Paranormal - Ghosts & Haunted Houses Genre

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Summary: Alan I haven't been out with a guy in the last two years. Partly because I'm a gay elementary-school teacher in a fairly small, conservative town. Partly because I'm a sorcerer, and dating ordinary humans only leads to trouble. Sleeping with one though? That's doable, so when my birdbrained familiar Sunny lines up a tall, muscular firefighter for me, I'm not going to say no. Just once, though. Maybe twice. I don't need more trouble in my life. Jason I don't regret moving back to my hometown and my big family. Well, not much. I'm not out to them, and I miss the anonymity of the big city, but I like the local fire house and the slower-paced life. Still, when I see my niece's teacher, Mr. Hiranchai, in gray sweatpants talking to a mini-parrot on his shoulder, something inside me (or maybe something in front of me) perks up and says "I want that one." I can't have an actual boyfriend, but I sure wouldn't mind getting laid, and Alan's slim, dark-haired, smart-assed style rings all my bells. It's no surprise we turn out to be great together, even if my job and his responsibilities make it hard to find time. It is a surprise when I realize I want more than just an occasional night. But some weird fires out in the brush keep us firefighters hopping, and when this strange carnival comes to town and lands me with a pair of magical doll shoes, life gets truly confusing. There's more to Alan than he's telling me, and I'm getting a bad, bad feeling about all this. Magic Burning is a story in the Necromancer universe, 60 years after Marked by Death, and is part of the multi-author Carnival of Mysteries Series. Each book stands alone, but each one includes at least one visit to Errante Ame’s Carnival of Mysteries, a magical, multiverse traveling show full of unusual acts, games, and rides. The Carnival changes to suit the world it’s on, so each visit is unique and special. This book contains a snarky, matchmaking bird, a lonely young teacher, and a gay firefighter finally coming out to his large family.

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Summary: My name is Ben, and I died last year. Almost. I’d hoped I would wake up from my near-death experience as a medium just in time for high school. Turns out it just wrecked my legs. No medium talent, either. I’m something else. A summoner. Join Ben as he finds his feet at the Academy and learns what it takes to be a summoner in this complete 9-book series boxed set! --- I know next to nothing about my talent besides it involves portals and pledge bonds. It’s okay, they teach it at school. Sounds perfect, right? Wrong. Mateo, the other summoner in my class, hates me. The class clairvoyant thinks destiny has got it out for me, too. Makes sense. As if I don’t already feel like a square peg, getting around on crutches, my portals break stuff and go to the wrong realm. It’s a good thing I’ve got help from my family, friends, and a celestial called Arie. It takes constant rehab just to keep my busted body working. But how do I fix my broken talent?

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Summary: When college student Muriel Aubrey inherits an old house in a small town, she imagines that moving into the rural community will be deathly dull. But the old house once belonged to her eccentric granduncle, a professor said to be researching something mysterious before his untimely death. Then Muriel finds the research notes that had been hidden away in the old Victorian; and she discovers what the professor was researching: vampires. It isn’t long before Muriel meets residents of the small town who knew the professor almost a century ago, and learns that everything he wrote in the notes he kept is true...And then she finds herself stalked by a vampire hunter.

Word Count: Click here to reveal103000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: First I was a sorcerer. Then I was a hermit. For so long—for years that seemed to go on forever—I couldn't bear to be touched. I put up not just walls but whole stone bunkers to keep everyone out, emotionally, and physically as well. I was protected from people, from ghosts, from specters real and imagined. Sure, I was alone. But I felt safe. Only, after a while, I wasn't sure any longer whether a totally "safe" empty life was really worth living. Then Tobin came along. Out of the blue, out of my past, with a summons from the king that he wouldn't let me ignore. I tried to cling to my isolation, but he wouldn't give up on me. Tobin never believed in walls. This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love Has No Boundaries" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story. 103,000 words

