About a week ago I received a note from a site reader who asked:
"Could you make a list of paranomal cozies, cozies with witches, occult, vampires & such?"
I had already started a skeleton of a list which included some different supernatural themes, and thought: What better time to be making a theme with werewolves, vampires, "& such" than right before Halloween…. So here goes!
Ghosts:
P. J. Alderman: Port Chatham Mystery Series… Jordan Marsh owns a haunted house on the west coast of USA.
Nancy Atherton: Aunt Dimity Mystery Series… Aunt Dimity simply insists on staying around after Lori inherits her Cotswold cottage.
Mignon F. Ballard: Augusta Goodnight Mystery Series… Augusta Goodnight is a guardian angel who helps solve mysteries… (I wasn't sure if I should put Augusta in this category but decided to go ahead and include her, she is a guardian angel.)
Juliet Blackwell: Haunted Home Renovation Mystery Series… Melanie (Mel) Turner renovates historic houses in California.
Annette Blair: Vintage Magic Mystery Series… Maddie Cutler returns home to not only open a vintage clothing shop, but to also solve mysteries and see a few ghosts.
Melissa Bourbon (aka Misa Ramirez): Magical Dressmaking Mystery Series… Harlow Cassidy is the owner of a boutique. Her great grandmother (as in her deceased great grandmother!) helps her.
Helen Chappell: Sam & Hollis Mystery Series… Hollis (a reporter) solves mysteries with the help of her deceased husband Sam.
J. J. Cook (aka Joyce and Jim Lavene): Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade Mystery Series… Stella Griffin is the current fire chief of these fire station in Tennessee. She is helped by an ex fire chief, who is deceased.
E. J. Copperman: Haunted Guesthouse Mystery Series… Alison may be the owner of the guesthouse, but Paul and Maxie do as they (ghostly) please.
Casey Daniels: Pepper Martin Mystery Series… Pepper is a cemetery tour guide who gets help with her sleuthing from a dead mob boss.
Jana DeLeon: Ghost-in-Law Mystery Series… features a botanist, her friend, and her deceased mother-in-law as the sleuths.
Elizabeth Eagan-Cox: Shannon Delaney Mystery Series… features a writer in San Diego with ghostly encounters.
Christy Fifield (aka Christy Evans) Haunted Souvenir Shop Mystery Series… Glory inherits her uncle's souvenir shop, including resident ghosts.
Carolyn Haines: Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Series… Jitty, a nanny to one of Sarah's ancestors keeps tabs on Sarah.
Carolyn Hart (aka Carolyn G. Hart): Bailey Ruth Mystery Series… Bailey loved to sleuth before she joined Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, as a ghost.
Sue Ann Jaffarian: Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery Series
Alice Kimberly (aka Cleo Coyle): Haunted Bookshop Mystery Series… Penelope Thornton-McClure owns the bookstore that Jack Shepard inhabits… as a ghost.
Victoria Laurie: Ghost Hunter Mystery Series… M.J. Holliday does just that! She hunts down ghosts.
Lizbeth Lipperman (aka Liz Lipperman & Liz Roth): Dead Sister Talking Mystery Series… Lainey Garcia solves mysteries with the help of her sister, Tessa, who is no longer of this world.
Molly MacRae writes the Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery Series. The sleuth inherits her grandmother's wool shop, and an unexpected ghost.
Sharon Pape: Portrait of Crime Mystery Series… Rory gets the help sleuthing from a federal marshall… from the 1870s.
Wendy Roberts: Ghost Dusters Mystery Series… Sadie Novak sees dead people at her job… as a death scene cleaner-upper.
Paige Shelton: Country Cooking School Mystery Series… Grams and Betts solve mysteries with a ghost of a chance.
Beth Solheim: Sadie Witt Mystery Series… Both Sadie and Belly LaGossa (Sadie's dog) are able to see the dead.
Mary Stanton (aka Claudia Bishop): Beaufort & Company Mystery Series… Bree Winston-Beaufort inherits her uncle's law firm and soon finds herself dealing with clients who were previously "down to earth".
