This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
I'm not talking about ghost writers here, but proper spooky ghosts. Those that haunt and make your spine tingle or those that are harmless but have unfinished business or just cannot and will not leave their loved ones behind.
1. Heaven Can Wait by Cally Taylor – It is the eve of Lucy's wedding, when she breaks her neck and dies. When she wakes up she finds she's in limbo and has to decide whether to go to heaven, which is where her parents are, or return back to earth as a ghost to be near her husband-to-be, Dan.
2. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella – Lara's great aunt Sadie has returned to earth as a ghost to find out what has happened to her missing necklace. And she thinks Lara can help her. Despite Lara's own life being problematic, she spends time with this Charleston dancing ghost and they start to learn from each other.
3. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters – Dr Faraday is called to a patient at the lonely and declining Hundreds Hall. It has been in the Ayres family for years and now it is a mother and her grown up children, a son and a daughter, who reside there. Narrated by this country doctor, sinister happenings begin at the hall.
4. The Angel at No. 33 by Polly Williams – Sophie, a wife and a mother, dies unexpectedly leaving behind a distraught husband. But Sophie doesn't feel dead and she isn't moving on until she helps her husband find love again.
5. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James – Written in 1898 this is a sinister ghost story about a nanny and the two children she looks after.
6. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill – A book, a play, a TV movie and now a Hollywood movie, The Woman in Black is about Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, who is summoned to the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow. Whilst sorting out the papers of the deceased at her house he hears terrifying noises and unexplained events. And of course, there's the woman dressed in black.
7. The Silent Touch of Shadows by Christina Courtenay – This novel is a haunting love story set in the present and 15th century Kent. When Melissa moves into Ashleigh Manor in Kent she begins to get vivid dreams and visions.
8. My So-Called Afterlife by Tamsyn Murray – A story for teenagers. Lucy Shaw is dead and haunting the men's toilets in Carnaby Street. She's trapped in these toilets until an engineer called Jeremy walks in. And soon her (after) life begins to change.
9. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger – Elspeth dies, leaving her London flat to her twin nieces. Only she hasn't left the flat yet and is still around. A twenty first century ghost story.
10. I'm a Believer by Jessica Adams – Mark Buckle is very cynical and absolutely does not believe in life after death. Until his girlfriend, Catherine, dies in a car accident and she starts communicating with him.