Cozy Ghost Fiction

I can remember a time when I baked for fun. I loved dreaming up new recipes, trying different combinations of flavors. Sharing my creations with friends and family. Now? I have nightmares where the TV cameras are on me and I’m baking naked. Or I open my oven and my cake pans are empty. You don’t need to be Freud to figure out I’m freaking out. This week on The Great British Baking Contest could be my last. I am one bad bake away from being waved good-bye.

When ghost hunter and medium M.J. Holliday appears on a television show called Haunted Possessions, she encounters an evil knife that releases a demon. Now all hell has broken loose in the haunted hotel where M.J. is staying and its up to her to give the uninvited guest an early checkout.

Emily Buchanan believes in ghosts, but not in witches. Her skepticism turns to shock when Eternal Rest Bed and Breakfast hosts a coven, and she learns a truth that will reframe the past two years of her life. Emily will never look at her life or her late husband, Scott, in the same way again. But when one of the witches turns up dead, Emily suddenly has a houseful of suspects, and every one of them is pointing their wand at someone else. Emily must navigate personal agendas, bitter rivalries, and astonishing revelations to find the real killer.

Eternal Rest Bed and Breakfast seems quiet after Emily Buchanan sends the resident ghosts on a mission to find her late husband’s spirit. When she begins hearing strange noises, Emily doesn’t think it can be paranormal. After all, there are no ghosts left in the Victorian mansion. Right? But Emily realizes she bought more than a mirror, when she finds herself face-to-face with a ghost trapped inside it. The ghost’s story leads Emily to a historic mansion, wreathed in mystery for years. And someone among the living desperately wants them to give up the search for clues.

Trying to stop an enemy that always seems to be one step ahead of her is a challenging enough task without having to contend with the ghosts of her past, but with the clock ticking down until Halloween night, Maura is willing to seek anyone’s help to stop Mina Devlin from enacting her revenge against Hawkwood Hollow for thwarting her plans.

When one of the artists at the Oak Hill Arts Festival is found dead in his booth, he begins haunting photographs that might hold clues about his murder. Unfortunately, the clues all seem to point to Eternal Rest Bed and Breakfast. Is the artist trying to pin the blame on one of Emily’s guests, or does he want to communicate with the ghosts there? Sage can’t even sense the artist’s spirit, so it’s Emily who must find a way to communicate with it.

Ghost hunter Verity Long is overdue for a little R&R (rest and romance) with her boyfriend, Ellis, and a vintage train trip through the Tennessee mountains seems like just the ticket. The Sugarland Express carries history and nostalgia in every compartment, and Verity is determined to enjoy it - without ghostly interference. But the ghosts have other plans… On a dark, desolate night nearly a century ago, the train was stranded in the mountains, and a young woman was found stabbed to death in her locked compartment.

At long last, all of Bridget Sway's dreams are about to come true! She is in a department store. Shopping. Yes. Shopping! She has new makeup. New shoes. And, most importantly, is finally about to get some new underwear. But, instead of finding a frilly knicker and bra set, she finds the body of a dead medium. A familiar dead medium.

M.J., Heath, and Gilley are back home in Boston, where their new film is sure to be a monster hit! To promote the film, the studio is sponsoring a special exhibit of supernatural artifacts at a local museum. Unfortunately, Gilley - whose mind is engaged with wedding plans - gets talked into donating to the exhibit the very dagger that keeps the dangerous ghost Oruç and his pet demon locked down in the lower realms. Before M.J. can recover the bewitched blade, there's a murder and a heist at the museum.

Psychic M.J. Holliday finds herself in a witchy situation. When M.J. and her friends travel to a small town near Edinburgh, Scotland, to film the first installment of their new cable TV show Ghoul Getters, they find plenty of spooky action in a series of supposedly haunted caverns. But when they discover the body of a maintenance worker, the cause of death is reminiscent of an old legend involving a witch's wrath.

