The Other Mother by Carol Goodman (2018)

Interesting but strange novel that I found while researching novels inspired by Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. 

Two women meet in a post-partum support group and form a tight friendship.

Twisty, interesting, much mystery and a mental hospital. Complex and engaging.

The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller (2019)

A scandalous widow in the 19th century buys a house in order to redecorate it and write a book about the process. By the way, the house is haunted and a very sweet scientist with a loving family wants to experiment and solve the mystery. 

BTW, Professor Samuel Moore is the most dreamiest book boyfriend ever. He's a ray of light and my dream date.

I flat out LOVED this book. Diana Biller is definitely on my authors to follow list.

See also the novels of Simone St. James for this blend of spookiness and romance.

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James (2018)

Adore Simone St. James, and this book is wonderful. 

Going back and forth in time between a girl's boarding school in the 50s and the ruins of the school in contemporary times, with a few mysteries involved, this is a lovely, involving novel. 

I love Simone for her excellent characters, relationships, sense of time and place and for not wussing out on the supernatural. She brings it! Love her.

The Uninvited by Cat Winters (2015)

This historical novel is set during WWI and the influenza epidemic. Ivy recently recovered from a bout of the flu, and is finding the world has changed radically since she took to her bed. Not only is she dealing with the loss of family members, she still has her lifelong ability to see ghosts.

She struggles with the overzealous American Protection League and her feelings for a German living in her town while taking on the job of driving a Red Cross ambulance. And did I mention she see ghosts? So very lovely and romantic.

See also the romantic ghost stories of Simone St. James.

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.

The Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale (2012)

Prepare for massive gushing ahead ...

First, the plot summary:

Trying to escape her worthless life leads to unexpected and disastrous consequences when Sue Ellen steals money and a raft and embarks on a journey to dig up her best friend's body, burn it, and sprinkle the ashes in Hollywood.

You can see how this is not an easy sell plotwise, but let me tell you that I loved this book. LOVED it. LOVE Joe R. Lansdale.

His writing about East Texas (see also The Bottoms), so evocative and filled with dark insight about the area always reminds me of Harper Lee. His writing about Texas is incredibly vivid and almost affectionate (despite the darkness of the events that occur.)

He writes amazingly realistic but unusual characters and the dialogue is perfect--I'd love to see him write a play. The characters in this book--Sue Ellen, her friends Terry and Jinx and her alcoholic mother-- are as vivid to me now as when I read the book months ago--I loved spending time with them and the very dark journey that they are on.

Their trip down the river reminded me so much of the river trip that the children take in Night of the Hunter. It's as if that trippy, black and white journey was transformed into an entire book, in full color with fully fleshed out characters, and it sustains that eerie, unsettling atmosphere through the whole book.

Trust me on this one--it's MARVELOUS.