for her rare blood. Natalya, second-in-command of Chicago's Court of Chains, is a succubus whose touch is agony and whose kiss is a death sentence. After Natalya leaves the vampire king's estate with Evie in tow, she discovers the impossible: Evie feels no pain under her touch and survives her kiss. Natalya is terrifying to everyone else and achingly gentle with Evie. Add Dom/sub dynamics, consent as a love language, "touch her and die" energy and spice for centuries. Healing as it is hot.

The Witchwood Boys Are Trending by C.M. Stunich

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Who's haunting you: Three bastards in witch hats, leather pants and iron masks.

Kate tests her grandmother's urban legend: touch the Witch's Tree on a moonless night and discover magic. She discovers three men instead. Trapped in the Witchwoods for three different decades, Brooks, Marlowe and Tanner claim her for their coven and will. not. leave. Their magic runs on blood, rituals and bodily fluids (yes, really), and once they're out, the internet goes feral. Why choose and grumpy-sunshine, but make sure you read those content warnings darling.

So there you have it, darlings: demons, phantoms, sorcerers, a succubus and a loch-dwelling stranger I still can't stop thinking about. Pick your haunting, pour yourself something dark and red, and leave the window open a crack. You know, just in case.

Want more spooky romances to keep your temperature running high on those long, cold nights? Flick your fingers through our stalker romance recommendations and our monster smut starter guide.

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