10 MM Ghost Romance Books, From Cosy Hauntings to Actual Horror

You have already been through my vampires and my werewolves, and you want more paranormal. Something spookier. I got you.

Here are my favourite MM ghost romance books: haunted houses, men who see the dead and have learned not to say so out loud, and two or three books that are properly creepy. A couple of them are cosy, a couple of them really are not.

I am French and I blog about MM romance in French first, so if a sentence lands slightly sideways, now you know why.

What Book for Your Mood, and What You’re Looking For

If you already know what you want out of this, start here.

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You want a murder solved by the victim

Dead Serious · Ghostly Awakening

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You want gothic and genuinely unsettling

The Haunting of William Thorn · A Light Amongst Shadows

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You want a case and an ex you never got over

P.S. I Spook You · Stumptown Spirits

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You want something tender about being haunted

The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy · The Haunting Between Us

The Ones Who See Ghosts

Seeing the dead is a terrible thing to put on a CV. In three of these books it costs the hero his credibility and gets him a murder case anyway, because a victim who can tell you what happened is a witness nobody else has. In the fourth it costs him a normal life, full stop. What they share is a man who has spent years being careful about who he tells.

P.S. I Spook You

The Spectral Files #1 · S.E. Harmon

P.S. I Spook You by S.E. Harmon, The Spectral Files book 1, MM ghost romance book cover
Second Chance Cold Case Exes to Lovers Humour Sees Ghosts

Rain Christiansen was the FBI’s golden boy until he admitted where his profiling insights actually came from. Now he is the embarrassment his boss is trying to park somewhere quiet, which is how he ends up in Brickell Bay on a five year old missing person case. The detective running it is Danny McKenna, who happens to be his ex. Rain would like to solve the disappearance of Amy Greene, keep the ghosts to himself and not fall back in love with the man he never really stopped loving, and he manages roughly one of those three.

First of the Spectral Files.

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More in The Spectral Files

Rain and Danny carry on across the whole series, so this one is the door in.

Principles of Spookology by S.E. Harmon, The Spectral Files book 2, MM ghost romance book cover Spooky Business by S.E. Harmon, The Spectral Files book 3, MM ghost romance book cover The Spooky Life by S.E. Harmon, The Spectral Files book 4, MM ghost romance book cover A Spooky Legacy by S.E. Harmon, The Spectral Files book 5, MM ghost romance book cover

Dead Serious: Miz Dusty Le Frey

Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed #1 · Vawn Cassidy

Dead Serious Case 1 Miz Dusty Le Frey by Vawn Cassidy, MM ghost mystery book cover
Murder Mystery Humour Slow Burn Opposites Attract London

Tristan Everett is a pathologist at a Hackney mortuary, which is a job that suits a man who prefers his colleagues quiet. A freak accident involving an ice cube leaves him able to see the dead, and the first one to take advantage of it is Miz Dusty Le Frey, London’s most famous drag queen, who arrives with a toe tag and absolutely no intention of resting until her murder is solved. Tristan gets sequins, false eyelashes, a killer who would like him dead too, and a crush on the Scotland Yard inspector assigned to the case.

First of Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed, and the same universe as The Haunted Hotel further down.

More in Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed

A new case and a new departed client each time, with the same pathologist.

Dead Serious Case 2 Mrs Delores Abernathy by Vawn Cassidy, MM ghost mystery book cover Dead Serious Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes by Vawn Cassidy, MM ghost mystery book cover Dead Serious Case 4 Professor Prometheus Plume by Vawn Cassidy, MM ghost mystery book cover Dead Serious Case 5 Madame Vivienne by Vawn Cassidy, MM ghost mystery book cover Dead Serious Halloween Special by Vawn Cassidy, MM ghost mystery book cover

Ghostly Awakening

Ghostly #1 · E.M. Leya

Ghostly Awakening by E.M. Leya, Ghostly book 1, MM ghost romance book cover
Murder Mystery Slow Burn Hurt/Comfort Sees Ghosts Detective

Lance is an assistant medical examiner, so strange is his baseline, but the dead starting to talk back is a new one and he is fairly sure it means he is losing his grip. Angus grew up with a mother who speaks to the dead, recognises exactly what is happening when he catches Lance arguing with thin air, and steps in before the man convinces himself he belongs in a hospital. Several women have been murdered in the area, and the victims turn out to be very willing to help.

First of the Ghostly series.

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More in the Ghostly series

Same pair, a new case each time, plus a Christmas one.

