This comes from Sarah J, who suggested this in our Submit Your Rec League post:
Horror-romances or horror novels with a satisfying romantic arc please! Paranormal romances abound, but I’m having problems finding ones that are really grounded in the horror genre. I’m thinking of books along the lines of Simone St. James, Jenn Bennett’s Roaring 20s series, or Amanda Stevens’ Graveyard Queen books.
I don’t know, I’m finishing my PhD in lockdown and have such overwhelming anxiety at all times now it’s nice to be able to process those feelings with horror novels, but also “resolve” them with an HEA. Some horror comes up in the book finder, but it is hard to tell which books won’t pile on with a sad ending on the basis of their back copy!
Amanda: R. Lee Smith’s zombie horror romance immediately comes to mind: Land of the Beautiful Dead ( A )
Claudia: Aaack I’m blanking out on the name of the book… Recent, ghost house in Upstate New York, turn of the century? But I think it’s more paranormal than horror in any case.
Shana: Widow of Rose House?
Elyse: Mexican Gothic
Amanda: Hm, Elyse…what about The Red by Reisz?
It gets a little weird.
A lot weird.
Elyse: It’s not really horror just strange
Sarah: My Life as a White Trash Zombie – I can’t recall if it has a romantic arc through the series
Claudia: Shana, that’s the one — but like I said maybe not grounded enough in the horror genre.
Maya: What about Only Beloved by Mary Balogh? I thought it read like a gothic horror–what with the dead wife who died under mysterious circumstances and the dead son. And the secret scandal that the heroine has. Everyone has SECRETS and there are a few bodies involved. Also my queen Mary B so the romance is sweet and deliberate as always. (edited)
Claudia: Oh that’s a very nice one and older main characters to boot. And yes, it does take inspiration from gothic, complete with deadly cliffs!!
Catherine: Maybe This Time by Jenny Crusie ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) is a retelling of The Turn of the Screw. I found it scary, but I’m also easily scared by books, so YMMV.
Oh and you know what, Stephanie Laurens dabbled in gothic horror with some of her books. The Truth About Love is a good one – big house with lots of mysterious and sometimes creepy landscaped gardens, an unsolved murder, a heroine who people believe to be mad… not sure if it is quite horror, but definitely proper gothic.
Which books would you include?
Diana Biller’s The Widow of Rose House, Simone St. James’ The Haunting Of Maddy Clare
It’s not really my genre at all, but I enjoyed Thrall by Roan Parrish and Avon Gale. I think that would count for this category!
Maybe this Time by Jennifer Crusie. Take off on Turn of the Screw,
Brooklyn Ann has a B-Mine Horror Romance series, which I love. There are three in the series and each is inspired by a different 70’s/80’s horror trope. The first is a Summer Camp slasher horror-romance, the second is a haunted house horror-romance, and the third is like Carrie or Prom Night. It’s a really fun series.
I recently listened to the audiobook of “Only Beloved” by Mary Balogh but I wouldn’t call it a horror romance. In fact the darker scenes were so rare that I wouldn’t even call it a gothic romance. Personally I found the whole brother-in-law subplot a bit ridiculous though so I might have missed some of the eerie atmosphere (I was also close to DNFing the book on multiple occasions due to a disappointing baby subplot).
I’m struggling to differentiate between gothic romance and horror romance but I feel like the “Dark Gothic” series by Eve Silver could be a match. Also “The Beautiful” by Renée Ahdieh (vampires count as horror, right?) and maybe even “Serpent & Dove” by Shelby Mahurin (a witch and a witch hunter in a marriage of convenience/arranged marriage type of situation). I’ve also heard that Kerri Maniscalco has a new series coming where a woman and a Wicked-prince of hell(!) try to solve a series of murders together (it’s called “Kingdom of the Wicked” and is coming out on October 27th). I’m not sure about the HEAs for most of these since they’re all parts of ongoing series but the “Dark Gothic” books work as standalones as far as I’m aware.
