In Love With Your Ghost is a warm, spooky romance that gives a nod to “weird girl lit” authors like Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Plath, and Edith Wharton, and is set in the world of Sugar Pine Springs.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from In Love With Your Ghost by Laurel Osterkamp, which releases on October 6th 2026.
Hartley and Levi fell in love, and it was magic. Until Levi ghosted her. No goodbye, no explanation.
He didn’t die. He just left her haunted.
Which is ironic, since Hartley can legit see ghosts. Thirteen years later, Levi’s grandmother and Hartley’s good friend, Soledad Herrera, unexpectedly passes away. Hartley and Levi each inherit half of Soledad’s estate. The twist? Before claiming it, they must spend one month living together in her crumbling house located on the haunted grounds of the abandoned Castle Sanitarium, surrounded by the iron creatures Soledad and Levi once built together. Levi wants to tear it all down. Hartley wants to save every last stone. And the sanitarium’s ghosts? They want something too.
Autumn grows cold and dark. Old feelings rise from the dead. And Hartley and Levi realize that while a haunted house is scary, even scarier is a love that refuses to die.
EXCERPT
Levi shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. “I would have picked you up.” His chiseled jaw sets as he stares straight ahead.
“Sorry.” Now that my blood pressure has returned to normal, I’m able to process my thoughts. “Hey. Why’d you go for a walk instead of just waiting for me to get home?”
He shrugs, face betraying nothing in the dark. “I dunno.”
“Hmm.”
“What?” His voice vibrates low in the cool evening air.
My questions just tumble out. “Did you . . . hear something creepy earlier? Is that why you went out walking? Because you were freaking out, alone in that house?”
His laughter is quick and hollow. “That makes perfect sense. There I was, sitting in a certified haunted house, and I decided to take a midnight stroll. Past an abandoned sanitarium with a five-star rating on Spook Seekers dot com ’cuz it makes those little ghost meters—”
“Geophones,” I cut in, the word automatic.
“Right. It makes those ‘geophones’ go apeshit. Yup. I was so scared, and I couldn’t wait for you to come home, and I decided to go for a walk instead of using my car to find you.”
My heart squeezes. My voice drops to a whisper. “It’s okay to be scared, Levi.”
“I’m not scared.” His jaw is tight. “I just needed some fresh air.”
“Liar. But I’m not making fun of you. Gosh. You heard me just now. I was sure you were a monster. Ready to come get me.”
He stops and turns. The lone streetlight creates shadows on his face. I’m waiting for him to tease me for threatening to gouge his eyes out.
“Hart.” His voice is soft now, serious. “No monster’s gonna get you. Not even if the monster is me. Promise.”
He’s being sincere. For a second, I can’t breathe.
Then I recover. “You know,” I joke, “there’s a price for every promise you don’t keep.”
“One which I’d gladly pay.” Levi reaches for my hand. I let him take it.
We reach the last bend in the road before Soledad’s house. I can see the kitchen lights through the windows, two warm squares floating in the darkness. For a moment, neither of us says anything. I want to fill the hush. But I just look at him.
And Levi looks at the house. Seconds pass. “Truth? I was sort of scared. Not just tonight, but often. Soledad never knew it, but I hated being in there alone.”
“You did?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He makes this breathy sound, like a laughter-sigh combo. “When she was home, I felt safe. Don’t know why exactly. She was this tiny, aging woman. But somehow, when she was around, nothing fazed me.”
We’re still holding hands. I squeeze his fingers. “She had that effect on people.”
He looks at me. “So do you. At least, you have that effect on me.” A beat. “You always did. I just never said it. Then I’d have to stop pretending I was fine.”
His words land somewhere deep and unguarded inside me. “Levi. You never had to pretend with me.”
He steps closer. There’s a shift in the air, like a pressure change.
“Did you actually know?” he asks. “That I wasn’t fine?”
“Yeah. I always knew.”
The wind moves through his hair. I keep waiting for him to deflect—to grin, to say something cutting and funny that lets us both off the hook. He doesn’t. He just stays there, looking at me. The quiet becomes unbearable.
He leans in. I can see the small scar above his eyebrow. Smell the cinnamon Altoids on his breath. He releases my hand, puts his hands against the small of my back. His thumb starts moving against it in this slow, unconscious, unintentional way.
“Hartley.”
“Yeah?”
Then he’s kissing me.