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Summary: A magical bookshop holds the keys. When Mason Chynoweth inherits an old house in small-town New Zealand, he hopes to discover what happened to his great-great uncle Lewis after he returned from the war in 1945. Mason’s first encounter with the property is thankfully reassuring—his sensitive psychic powers aren’t triggered and he has a calm sense of coming home. Elijah Whitaker arrives in Kedgetown for an extended visit with his aunts. He’s quickly drawn to Mason and offers to help him try to find some answers in the dusty old house. It soon becomes clear that Mason is keeping secrets, but Elijah has a few secrets of his own. Like his closely guarded knowledge of the hidden supernatural world, and the fact that many of the townspeople are psi and supernaturals. What is the connection between the house and Postscript, the town’s enigmatic bookshop? Mason’s glimpses of the past give some clues, but not enough to make sense of the puzzle. When a hidden journal comes to light, the true story of Lewis’s journey is revealed, and his path and Mason and Elijah’s begin to intertwine.

Word Count: Click here to reveal77920 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Some ghosts aren't meant to stay buried. Fourteen years after her best friend's murder, Joss Evans is tormented by unanswered questions, until a mysterious encounter brings her face-to-face with Elena Lewis, a woman who knows far more about that fateful night than she should. But Elena's secrets come with their own dangers. As unexplained supernatural events begin to unfold around them, the two women find themselves drawn together by forces beyond their control. The tension between them grows with each new discovery. Realizing they can’t combat these forces on their own, Joss and Elena enlist help from the Hypatia Coven. They work together to confront the danger lurking at every turn. With the past and present colliding, Joss and Elena must decide what's more dangerous: the ghosts they're chasing or the desire threatening to consume them both. Some truths are worth any risk—even if they frighten both the living and the dead.

Word Count: Click here to reveal38000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: RISE (noun / verb) Eight definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) An upward slope or movement 2) A beginning or origin 3) An increase in amount or number 4) An angry reaction 5) To take up arms 6) To return from death 7) To become heartened or elated 8) To exert oneself to meet a challenge Rise features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

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Summary: Sometimes, we get second chances -- at love, to make things right, to say good-bye the way it should have been said. Darian promised his dying husband Randy he would go through with the plan to teach summer school in Bath, England. Randy insisted; it was always Darian’s dream to live in England, go, do it. But once there, in Tintagel, on a street in Coverack, a small Cornish seaside village, Darian sees Randy. Grief can make us see things, right? So Darian tells himself, until the man whom he buried, whose ashes he carried with him to England, sits down beside him on a bench in front of Bath Abbey, with screaming seagulls nearby. It seems the dead can come back. But why and how? Has Randy come to take Darian with him? Or is something else going?

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Summary: To be soulmates they first have to survive. A serial killer stalks the streets of Boggslake, Ohio. The victims are always found in pairs, one human and one vampire. Simon Hawthorne has been a vampire for nearly a hundred years, and he has never seen anything like it. Neither have the other supernaturals he works with to keep the streets safe for both their kind and the humans. One meeting with Simon finds Ben Leyton falling for a man he knows is keeping secrets, but he can't ignore the growing attraction between them. A recent arrival in Boggslake, Ben finds it very different from his native New Zealand, but something about Simon makes Ben feel as though he's found a new home. After a close friend falls victim to the killer, Simon is torn between revealing his true nature to Ben, and walking away to avoid the reaction he fears. But with the body count rising and the murders becoming more frequent, either, or both of them, could be the killer's next target.

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Summary: What price would you pay to rescue a friend from hell? For Logan Conner, the answer is almost anything. Guilt-ridden over trapping his college roommate in a ghost war rooted in Portland’s pioneer past, Logan has spent years searching for a solution. Then his new boyfriend, folklorist Riley Morrel, inadvertently gives him the key. Determined to pay his debt—and keep Riley safe—Logan abandons Riley and returns to Portland, prepared to give up his freedom and his future to make things right. Crushed by Logan’s betrayal, Riley drops out of school and takes a job on a lackluster paranormal investigation show. When the crew arrives in Portland to film an episode about a local legend of feuding ghosts, he stumbles across Logan working at a local bar, and learns the truth about Logan’s plan. Their destinies once more intertwined, the two men attempt to reforge their relationship while dodging a narcissistic TV personality, a craven ex-ghost, and a curmudgeonly bar owner with a hidden agenda. But Logan’s date with destiny is looming, and his life might not be the only one at stake.