Please feel free to either send a comment or a letter to the site if you know of any other mystery authors who would fit into this Ghost Theme. Thanks!
♦To access more Cozy Mysteries by Theme click on this link.♦
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Have you heard of Celeste Marsella and her first of 4 books, Defenseless?
Sounds interesting, Tanner. Thanks for telling us about her… I will try to make a page for her in the near future…
Ahhh….here it is! = )
Carolyn Haines needs to be added to this list.
Her Sarah Booth Delaney & Jitty, the ghost of her great aunt’s nanny.
Her books are a riot.
Thanks, Kathy, I just added Carolyn Haines to the list.
Great site! Annette Blair started a new mystery series with ghosts. The first is A Veiled Deception. Casey Daniels has a series (A Pepper Martin Mystery) taking place in a graveyard where the main character helps ghosts solve mysteries.
Hi Diane,
I am so glad you reminded us about Annette Blair. She is actually an author I added to the site a while ago… and simply forgot to list on this theme. I’m going now to add her.
Thank you!
Also, I have just added Casey Daniels to my list of authors to do.
Hello;
Thank you so much for your lists, I have found so many authors of the ghostly persuasion that I was unaware of from your efforts.
“Brava.”
Saw a posting on PBS about this site and just had to check it out. I love it. I have found several new series to try. Thanks so much!
Hi Penelope and Lisa,
Welcome to the site! I’m glad that you have been able to find a few authors who you might enjoy.
When I first started the site, I only included Cozy Mystery authors who I followed. As time went on, I started getting more and more recommendations from other Cozy Mystery readers. So, thanks to those recommendations, I have found several other authors who I now follow.
I would like to comment on Madelyn Alt’s newest book “At Witches in Time.” I so enjoy this series and watching Maggie develop her talent and fall in love. I was really looking forward to how she was doing, only to be left in limbo. In the beginning her romance department was looking up and she and Marcus were moving forward only to be interrupted in the middle by a mystery (oh, no!) Well the mystery ended but it never got back to their relationship: of which I was disappointed that it didn’t finish what it started. I love her books and all the developing talents people have, I just wish it would move at a little faster pace and have her actually use more of her talent. There just wasn’t much used in this book. I will look forward to the next one and hope it finishes what this book started.
I am not sure if anyone has mentioned author Wendy Roberts. She has a wonderful series featuring Sadie Novak who sees dead people while cleaning crime scenes.
Thank you, Michelle, for the reminder. When I add a new author to the site, I try to get them on their corresponding theme pages, but for some reason I am finding that I have missing a few lately.
Thanks, again!
This just happens to be my FAVORITE genre. With that in mind, I have two more authors… Sue Ann Jaffarian and P.J. Alderman. Sue has the “Ghost of Granny Apples” mysteries. P.J. has “Port Chatham Mystery series”.
Thanks, Michelle, for reminding me to add Sue Ann Jaffarian to this page. And, for telling us about P. J. Alderman.
How about Phil Rickman? His novels are not always about ghosts per se, but they definitely contain otherworldly elements, involve mysteries, and have some great, well-developed characters.
Thanks, Kathryn, for telling us about Phil Rickman!
Linda Lael Miller has started a series about Mojo Sheepshanks, who sees dead people. there are 2 in the series currently and are fab.
Thank you, Cathy, for telling us about Linda Lael Miller. I know that there are a lot of people who are very interested in Paranormal mysteries…
Victoria Laurie has a great series called Ghost Hunter series. They are excellent.
Wow you are great!!! Thank you for a wonderful, wonderful site, very nice. I get almost as much fun reading about the different cozys as reading one
You did a great job. I will be back ..over and over again.. thanks, Sally
Welcome to the site and thank you for the very kind words, Sally! Hopefully you’ll be able to find one or two new authors to follow.
I have been trying to find an author I really enjoyed in either Ellery Queen or Alfred Hitchcock magazine many years ago. The hero was a hypochondriac who had a different outrageous illness in each story, using a medical manual of some sort. She solved mysteries reluctantly with her aunt and cousin, but she actually was surprisingly successful.
