Ghosts of Halloween by Layla Fae

Whispers of the Story

Three men are killed brutally and one woman is blamed. They wait and wait for their chance to get revenge.  One of them is so full of lust for her that the other two start to feel the same obsession. One night a year, on Halloween, they can have physical bodies. So the plan is to play with her for a while before killing her.

She wanders into the house where they were killed without realising the haunting is about to begin. She is trapped with them, trying to accept her fate but also wanting more. More teasing, more fear, more pleasure, more punishment.

Horror blends with lust, hatred blends with desire, and the human world blends with the dead.

Review of Ghosts of Halloween by Layla Fae 

Fair warning, folks: This is a contemporary romance packed with suspense, adult themes, potential triggers, and sensual content. Strictly 18+ territory here. Before you crack this one open, have a look at the trigger warnings in the book’s foreword because they’re there for a reason. Consider yourself properly warned!

My TikTok feed flared up with teasing videos about this book. Masked half naked men with deep, sensual voices, coming towards me with a predatory gait claiming dominance. Bloody hell, I was hooked. I devoured those videos and the more I hit like, the more frequent they were. So I gave in and read the book. And boy, I was not disappointed by the spicy scenes. The rest? Well, they could have used a lot more thought.

The story has its usual clichés. Jack is a typical bad boy who is craving his best friend’s sister, Harlow, from the shadows whilst being involved in illegal activities. The feeling is mutual, but neither of them says anything. Because of Jack’s dodgy business, he, along with Silas and Caden, are killed by the Russian mob. But they remain as ghosts because they have unfinished business: revenging their deaths.

Apparently even without a physical body, ghosts can feel lust. Silas and Caden fulfil their needs once a year when they have physical bodies on Halloween. But Jack just sits and lingers in the dark, pining for Harlow. Like any good ghost story, they are bound to the house where they died.

Here’s where the story gets wobbly. Harlow is blamed for their deaths because she casually mentioned that her brother gave her an expensive gift. The Russian mob somehow traced this back to the men who robbed them. So it’s her fault for… talking about a present? Nobody told her to keep quiet, but she’s still the villain in their eyes. This becomes their justification for three years of planning her torture and eventual murder.

When Harlow wanders into the house, the haunting begins. The three men torment her in intensely spicy ways. The heat is so overwhelming that even Silas, who is gay, starts to desire her and teaches her dark, spicy moves. Even her punishment is designed to be pleasurable. At one point, Harlow herself points out they are not supposed to make her enjoy it, but here we are.

When Plot Holes Haunt More Than Ghosts

So after all this torment, what happens? They all fall madly in love with each other. Because apparently one night of spicy activities is all you need to forget the fact that you blame her for your deaths. The three year revenge plan? Forgotten the moment they see a kitten that purrs.

Their time together is limited. Once morning comes, the three men will be immaterial again and they will have to wait another year. But the story needed a happy ending, so the ghosts find a way to come back to life. How? They inhale the life essence from three dying men who followed Harlow into the house. She is now an accomplice to murder, but that’s fine because she helped the men who tortured her get human bodies. The logic is not logic-ing.

Let’s talk about the characters, because they make even less sense. Jack is crazy in love with Harlow. He wants her, craves her, but won’t tell her how he feels because… boundaries, I suppose? Yet he has absolutely no problem robbing and killing people. He’ll commit crimes but draw the line at emotional honesty. Right.

Harlow is searching for a spark, that special sensation. She sleeps with lots of men trying to find it, using them to reach a state nobody can apparently give her. Fair enough, she knows what she wants. But then she gets upset when a boyfriend asks why she sleeps with everyone except him. I don’t condone anything forced, but even I was asking that question. The book presents her as sexually liberated, and shows that it’s ok for her to use men for humping. But if someone wants to use her for humping it’s bad and they deserve to die. And it has nothing to do with the fact that her boyfriend wanted to force her since three men do that all night.

And their relationship as a foursome? Perfect, so naturally. There is jealousy but only the cute kind that leads to more steam. Jack, despite all that obsessive desire, has no problem sharing Harlow. Silas has no problem suddenly being attracted to a woman, of course only to her because she is special. Harlow is eager to please everyone. It is all very convenient and lacks any real conflict or complexity.

The Ending: From Dark Romance to Domestic Bliss

This story started as a dark romance about vengeance, punishment, and twisted desire. I would have loved for it to end with morning breaking, all four of them separated again, knowing they have to wait another year to be together. That would have been intense, bittersweet, and actually fitting for the dark tone the book promised.

Instead, I got the most vanilla ending possible. They rent a small house together and get jobs. Jobs! These are men who were involved in organized crime, died violently, spent three years as vengeful ghosts, murdered three people to get bodies back, and now they are… going to work? Layla Fae tries to keep some edge by mentioning they still have kinks behind closed doors, but I didn’t feel it. The darkness evaporated into suburban domesticity.

The method of resurrection was laughable. The men just inhale life essence from dying people and suddenly become solid, permanent, and alive. No consequences, no cost beyond three random men dying. It was a “what the actual hell?” moment that completely undercut any stakes the story had built up.

Final Thoughts

I liked the idea of this storyline. The spicy scenes were genuinely hot. But this book cares far more about spice than sense, and that became glaringly obvious as it went on. The story is not convincing. The characters are not convincing. They start as one thing and morph into completely different people without any real development to justify it.

The plot holes are massive. Why is Harlow blamed for mentioning a gift? Why does she go to the house? Why do the ghosts abandon their revenge so easily? Why does a gay man suddenly desire women? Why is murder fine but emotional honesty too scary? The book never bothers to answer these questions because it is too busy getting to the next spicy scene.

Honestly, after they came back to life, I almost stopped reading. The book had already given me everything of substance it had to offer. The TikTok marketing was brilliant and the spice absolutely delivered. But the plot needed actual logic, the characters needed consistency, and the ending needed to commit to being dark instead of going soft.

If you are here purely for the spice and genuinely do not care about plot holes, character development, or stories making sense, you will probably love this. The steamy scenes are worth the price of admission if that is all you want. But if you want a dark romance that actually stays dark and has a plot that holds together, you will be very disappointed. This book promised ghosts and gave me vanilla with a side of logic that fails.

Rating: 5 out of 10. Excellent spice, absolute shambles of a story.

Happy reading!