I wouldn’t call The Red, or it’s sequel The Rose, horror romances (paranormal yes, horror no), but Tiffany Reisz’ The Headmaster fits the bill. It was my first book of hers I read, and I promptly began to read her entire backlist.
Kylie Scott also has a zombie romance series that I think qualifies as horror. The first was quite good, the second not as good. I wish she’d write more in this series.
JK Charles’ magpie series, especially the last 2
If you don’t mind YA, Stephanie Perkins’ There’s Someone Inside Your House is a slasher horrer novel with a big focus on the romance between the heroine and her love interest.
Emily Duncan’s Something Dark and Holy trilogy. The first two books, Wicked Saints and Ruthless Gods, are out. It is YA dark fantasy with lots of elements of cosmic horror especially in Ruthless Gods. There are a lot of bloody eyes showing up in that book.
I don’t know if this fits with horror as a genre or not, but Abbie Roads’ “Fatal Dreams” and “Fatal Truth” series are very, very dark and frequently gory (paranormal + serial killers); CW for the main characters in the books having histories of sexual abuse and/or child abuse, though I felt that these were handled pretty well. There’s also Mina Carter’s “Project Rebellion” series, which might count as more paranormal than horror, but the third book (“Not Dead Enough”) features a zombie hero, which I read because I wanted to see how one would make zombies sexy (it worked).
Zombies vs Unicorns anthology edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier has some romantic stories with zombies. Also the movie Zombieland, the first one.
T. Kingfisher probably fits the bill. Clockwork Boys, Swordheart, any of her fairy tale retellings.
Oh! Lois McMaster Bujold’s fantasy novels have pretty creepy horror elements, especially the Hallowed Hunt. It starts with a blood sacrifice / ancient curse and gets creepier from there, but with romance and humor. All ends well.
Totally not a recommendation but a discovery: My husband and I started talking about horror novels that go beyond the Halloween holiday. We came up with silly carnivorous turkeys for Thanksgiving, and for Christmas besides the evil Santa tropes, we thought of fae reindeer and zombie elves. Which brought us to this…there is such a thing as zombie elf-on-a-shelf, as if those weren’t creepy enough by themselves.
https://www.etsy.com/market/zombie_elf
Get A Clue by Jill Shalvis
Hahaha! I just reccomended Poppy Z. Brite’s “Drawing Blood” in another thread recently. It’s like The Shining but on psychedelic drug, and has a happy conclusion of the romantic arc for the two male leads.
From what I remember (haven’t read anything if his in ages) Dean Koontz wrote horror, and there was always a romantic subplot line that ended happily.
And if I can suggest… when I smash feel-good & horror together, what comes to mind is the movie “The Final Girls”. It’s about a girl and her classmates falling into a classic 80s slasher movie her mother acted in before her birth. It sounds zany, and it is somewhat, but it is also very funny and full of horror movies tropes (with the horror movie nerd meta-analyzing them as they happen… *thumbs up*)
The Lost History of Dreams by Kris Waldherr is one, though it’s more Gothic than horror. Victorian with a post mortem photographer, ghosts, and dead poets with marriage secrets. Sort of like Wuthering Heights crossed with Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale.
If Victorian gothic is your jam, I’d also recommend The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal, which is super creepy and along the lines of John Fowles’ The Collector.
Talia Hibbert’s MATING THE HUNTRESS is extremely satisfying, romance-wise. The heroine is a frustrated monster-slayer. The hero is a werewolf who is, in fact, written as a monster, yet is also a cinnamonroll (kind of like how pit bulls are love-puppies.)
I get scared pretty easily, so these may not have enough of a horror vibe, but I’ve got two series to recommend that both center around ghosts. They have a similar vibe to Jenn Bennett’s Roaring ’20’s series, which is why I thought of them in reading the request.
The first is the PHANTOMS series by Kelly Moran, starting with GHOST OF A PROMISE. This series centers around the crew of a ghost hunters TV series. The crew includes members with varying levels of sensitivity to ghosts and the houses that they investigate are in fact actually haunted.