Deb, I will write an entry asking for help in identifying the author, and hopefully another Cozy Mystery site reader will know who the author is.
Pamela DuMond’s first in a new series, CUPCAKES, LIES, AND DEAD GUYS fits into the ghost category and it is a terrific, funny mystery!
Thank you, Terri. I have Pamela DuMond in the Psychic/6th Sense Theme. I wasn’t sure which of the two themes to put her in… Psychic/6th Sense VS. ghost…
Karen White has 2 in a series about ghosts in Charleston, SC historic homes. Don’t forget Charlaine Harris’ Harper Connelly series.
Thank, Selene, for telling us about Karen White.
I have the Harper Connelly Mystery Series (by Charlaine Harris) down as a Psychics/6th Sense theme.
RE: your Ghost Theme author page====
The P. J. Alderman series with Jordan Marsh takes place on the WEST coast of the USA……..
Thank you, Marlene, for telling me about that mistake. I just corrected it.
Thanks, again!
Juliet Blackwell and E. J. Cooperman would be good authors to add to your list. They are fun, paranormal with a good story line. =))
Kathy
Thanks, Mama Kat, I have E. J. Cooperman on the Ghosts Theme Mysteries and Juliet Blackwell on the Witch Theme Mystery Books page…
Juliet Blackwell recently started a second series that would fit more with the ghost theme than the witch theme – the Haunted Home Renovation series.
Judith, I’m glad you wrote about Juliet Blackwell’s Haunted Home Renovation Mystery Series. For some reason, every time I looked at Blackwell’s page on the site, I fixated on her Witchcraft Mystery Series. Thank you!
Have you checked into Karen White? Tradd Street series looks ghosty.
Thanks, Marlene, for telling us about Karen White’s Tradd Street series.
I, too, don’t like super servings of hot, steamy sex or blood and guts all over. I want good plots you can’t see a mile off, developed characters, usually justice triumphant, and as icing and sprinkles on the cake, humor laced throughout and maybe even some paranormal thrown in. Oh, and once I find an author that fills this laundry list–a long, long series of books to feast on. I am so happy to have come across this treasure site of unexplored writers (of 21 names, I am familiar with 3!)
Carolynn, I wish that more of the current Cozy Mystery authors would “remain true” to the spirit of what Cozy Mystery books used to be!
I’m glad you found the site, and hope you are able to find some new authors to follow…
This site is the most awesome site, thank you soooooo very much for having these authors listed, I am always looking for a new series and this will help me find one. Keep up the great work. Kudos to you a million times over.
Welcome to the site, Nonakins. I hope you continue to enjoy it, and that you find a lot of authors to your liking.
Nancy Atherton. Aunt Dimity is a type of ghost with her writings. At least, in the first book there is mention of her paranormal abilities (she prepared the cottage for the heroine to welcome her -tea, a fire in the fireplace)
hi I found a book earlier now can’t find it. It involves a youngish lady who inherits a bookshop from her grandmother who has died but keeps hanging around. if anyone can help me remember I would be very happy. so many thanks and happy reading judy
Rochelle Staab also writes a paranormal-themed cozy series. Haven’t read any of it yet but I’ve seen it around and it looks pretty interesting. ^_^
I’m so glad to have stumbled across your site! I’ve been a big reader of urban fantasy for years but lately I’ve been feeling a bit bored with it, so I started reading the cozy’s with a paranormal theme and found most of them utterly fun! Then I mixed it up a bit when my mom gave me the Cece Caruso mysteries by Susan Kandel and I went through them like a hot knife through butter. I’m using your site to compile my wish-list for when I visit the flea market and used bookstores. I’ve also shared your site on my Facebook page a few times. Thanks so much for doing what you do here!!
Welcome to the site, Annie H! I’m glad you found us, and that you found Cozy Mystery books with paranormal themes.
Thank you so much for listing J. J. Cook. The first friendly ghost book is SUPER!!!
Marlene, I was a bit surprised that Joyce and Jim Lavene decided to go with a pseudonym with this series. I wonder if that’s because it is a paranormal mystery series.