There's a webtoon called 'Shriek' that's all about a paranormal investigation team in a world where ghostly appearances are common. The protagonist joins a company that handles hauntings, and each episode is a new case. The investigations follow a clear pattern: assess the haunting, research its history, identify the type of ghost and its attachment, and resolve it. It's very procedural but with great character moments and some genuinely creepy ghost designs. The ongoing mystery about the protagonist's own past and the larger lore of the world keeps you hooked beyond the case-of-the-week format.
T. Kingfisher's 'The Hollow Places' is a fantastic blend of investigation and sheer terror. The protagonist discovers a hole in the wall of her uncle's weird museum that leads to a nightmarish otherworld filled with unnatural landscapes and silent, malevolent creatures. A huge part of the book is her and a friend trying to investigate this place: mapping it, testing its rules, and trying to understand its logic to survive and find a way home. It's an investigation into an alien and horrifying ecology, driven by desperation and curiosity. The creeping dread of discovery is palpable.
Cassandra Khaw's 'The All-Consuming World' is a wild, genre-bending sci-fi that has a fascinating take on 'ghosts'. It features digitized consciousnesses (ghosts in the machine) and a crew of former criminals investigating a mystery on a planet that has devoured their former member. The investigation is into a planetary-scale AI and the echoes of the past. While not traditional ghosts, the themes of lingering consciousness, haunting data, and investigating past traumas scratch a similar itch in a completely futuristic setting. It's chaotic, profane, and beautifully written.
A slightly different take: 'The September House' by Carissa Orlando. A woman decides to just... live with the extremely violent ghosts that haunt her house every September. But when her husband disappears into the haunting, her daughter comes to investigate his disappearance. The daughter's perspective becomes the investigative lens, trying to piece together what's real, what her mother is hiding, and the rules of this specific haunting. It's a mystery wrapped in a domestic drama wrapped in a horror novel. The investigation is personal and claustrophobic, unraveling the secrets of both the house and the family.
2026-07-20 23:22:04
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The romance, thrills, and chills in VICKIE: Doctor by day. Ghost Whisperer by night continue to entertain you from beginning to end.
Meet Esmerelda Sleuth. Sleuth is her name and investigating is her game. (Paranormal Investigating, that is.)
Esmerelda makes a good living as an investigator in a rather progressive firm. She lives a stable and sensible life until she meets Lance; an old money "hottie" who works for a real estate firm next to her building. After accepting an invitation for a weekend getaway party, she quickly discovers that Lance has a secret. He is wealthy. That part is true. And, yes, he's procured a job as a realtor in the building next door. His secret is that he belongs to an underground society of humans who didn't abandon their connection to magic centuries ago when religion declared it evil and he has traveled through time specifically to find her and bring her back to his time to marry him. If that isn't enough of a far fetched tale to absorb, he informs her that she was born in his time to a family belonging to that same secret society and was promised in marriage to him as an infant. When enemies who didn't want to see the union of families take place made attempts on her life, her parents sent her into the future and erased her memories of them as a precaution.
Possessing virtually no belief in magic, ghosts, psychics, time travel, etc., it takes some doing on Lance's part to convince her to believe his story and go back with him. When she does, the lies, deceit and attempts on her life start all over again. Will she escape emotionally and physically unscathed?
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Ben has just bought his first house. It's a bit of a fixer-upper. When strange things start happening, he assumes it's the quirkiness of an old house. Because ghosts don't exist, right?
The phone had fallen and disassembled and the call, disconnected.
"Who, who, who are you?" She became a heavy stutterer in an instant.
The man who stood at the door to the kitchen walked forward and the light illuminated his features.
He was lean and tall, very tall. Dressed in a white long sleeved shirt and dark suit pants, the few exposed parts of his body were ashen, lifeless and cold, like a bleak winter day.
"Marry me." These were the two words that came from the deathly pale lips of his emotionless face...
**********
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WHAT STARTED OUT AS A LOVE STORY, SOON BECAME A HORROR STORY!
When nineteenth century Montana rancher, Ian Murray, discovers a naked and bloodied woman on his newly acquired property and takes her home to tend to her, he had no idea what would follow. Nor did he know that his property once had a settlement called Muddy Creek, but it and its residents were destroyed by marauding outlaws and its remains never tended to by anyone afterwards. Finding the settler's bones strewn all around the burned buildings, he ordered his men to clearing things up, But, he had one little problem. Not only was the place was haunted by the angry spirits of the poor settlers, but the woman he'd rescued was possessed by a succubus who was after his soul. With Ian caught in a web of evil ghostly lure, his men seek the help of a Blackfoot medicine man, but did they call on him in time to save their boss from a fate worse than death?
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