The second series is the RAMOS FAMILY series by Meg Benjamin starting with MEDIUM WELL. This series features siblings who all have psychic sensitivity although each sibling is at least somewhat unaware of this ability initially until they start communicating with ghosts.
I found both series to have some genuinely scary moments and ghosts that are definitely malevolent, but since I’m a horror wimp, YMMV. In any case, both of these writers do likable characters that are competent and adult, and excellent. satisfying romances.
Seconding @Lynn’s recommendation for the Eve Silver Dark Gothic books.
Katy Madison wrote a Gothic romance about a governess, Tainted by Temptation, which I have not read in ages and therefore am not sure I would still be able to recommend, and also the governess’s name is Velvet for some reason. But with those caveats, I remember really liking it at the time, admittedly partly because the author grounded a key plot point in actual medical knowledge rather than doing something hand-wavy, which is automatic bonus points for me.
The old Silhouette Shadows line (which was nicknamed “Harlequin Horror” at the time) was a combination of paranormals, gothics, and some dark romantic suspense. Most of them weren’t what I would call horror, though most were darker than most romance novels (and based on some of the recommendations above, some may qualify as horror to others). For instance, I love the dark, moody tone of Anne Stuart’s BREAK THE NIGHT, a Jack the Ripper reincarnation story with a tormented hero and heroine.
The only ones I would say verged on outright horror were those by Jane Toombs, which were often very gothic and got into some very dark stuff. If you don’t mind paper copies (I don’t think hers are available digitally) and can track them down, I think they’ll fit what you’re looking for, especially DARK ENCHANTMENT or THE ABANDONED BRIDE. (Looks like they’re on the Open Library, if that’s still working.)
Some of Jenna Ryan’s early Harlequin Intrigues would qualify, especially THE VISITOR (which takes the hero and heroine to the Black Forest in Germany to literally face off against the devil–the visitor of the title) and MIDNIGHT MASQUE (written for a Halloween promotion, involving a cursed masque factory in Maine). They’re both on the Open Library too.
Not a book, but the K-drama series Hotel del Luna is part horror, part rom-com. It has true horror moments but they all get resolved by either a humourous or romantic moment. It’s also soo beautiful to watch. Full disclosure I haven’t reached the ending yet though so I guess there’s always a chance it’s not an HEA?
Kelley Armstrong’s Cainsville series beginning with Omens. A woman finds out she was adopted as a baby and she has a dark mysterious history. There is paranormal, fairy, legends, a love triangle, and a slow burn romance. The story is drawn out over 5 books.
It’s spine tingling in a similar vein to Simone St. James.
I’m actually playing a visual novel right now that might fit the bill? It’s called “Meeting In The Flesh” (it was in the big itch bundle for racial justice if anyone picked that up) and it takes place in a grotesque otherworld nightmare dimension where everyone is some kind of drippy eldritch hellbeast.
It is a slice of life romance.
The strange juxtaposition of horror worldbuilding and aesthetics with a non horror plot is fascinating and unsettling. And occasionally disturbing, as the mating customs and biological imperatives of the characters are… definitely not human ones. But the characters THEMSELVES are not disturbed, as this is normal for them. I’ve only played through one route, but the people involved considered that ending to be very happy and romantic!
…Just as I am sure that say, anglerfish consider it totally romantic for one of them to sink into the flesh of the other and then become a permanently fused lump on her body! Or mantises might consider it completely dreamy to devour their mates! For example!
Be braced for weird monster biology, basically.
My sister is a huge Dean Koontz fan – there are romantic elements embedded in many of his thrillers. Two of his earlier ones are “Watchers” and “Lightning”. The Odd Thomas series has a bit of a romantic relationship, but it doesn’t sound like it is HEA. (I can’t read horror/suspense at all, so can’t confirm).
Experiment in Terror series by Karina Halle<———horror romance series
Beyond the Sea by L.H. Cosway<———gothic romance
Nora Roberts Sign of The Seven trilogy and her Year One trilogy. The first book of of the Year One series definitely invites comparisons to The Stand.