Ghostly Findings by E.M. Leya, Ghostly book 2, MM ghost romance book cover Ghostly Envy by E.M. Leya, Ghostly book 3, MM ghost romance book cover Ghostly Claus by E.M. Leya, Ghostly series Christmas story, MM ghost romance book cover

The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy

Roan Parrish

The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish, MM ghost romance book cover
Slow Burn Trans MC Mental Health Hurt/Comfort New Orleans

Edgar has been seeing ghosts since he was a child and has built his entire adult life around avoiding them, which mostly means avoiding everywhere and everyone. Jamie builds haunted houses for a living on the New Orleans spooky circuit, where nobody believes in any of it. They flirt with Edgar on one of his rare nights out, he says yes, and their first date is interrupted by a dead person only he can see. Most of the book is about what it costs Edgar to explain himself to somebody.

Standalone. Jamie is transmasc and uses they/them.

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When the House Is the Problem

Somebody inherits an old house or moves into one, and the place turns out to have been occupied for a long time already. These three are the friendliest books on the list. The dead here rearrange the furniture, hide the linens and take a personal interest in who is sleeping with whom, which is a very different job description from the murder cases above.

My Inherited House Might Be Haunted

AJ Sherwood

My Inherited House Might Be Haunted by AJ Sherwood, cosy MM ghost romance book cover
Cosy Low Angst Insta Love Found Family Magic

Rhett knew the Victorian house was coming to him. Nobody mentioned the two familiars, the magic he apparently has, or the fact that the place is full of dead people who have made themselves comfortable. He would also like a boyfriend, please, if the universe is taking requests. There is a cat, a puppy, and zero angst.

Started life as a serial on the author’s Patreon, then got expanded. HEA, and about as gentle as a haunted house gets.

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The Haunted Hotel

Crawshanks Guide to Mischievous Spectres & Spirits #1 · Vawn Cassidy

The Haunted Hotel by Vawn Cassidy, Crawshanks book 1, cosy MM ghost romance book cover
Cosy Found Family Humour Small Town Yorkshire

Morgan Ashton-Drake has not thought about the family pile in Yorkshire for decades, and a suspicious death and a very public scandal drag him back to England anyway. Running his eccentric grandfather’s hotel, more or less single-handedly, is Ellis Sparks, who started there at sixteen and loves the place with his whole chest. The staff are a found family, several of them have been dead for a while, and the ghosts decide these two belong together. Their methods involve moving furniture, hiding clothes and switching the numbers on the bedroom doors.

First of Crawshanks Guide to Mischievous Spectres & Spirits, same world as Dead Serious above.

More in Crawshanks Guide to Mischievous Spectres & Spirits

The story carries on at the Manor House Hotel.

The Haunted Hotel 2 The Legend of Lovers Hollow by Vawn Cassidy, MM ghost romance book cover

The Haunting Between Us

Paul Michael Winters

The Haunting Between Us by Paul Michael Winters, YA MM ghost romance book cover
Young Adult Coming of Age First Love Haunted House Bullying

Cameron has spent his whole life avoiding the Victorian mansion across the road, where the White Lady is said to walk. Then he sees her through the bay window, his ghost-hunting friend Abby decides they are absolutely investigating, and the new owners pull up with a son Cameron cannot stop looking at. Years of being bullied have left him convinced he is not worth the risk.

Young adult, the narrator is sixteen, so it reads younger than the rest of this list. Pitched as Heartstopper meets The Haunting of Hill House.

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Ghosts With Unfinished Business

Here the dead want something, and getting it is the plot. A spirit that will not let a man grieve in peace, a school that has been swallowing boys for years, a friend trapped on the wrong side of a century-old fight.

The Haunting of William Thorn

Ben Alderson

The Haunting of William Thorn by Ben Alderson, gothic MM ghost romance book cover
Gothic Grief Dual Timeline Forbidden Love Dark

William throws his boyfriend out after finding him in bed with somebody else, and Archie dies in a car accident the same night. The guilt is still fresh when William learns he has inherited Hanbury Manor, the Cotswolds house that has been in Archie’s family for generations. The place is falling apart, the village wants him gone, and something inside the manor is working hard to hurry him along. What he finds in the diaries and in the writing on the walls is two men who loved each other in the 1920s and paid for it.

Content warnings: grief, infidelity, a death in the opening chapters.
Standalone, told across two timelines.

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A Light Amongst Shadows

Dark Is the Night #1 · Kelley York & Rowan Altwood

A Light Amongst Shadows by Kelley York and Rowan Altwood, gothic MM ghost romance book cover
Gothic Victorian Boarding School Slow Burn Horror

James Spencer is not the troubled boy Whisperwood School was built to correct, and he thrives there anyway: friends, writing, and love poems he would quite like to slip to William Esher. William is aloof, rumoured to be a great many things, and one night he comes in shaking and talking about ghosts. James believes him, because he has heard the nails dragging down his own door and the crying in the corridors. The staff punish anyone who raises it, and boys keep disappearing.