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Summary: Two men haunted by more than the past. Painter Stefan Cobbe was homeless and debt-ridden after the death of his wealthy partner, but the worst loss of all was his artistic inspiration. After two years of nothing, he’s offered patronage by an eccentric gallery owner and starts to produce again, canvas after canvas. The only problem? He can’t remember painting any of them—not one single brushstroke. Luke Morganstern’s reputation as an art-fraud investigator is in tatters. He can’t afford to turn down any job, even a lousy one for an anonymous client who sends him after an unidentified forger in a remote cabin in Oregon. When the alleged forger turns out to be Stefan, the man he never stopped loving, Luke’s professional ethics are stretched beyond the breaking point. As the two men take tentative steps toward reconciliation, evidence begins to mount that they’re not alone in the woods. Someone—or something—is watching. Something with sinister plans for them both. To escape, Luke must overcome his suspicions and Stefan must trust Luke with his deepest fears. Otherwise they could forfeit their relationship, their sanity—and their lives. Publisher’s note: Publisher’s note: This is a heavily revised and significantly expanded reprint of Northern Light. The second book in the Art Medium series, Tested In Fire, is a first edition. Both are sold together in both ebook and print collections.

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Summary: Two years ago on a stormy night, in the dead of winter, Mike Teter experienced something that would change his life forever. Mike was a telescope operator at the world renowned Carson Peak Observatory in New Mexico. We won’t tell you what he saw that night on the mountain nor what happened afterward on a dark stretch of highway, because it would haunt you just as it has haunted Mike. But what we will tell you is that Mike is back at Carson Peak. And what he witnessed that night two years ago is about to become a reality…

Word Count: Click here to reveal98000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: The Big Cinch embeds readers in a magic-laced St. Louis, once known as Mound City, home of the indigenous Americans’ Mississippian ancestors. Little evidence of their civilization survives in 1924, apart from the popular Piasa monster image, invoked to sell plows as well as ornament civic pageants. Sean Joye, a recent Irish immigrant, tried to avoid fae attention and ignore his magical abilities since childhood. A young veteran of 1922’s Irish Civil War, he aims to atone for his assassin past and make a clean life in America.  Sean helps a wealthy, powerful, magic-dabbling family—founders of the most exclusive club in town, the Piasa Lodge--with a discreet inquiry or two. Sexually involved with a secretive, high-society flapper, he falls hard for her fiancé, a Great War flying ace with a few secrets of his own. But Sean asks the wrong questions about a kidnapped toddler and missing Native American artifacts and becomes a suspect in his lover’s bludgeoning and a tycoon’s murder. Can he master the paranormal abilities he’s rejected for so long in time to protect the innocent and save his own skin?

Word Count: Click here to reveal77,200 (Click here to hide)

Summary: It’s August of 1850, deep in the bayou country of southern Louisiana. Four good friends are working in the fields harvesting the crops when a sudden thunderstorm drives them all indoors. There’s kind, warm-hearted J. P. Ayo; eager, earnest young T-Joe Lirette; wry, hard-bitten Clovis Dantin; and gentle, easy-going Leandre Naquin. “Hell of a night,” Leandre remarks, as they share a drink and wait for the storm to pass. “The kind of night when the ghosts walk.” This seemingly offhand comment is the impetus to the four men sharing their own ghost story. The tale each man tells--by turns tragic, funny, frightening, and heartbreaking--gives them a window into their friends’ souls. When one of them confesses that his own personal ghost story isn’t over, that he’s still trapped in the middle of it, the events that follow will test the depth of their loyalty and friendship in ways that none of them could ever have dreamed. What is certain is that after that night, none of the four will ever be the same.

