The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff (2006)

My bar for horror novels is pretty low.  But I can't resist a good ghost story/haunted house novel, so when this crossed by desk, I gave it a try.

Five students are left alone in their college dorm over the holidays, they get in touch with some scary spirits, and mysterious and spooky things begin to occur.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. Sokoloff created rich and complex characters, and I like that the backstory and mythology was quite in-depth.  I have the attention span of a distracted gnat, but even after reading it six months ago, I can still picture some of the characters and settings.  

Must check out more of her work!  Yay, excellent horror novels by female authors!

An Inquiry into Love and Death by Simone St. James (2013)

This is the second of St. James's books that I've read and although this felt like a slower starter, it was ultimately just as satisfying as The Haunting of Maddy Clare. 

Like The Haunting of Maddy Clare, this novel is set in England after WWI. Jillian Leigh gets notification that her eccentric uncle has died and she has to go to the village where he was working as a ghost hunter to go through his things. 

Meanwhile, there's a ghost to catch and her uncle's murder to solve, and a handsome but unreliable Scotland Yard inspector to help out. St. James's novels are dark and melancholy and romantic and give a lovely feel of the time after WWI. And the ghost stories really are scary. All so good!

The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James (2012)

This is a lovely ghost story/love story/historical novel.

Sarah Piper is a lonely soul, working in London in the years after the first World War when she gets an unexpected assignment from her temporary agency--to assist an author and ghost hunter. They travel to a small village to track down the ghost of Maddy Clare and both love and mystery ensues.

The haunting itself is quite dark and violent and she writes quite unsparingly about the emotionally turbulent years after the war.  The story is excellent and the romance is lovely. Fun fact for Downton Abbey fans: the ghost hunter Alastair is a dead ringer for Matthew Crawley and if you squint a bit, his assistant Matthew could be mistaken for a slightly more broken Mr. Bates.

Quite lovely.

Secondhand Spirits by Juliet Blackwell (2009)

Subtitled: A Witchcraft Mystery, this is a charming light mystery about a woman with some witchy powers who runs a vintage clothing store in San Francisco. I loved the mysterious back story of the main character (it's so refreshing when an author doesn't give you all the information right away). It also features handsome romantic interests, evocative San Francisco setting, and a really serious treatment of the seriousness of magic that you don't see in your usual paranormal novel. An unexpected treat.