Content warnings: self-harm, opium use, institutional abuse.
First of Dark Is the Night. Victorian gothic, and the horror is real horror.

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More in Dark Is the Night

James and William keep going, and the series stays in the same gothic register.

A Hymn in the Silence by Kelley York and Rowan Altwood, Dark Is the Night book 2, gothic MM book cover The Wrath of Wolves by Kelley York and Rowan Altwood, Dark Is the Night book 3, gothic MM book cover

Stumptown Spirits

Legend Tripping #1 · E.J. Russell

Stumptown Spirits by E.J. Russell, Legend Tripping book 1, MM ghost romance book cover
Second Chance Suspense Guilt Ghost Hunting Portland

Seven years ago Logan and his roommate walked into the middle of a war between ghosts. Logan walked out. Trent did not, and Logan has spent every year since looking for a way back in. Riley, who was left behind without an explanation, dropped out and now works on a mediocre paranormal TV show that arrives in Portland to film a local legend. He finds Logan pouring drinks in a bar, works out what he is planning, and the two of them end up tangled in something that started by the river a hundred and fifty years ago.

First of Legend Tripping.

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More in Legend Tripping

A different couple and a different legend in book two.

Wolf's Clothing by E.J. Russell, Legend Tripping book 2, MM paranormal romance book cover
Danmei book covers Ghosts, but for five volumes Chinese MM does unfinished business better than anyone, and it takes its time. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation opens on a corpse and does not let go.

My Top 3 MM Ghost Books

Three very different books, and the only thing they have in common is that I would hand any of them to someone who has never read a ghost romance.

1

A Light Amongst Shadows · Kelley York & Rowan Altwood

The one that genuinely frightened me. A Victorian boarding school where boys keep disappearing and the staff punish anyone who says so out loud, and a romance that takes its time in the middle of it.

2

Dead Serious · Vawn Cassidy

A murdered drag queen who has no intention of resting until somebody solves her case, and a pathologist who never asked for any of this. Very funny, and the mystery underneath holds up.

3

P.S. I Spook You · S.E. Harmon

Rain and Danny. An ex he never got over, a cold case nobody else can crack, and a gift that cost him his career. The four books that follow are worth it too.

New for Halloween 2026

One I am waiting for rather than recommending, since I have not read it yet. ExorSquad is a multi-author paranormal MM series: eight books, eight authors, one every Thursday from 3 September to 22 October. TJ Rose opened it with Love at First Fright, and A. M. Rose closes it with Squad Ghouls on the twenty second.

Ghosts, a murder podcast, a haunted cat and a title I refuse to apologise for enjoying. In release order:

Ghosts are only one shelf of the season. The rest of what I am reading in October, witches, monsters and a couple of properly scary ones, is in my MM Halloween books.

Love at First Fright by TJ Rose, ExorSquad book 1, MM paranormal romance book cover Dead Vengeance by W.H. Lockwood, ExorSquad, MM paranormal romance book cover Unalive On Air by Jemma Croft, ExorSquad, MM paranormal mystery romcom book cover Purrfectly Haunted by Mell R. Bright, ExorSquad, MM paranormal romance book cover Hot Ghost Summer by Sam Northman, ExorSquad, MM paranormal romance book cover How I Met Your Murderer by Sarah Glenn Marsh, ExorSquad, MM paranormal romcom book cover Shake Your Boo Thang by Chloe Archer, ExorSquad, MM paranormal romance book cover Squad Ghouls by A. M. Rose, ExorSquad, MM paranormal romance book cover

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MM Ghost Romance Books: Frequently Asked Questions

Which one should I start with?

For something light, My Inherited House Might Be Haunted or The Haunted Hotel. For a case with jokes in it, Dead Serious. And if you want the one that will actually keep you up, A Light Amongst Shadows.

Are any of them properly scary?

Two. A Light Amongst Shadows is Victorian gothic horror, with a school that is not protecting anybody, and The Haunting of William Thorn has a spirit that means harm. The rest sit between cosy and mildly spooky.

Do I need to read the series in order?

Every book here opens its own series or stands alone, so you can start anywhere on this page. Two of them share a world: Dead Serious and The Haunted Hotel are both Vawn Cassidy’s Crawshanks books, and reading them in publication order is the easiest way in.

Are these good Halloween reads?

The haunted house ones especially. A house with a history, a village that will not talk and a man who refuses to leave is the whole month of October in one book. The gothic pair works too, if you like being frightened on purpose.

Before You Go

I hope you found something for you in there. There is a bit of everything on this list, from the very gentle to the properly frightening, and ghosts are my favourite supernatural creature after vampires.

If you have a favourite I have missed, tell me. I will read it.

Where to start with MM romance, a beginner guide

New to the genre? Start with the map.

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