Bridget's afterlife has finally settled down into a nice, safe, dead-body-free rhythm. And she couldn't be more discontent. And then someone starts murdering livies...with a scythe. Feeling partially responsible, Bridget jumps into the investigation with both feet, her best friend, Sabrina, and all of her housemates in tow. But, as crazy as it sounds, finding a killer isn't Bridget's biggest concern. Her biggest concern is how will she be able to survive the mundanity of the afterlife once the investigation is over.

While on a transatlantic hunt for some authentic wares to sell at her shop, Peggy is looking to forget her troubles by digging through the hidden treasures of the Scottish Highlands. With so many enchanting items on sale, Peggy can't resist buying a beautiful, old tartan shawl. But once she wraps it around her shoulders, she discovers that her purchase comes with a hidden fee: the specter of a 14th-century Scotsman.

Verity Long doesn't want to see ghosts, and she'd rather not let anyone know her little secret, either. But when a restless spirit stirs up trouble in her friend's resale shop, Verity and her very new, very dead gangster friend team up to learn what is really happening. They discover an age-old secret and must learn the truth behind a mysterious disappearance...before it's too late.

Amateur sleuth, PI in training, ghost whisperer. That’s me. Audrey Fitzgerald, ghost detective. I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I cannot only communicate with ghosts, but animals, too. Well, one in particular, my big gray teddy bear of a cat, Thor. What I haven’t worked out yet is how to keep my newfound abilities a secret from the townsfolk of Firefly Bay. When I’m hired by the president of the local historical society to find a missing necklace, I figured I finally had a case that didn’t require ghostly interference. Things turn complicated real fast.

For all its merriment, Christmas can also bring melancholy-and in Magic Springs, Idaho, Mia finds that the season has brought her an unhappy ghost who's pulling poltergeist-style pranks to get her attention. When she demands an explanation, the ghost just sends a message: Ask Mary Alice-that is, Mia's beloved Grans, who's been training her to develop her witchy talents. If anyone can figure this out, it's Grans . . . even if she still hasn't managed to free Mia's cat from a previous spell that she cast.

Sarah Kelling and her husband, Max Bittersohn, have made names for themselves tracking down stolen paintings, sculptures, and, when necessary, the occasional murderer. But this is the first time they have been asked to find a missing Rolls Royce. When Bill Billingsgate's prize 1927 New Phantom disappears, they head for his estate on the Massachusetts coast, arriving - to their horror - just in time for Billingsgate's annual Renaissance fair.

Divorced mother Chantilly Adair didn’t take the job as the head of the Castleberry Georgia Historical Society because she thought it would be easy, in fact, she felt the exact opposite, and that suited her just fine. Desperate to get away from Birmingham and her ex-husband, she took her pre-teen son and high-tailed it straight to her childhood home in Castleberry, Georgia, and the echoes of her recently deceased parents.

San Francisco millionaire Andrew Stirling wants to sell his Victorian mansion, but ghostly music, the squeaking of a long-disappeared weathervane, and an angry ghost keep running off potential buyers. After a famous psychic is called in, she informs the Stirlings that their multimillion-dollar renovations to "update" the home have left its resident ghost extremely agitated. So contractor Mel Turner is engaged to track down and replace some of the original features of the house.

Southern girl Verity Long is about as high society as her pet skunk. Which is why she’s surprised as anyone when the new head of the Sugarland social set invites her to join the "it" girls. But this is no social call. Verity’s new client needs her to go in undercover and investigate strange happenings at the group’s historic headquarters. But while spirits are whispering hints of murder, the socialites are more focused on Verity’s 1978, avocado-green Cadillac. And when Verity stumbles upon a fresh body, she's going to need the long-dead citizens of Sugarland to help her solve the crime.

In book 17 of the series, Tess and Tony are asked to chair the annual Halloween event, which once again, will feature a televised therapy session conducted by paranormal psychologists Tim Rivers and Tom Masters. While participating in a ghost therapy session is always a hoot, Tess is feeling overwhelmed and distracted this year with all the changes in her life and she wonders if she'll be able to handle everything that is coming down the pike as efficiently as she hoped she would.