Guest post written by A New Lease On Death author Olivia Blacke
Olivia Blacke (she/her) had her first ghost encounter when she was only five years old, but her first involvement with an active crime scene wasn’t until much later, when she accidentally stepped into a chalk outline on a Manhattan sidewalk. Armed with a Criminology and Criminal Justice degree, she finally found a way to channel her love of the supernatural and passion for writing into darkly humorous supernatural mysteries. She is also the author of the Record Shop Mysteries and the Brooklyn Murder Mysteries. She still wants to be a unicorn when she grows up. Connect with Olivia on Instagram (@oliviablackeauthor), Facebook (AuthorOliviaBlacke), and Twitter (@oliviablacke), or check out her website at OliviaBlacke.com.
About A New Lease On Death: A New Lease On Death, a supernatural mystery, follows a grumpy, recently deceased ghost and her new, annoyingly perky living roommate as they form an unlikely alliance and put aside their considerable differences to solve a series of seemingly unrelated murders in their Boston neighborhood. Death is only the beginning in this darkly funny supernatural mystery about an unlikely crime-solving duo. Available in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook October 29, 2024 from Minotaur.
It’s no mystery that we love all things supernatural!
In A New Lease on Death, Ruby Young’s new Boston apartment comes with all the usual perks. Windows facing the brick wall of the next-door building. Heat that barely works. Noisy neighbors. A dead body on the sidewalk outside. And of course, a ghost. When the across-the-hall neighbor is murdered, recently deceased Cordelia Graves enlists Ruby’s help to solve the mystery and bring his killer to justice. As the roommates form an unlikely friendship and get closer to the truth about the neighbor’s death, they start to uncover other dangerous secrets.
A darkly humorous supernatural mystery, A New Lease on Death is cross-genre – it’s not quite a cozy, and not quite traditional. As an avid reader of all things paranormal, I wanted to highlight some fantastic recent supernatural books across a range of genres.
There’s an emerging mystery genre, affectionately referred to as the rom-cozy. In my humble opinion, Misty Simon’s the queen of the rom-cozy, and she’s not afraid to get spooky! In Unbridled Hauntings, Iona’s past literally comes back to haunt her when she moves back home and discovers that her childhood imaginary friends were actually ghosts. After she stumbles across a dead body, Iona needs the ghosts’ help to find the killer before she ends up as one of them. But that’s not all – in Misty Simon’s A Faire to Remember, a bunch of misfit paranormals running a Renaissance Faire bring magic, mayhem, and murder to town.
I caught up with Misty Simon to ask why she writes supernatural rom-cozies, and she told me, “There is something truly fabulous about supernatural books! They take you outside the norm and open up so many possibilities. I love writing them because you’re dealing with someone, or something, that has so much untapped power, and I love to see where that can go. It’s not just the trouble I’m about to get my characters into, but also how strong the character will have to be to thwart it and also grow in order to overcome what they’re facing, both personally and supernaturally.”
While rom-cozies blend rom-coms and cozy mysteries, another new genre, romantasy, is mixing romance with fantasy. Ali Hazelwood has already captured our hearts with her smart, sexy romances like The Love Hypothesis. Now here comes Bride, her new romantasy that explores an arranged marriage between a vampire and a werewolf in a universe where the paranormal is…well, perfectly normal!
I asked Ali Hazelwood about supernatural books she loved, and she responded, “My favorite supernatural book is Land of The Beautiful Dead by R. Lee Smith! It’s a romance that should just not work, but somehow it does, perfectly. And like everything the author writes, it’s sooo unique!”
On the topic of romance, Jenna Levine writes swoon-worthy paranormal love stories with a bite. Her books are sweet, sexy, and just a touch spooky. In My Roommate Is a Vampire and My Vampire Plus-One, falling in love with a vampire absolutely doesn’t suck.
Jenna Levine told me, “I like adding supernatural elements to my books because they truly allow me and my imagination to run wild. When you’re talking about imaginary creatures, you’re not hemmed in by anything based in reality in any way, shape, or form. In a nutshell, adding supernatural elements to my books is just plain fun.”
But not all supernatural books are fun and games wrapped in a happy ending. Amanda Jayatissa knows how to thrill us and keep readers on their toes, but when she came out with Island Witch, she proved that she can haunt us as well! In nineteenth-century Sri Lanka, Amara’s father is a demon-priest, responsible for protecting their costal village from supernatural forces. When a witch emerges from the jungle to terrorize and attack the villagers, Amara finds herself in the center of a dark mystery.
When I asked Amanda Jayatissa why she like supernatural stories, she said, “As someone who’s comfort read has been Shirley Jackson for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been drawn to the eerie tension that supernatural elements bring into a story. My first favourite book with supernatural elements was The Ghost Next Door by R L Stine. There have been many more since then, but this was the book that made me obsessed with ghost stories.”
Ghosts! Witches! Vampires, oh my! When it comes to the paranormal, there’s something for all tastes. Whether you’re looking for mysteries like A New Lease on Death, rom-cozies, romantasy, romance, or thrillers, your next supernatural read is waiting for you.
