15 Summerween Books to Start Spooky Season Early

Every July, right about the time the rest of the internet starts arguing over when it’s acceptable to mention fall, I start spotting those skeletons in Hawaiian shirts. Ghosts with sunglasses at the beach. This is Summerween, and if you came looking for summerween books, you are in the right clubhouse. I’ve been building spooky season reading lists since before this whole thing was a trend because I love to read the paranormal all year round.

Summerween does not have to be all about the hard horror everyone’s posting. It can be the fun side of paranormal and scary. Yes, there is a fun side. Cozy witches, ghosts who play matchmaker, a vampire solving a murder on an Italian beach with his talking cat. You do not have to wait for October, and you do not have to read about all that gore either. Consider this your permission slip.

I sorted the whole list by exactly what kind of spooky you want to get, from feather light cozy up to dark with a body count. Pick your lane for your summer reading.

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If you want cozy and witchy

Start here if you want the softest possible bunch. This is sunshine magic, small town covens, the kind of book you read on a porch with an iced coffee sweating next to you. Nothing here is going to keep you up at night, and that is the point.

My first pick is Big Witch Energy by Molly Harper. Molly Harper is a staple of our funny paranormal shelf and an absolute must for your summer TBR. She writes witches with a sense of humor and a mouth on them. Then there’s Love’s a Witch by Tricia O’Malley, a slightly different flavor and perfect if you love Laurie Gilmore and The Pumpkin Spice Café. The hijinks are top tier and the cozy enemies to lovers romance is adorable. Listen, there’s some snow, but it’s the perfect vibe. Trust me. And Witchful Thinking by Celestine Martin is all about atmosphere with kitchen witch in a cozy little seaside town who makes a wish spell and accidentally falls for the merman across the street. If that small town kitchen witch vibe is what you like, I’ve also got a whole list of kitchen witch cozy mysteries to send you down next. And fun fact, Celestine Martin even wrote us a Dear Santa letter, so you can meet the heroine first.

Want the whole coven? Here are seventeen witchy romances built for summer.

If you want spooky but funny

This is the heart of Summerween for me. Funny paranormal is the whole reason I can say spooky season out loud in July without people telling me it’s too early for that. It’s low stakes, it’s a good time, and it comes in three flavors depending on what you like.

If you want a series to disappear into, start with I Accidentally Summoned a Demon Boyfriend by Jessica Cage. This is the one fr over the top humor and real laughs, but do not let the goofy title fool you, there is plenty of spice waiting. You’ve also got a whole funny paranormal romance series list to keep you busy if you want more.

If you’d rather a one and done, Be Still My Unbeating Heart by Josh Winning is my standalone pick and one of my favorites heading into summer. It’s a male/male cozy paranormal mystery. Funny, campy, and delivers plenty of Louis and Lestat parallels so you know it earns a spot on the standalone paranormal romcom list. Put it on your summer stack.

And if you want your laughs with a little more mystery and a little less romance, A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer by Maxie Dara is perfect if you’re a Darynda Jones fan. Same snarky woman solving supernatural problems energy, and it fits right onto the funny urban fantasy shelf.

If you want haunted and swoony

Maybe a slight notch up the spooky scale, but the romance is still the main attraction. Think haunted cottages, with funny ghosts, and the occasional dead matchmaker who will not rest until you kiss someone.

Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca is the top of this bunch for me. Almost perfect read, it also kicks off a series, and it’s got these fun, quirky Florida vibes I did not know I needed in a ghost romance. And I live here, by the way. Love at First Fright by Nadia El-Fassi is your pick if you lean more women’s fiction, the Emily Henry type of reader who wants real feelings with some spookiness. And Drop Dead by Lily Chu brings the romcom energy, all entertaining banter and fun characters, and it’s a standalone if you’re not in the mood to commit to anything.

The full haunt is here: thirteen haunted house romances to keep the lights on for.

If you want goth-girl attitude

Less jump scare, more eyeliner. This is the aesthetic part of the list, all attitude and Wednesday Addams energy, and it happens to be the one that hits closest to home for me.

My goth girl reading era was firmly in high school and right after. I ran a little darker overall back then (Anne Rice), but once I started tearing through early-2000s YA paranormals, I gobbled up everything I could find, Vampire Kisses, the Vampire Diaries books, all of it. And we do not get to talk about this era without The Craft, which is iconic and I will not be taking questions.

So You’re Dead to Me, Reed Walker by Gwenyth Reitz hit me right in the nostalgia. It’s a debut YA paranormal romcom where two academic rivals wake up murdered and stuck haunting the party where it happened, forced to solve their own killing while also dealing with the fact that they were maybe into each other the whole time. It gave me those exact Vampire Kisses feelings. An Amateur Witch’s Guide to Murder by K. Valentin goes darker when a broke goth brujo with a demon trapped inside him takes on a cursed client and lands neck-deep in a magical murder mess. Think True Blood meets The Lost Boys, definitely funny. And The Lost Girls by Sonia Hartl is the sapphic pick, basically John Tucker Must Die with a girl gang of vampires hunting the ex who turned and dumped every one of them.

More attitude where that came from: modern goth books with attitude.

If you want dark but still funny

Here’s the deep end for this post as it actually has a few killers, but do not let “dark” scare you off. Every pick here is contemporary, funny, and most importantly beginner friendly. This is dark romance with the training wheels still on, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

Brynne Weaver is the flagship author of the whole dark romcom genre, and Tourist Season is a small town series you can just sink into and feel completely transported by, except the town also happens to have a body count. Good for Her by Tylor Paige is where I’d send you if you’re brand new to dark. It’s got female rage and revenge wrapped in a Hollywood celebrity slasher premise that stays fun instead of grim. And Love Me Stalk Me by Laura Bishop is the perfect entry level stalker romance. Izzy vents her filthiest fantasies to an AI boyfriend app, not realizing the “AI” is actually Cal, the tattooed head of security at her store who hacked her phone and is fully obsessed. It’s lighter dark, it’s funny, and it is still plenty hot.

Content note: these lean lighter, but they’re still dark romance. Check individual content warnings before you dive in.

Beyond the Summerween books

The spooky doesn’t have to stop when you close the Kindle. I’ve got a few cozy Summerween extras waiting for you over in our Summerween cozy games and activities corner, for when you want to keep the season going without reading a single word.

Summerween books FAQ

Come play along

So that’s five ways to be spooky in the sunshine, from the coziest witch romance to the kind of dark romcom that comes with a body count. You do not have to pick just one, and you definitely do not have to wait for a leaf to change color.

Here’s the fun part. We run a summer reading challenge all season. It’s part of our Romanceopoly reading challenge, but you don’t have to be a full challenge participant to join in. Four prompts you can double and triple up and three months to complete them. No year long commitment, no catching up, no pressure. That’s kind of the whole point around here. Join us!

So tell me: which vibe are you starting your Summerween with? I want to know what’s landing on your stack.

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