Alyssa Cole’s latest When No One Is Watching has a bit of a ‘Get Out’ vibe.
Heather Grahame’s Krewe of Hunter series. There are, like, eleventy billion of them, but the first five or so I read were good, spooky fun.
The Devil’s Beating His Wife by by Siobhán Béabhar. This was pretty controversial in one of my romance groups because the H&H are ghosts throughout the story. And it is pretty dark.
Mimosa Grove by Dinah Mccall. This is a bit of a genre bender because it is suspense, thriller, romance, and gothic horror, complete with a big mansion in Louisiana, ghosts, voodoo, reincarnation etc.
I second Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie. Also, Barbara Michaels has many ghost/horror stories. There are only three or four that I wouldn’t recommend (those published in the 60’s and Patriot’s Dream, which is worth reading but doesn’t fit the rec request).
It’s a looooong time since I read them, but I found Tanya Huff’s Blood Books (the first one is Blood Price) and the Smoke sequel series a lot of fun at the time. I’m not entirely sure they qualify as romance, but there are romantic elements and HFN endings.
R. Lee Smith’s books are perfect horror/love stories. She has written many books, but my favorites are Heat; about an alien murdering people on earth, the alien cop sent to stop him, and the human women caught in the fray.; Land of the Beautiful Dead, the heroine tries to save the world from an evil being; and The Last Hour of Gann, humans who are going to colonize a planet land on the wrong one. She is an outstanding author with unique story arcs. These books are long and you will squirm deliciously and uncomfortably as you becomes members of the bad decisions book club with each book.
Not really horror but, the first Regency romance with a vampire – at least the first one I read – The Vampire Viscount by Karen Harbaugh. I still love it.
@Juliette 7:
K J Charles, definitely! The Magpie trilogy and associated novellas (one of which, CW for horror thing with people’s eyes, could well squick people…), and also The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal and Spectred Isle, which are horror at about the level of M R James (creepy Edwardian ghost/horror stories, short of being as visceral as modern horror.
@Jenny 25:
The only Koontz I’ve ever loved is Tick-Tock, because it’s an old-fashioned screwball rom-com with horror elements.
I was also going to recommend K J Charles, The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal. It’s like Watson and Holmes investigate horror setups and have a lot of sex. It also led me to the Whyborne and Griffin series, by Jordan Hawk, which starts with Windeshins. Very creepy, with necromancy, and an M/M romance that extends through the series. I liked one and three better than two and haven’t yet read the rest.
These are some of my favorites:
* Simone St. James – THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT; SILENCE OF THE DEAD (post-World War I ghost romances)
* Karina Halle – DONNERS OF THE DEAD (zombies + the Donner party + frontier romance)
* L.A. Banks – MINION (Buffy-esque)
* R. Lee Smith – HEAT; OLIVIA (Sci-fi / horror romance)
* Jennifer L. Armentrout – DON’T LOOK BACK; THE DEAD LIST; TILL DEATH (serial killer stalking the YA heroine romances)
I want to second @Lisa’s recommendation of the k-drama, Hotel del Luna, as well as shout out recent k-drama, It’s Okay to Not be Okay, which has a similar horror/romance vibe that so far, I like a little more than Hotel del Luna. Warm Bodies – a teen horror rom com – is also super cute.
In terms of books, I just read Jennifer L. Armentrout’s “Blood and Ash” series which is a NA fantasy romance with a real horror tone (zombies & other scary supernatural creatures abound). R. Lee Smith’s books are horror romances too, but they’re very, very dark. Think, all the content and trigger warnings possible dark.
Rereading Sarah J’s question, I’d say that the Jenn Bennett and Simone St. James books belong to the gothic horror tradition (they’re historical romances with spooky mysteries and supernatural subplots) whereas the R. Lee Smith and Jennifer L. Armentrout books contain survival/body horror (they’re dark fantasy romances with violent/dangerous monsters). Hope that helps!