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Summary: Every town has a mystery. The Crimshaw family were once the caretakers of the prestigious Strathmore Estate. After the great blizzard of 1868, the townspeople found Elizabeth Crimshaw’s body hanging from the banister. Her young son and husband were declared missing and never found.  Every town has a legend. The locals say they have seen Elizabeth’s ghost and that the manor is haunted. Others claim to have heard a woman’s scream and have witnessed strange lights and shadow people.   Some mysteries are better left unsolved. What really happened to the promising Crimshaw family? Are the rumors surrounding the family true? Intent on investigating these claims, Stephen Davenport, adjunct professor of Paranormal Studies at Strathmore University, along with students from the school’s paranormal investigations club begin a weekend investigation. What they find confirms their beliefs in the paranormal—and challenges them to simply stay alive.

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Summary: In 1915, gay men don't get married, they don't take care of children together, and if they do, they don't get caught. Gael and Jack are a lot of firsts to each other. Gael is the first other gay man Jack has ever met, kissed, or wanted. Jack is the first really decent man who only see an Irish gangster and whore  that Gael has ever known. Gael and Jack just work for each other. First love is fabulous, even if it's forbidden. Enduring love is hard, extra hard in the face of WWII, Prohibition, and a world that can't know them as they are.  The story is presented as a serial and is free to read.

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Summary: It’s been twenty years since the quiet Midwestern town of Lakeview was struck by tragedy.  But every year on the anniversary of the event Teddy returns home for ‘The Reunion’. Lakeview, like Teddy, has secrets and not all mysteries should come to light.

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Summary: What happens when we lose everything that makes us human? === In the final days of 2025, the world learns its fate: a supermassive black hole, thirty-seven times the mass of Sagittarius A, is barreling toward the Milky Way at a tenth the speed of light. As panic and chaos sweep the globe, scientist Dane Currier and his brilliant team at the University of Washington race against extinction. Their only hope lies in Project Courier—a radical teleportation technology that could offer humanity a second chance on a distant exoplanet. But the path to salvation is fraught with peril. Each breakthrough brings new dangers, from grotesque teleportation failures to a mysterious cognitive affliction spreading across the planet. As governments seize control and society unravels, Dane and his allies must risk everything to perfect a system that could save a chosen few—or doom them to a fate worse than oblivion. The Slide by Aaron Ryan is a pulse-pounding blend of hard science, emotional stakes, bittersweet sacrifice, and existential dread. Follow Dane Currier and his team as they race to perfect a radical teleportation technology, risking everything to escape extinction. With grotesque teleportation failures, a mysterious cognitive affliction, and society unraveling, every page is a fight for survival—and for what it means to be human. === From the creator of the bestselling and award-winning Dissonance alien invasion saga, the Christian dystopian saga THE END, and the 9/11 historical fiction thriller Forecast comes a new science fiction disaster novel about black holes and teleportation technology in fiction. Brace yourself for The Slide: a relentless, high-stakes race against cosmic annihilation. As Earth faces extinction, a desperate team gambles everything on a last-ditch escape. Perfect for fans who love their doomsday stories with brains, heart, and a gut-punch of suspense. Get this black hole disaster thriller before it hits the Milky Way! If you enjoyed Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, or The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, you'll enjoy this books about extinction level events.

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Summary: Fairy tales. Prince Charming fights evil, wins the princess, lives happily ever after. Three sons, three wishes, witches, dragons, a quest, and happily ever after. These stories are part of our cultural fabric. The stories change in retellings to reflect contemporary culture, such as Princess Charming, or heroes and heroines as people of color. In this collection, queer characters take center stage in stories that grew out of questions: What if the prince falls in love with Cinderella's gay stepbrother? What if Rumpelstiltskin doesn't really want the Queen's child but rather the King himself? What if Beauty and the Beast are two men? These stories explore metaphors of magic and the magical, this time, with a gay perspective. What price must be paid for happily ever after? Duty or love? Is love worth great sacrifice? Once upon a time ...

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Summary: Silas Thornwood's worst nightmare has come to life. Darien's familiar Pip is gravely injured, and Darien and Jasper have been kidnapped. Someone ruthless and violent is holding the man Silas loves prisoner, for purposes he doesn't want to imagine. Silas needs help from his friends to locate and rescue Darien. And when he does, those responsible― whether sorcerer, human, or demon― are going to be truly, utterly sorry…