Wilkens excels at creating characters that feel real, with all their vulnerabilities and flaws. [Love interest’s name], the person being haunted, is equally compelling, navigating their own journey of healing and self-discovery while grappling with the eerie presence of their former lover. The slow unraveling of their complicated relationship is both heartbreaking and deeply satisfying.

The supernatural aspect of the novel adds a layer of intrigue, but it’s the emotional depth and character development that truly make the story shine. The pacing is well-balanced, allowing for moments of tension and catharsis as both characters work through their unresolved emotions.

I want to start out by saying how I cackled at the tagline of this: "Ghosts aren't the only thing that go bump in the night". Blending horror and contemporary romance to me is a large feat. I always feel like one genre suffers in these types of books and unfortunately, that is also the case with this one. I'm not the biggest horror fan but honestly, the vivid descriptions were good and gave me the spooky atmosphere! Where this story was lacking for me was in the development of the romance - it felt rushed and forced. I hoped for more emotional depth given their history. Then again, connecting with Penelope was difficult, period. I didn't really find she had any redeeming qualities in her character. The plot as a whole felt rather disjointed. I'm also disappointed concerning the drama that came out about this author.

Thank you to St-Martin's Press, St-Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Given recent news with this author I will unfortunately not be giving a further review on this book. I have to include a star rating so I am rating this 1 star with this note as further context.

The information about this author that has come out is super yikes. On top of that, the story is not well-written.

I thought this was a super fun gothic and a lovely romp through Scotland. I enjoyed most of the drama between the two characters but the poor MMC just kept getting hurt by our FMC. Sometime it was accidental but other times it was intensional. Without the book assault this would have been a pretty good story.

Overall, the premise—haunted castle, writers' retreat, two people who can’t stand each other—was super promising, but the execution didn’t quite hit the mark for me. That said, I did appreciate the insights into Indigenous authors and the lack of representation in the writing world. I also enjoyed the secondary characters, Laszlo and Daniela.

Could not get into this book but kept trying…even by 80% it was still cringe and slow, so I went to see what other people were saying about it and saw the controversy about the author. Yikes.

I love enemies to lovers and I even love bully romances, but I was expecting a cozy horror romance with some steam...not full on physical abuse from the jump lol. I DNF'd I'm not even sure where, but I didn't get super far. I hate to DNF arcs, but when it's not it, it's not it. Two stars for, "an attempt was made."

I didn't quickly connect with this story or the characters. After reading some reviews, I thought perhaps the (perhaps) ambivalence to violence would be content I wouldn't enjoy--so I've decided to not fully read this novel. But, I did enjoy what I read.

DNF — I couldn’t focus at all on the story and therefore stopped reading. The writing style wasn’t for me either… I was incredibly bored.

DNF - I started this book and had to put it down because I was so bored. I'm sorry.
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to read it, unfortunately it just wasn't for me.

I just do not think this book was for me. I found the characters unbearable with motives that made no sense. The main character hates the love interest because people like his book more, not a great start to enemies-to-lovers. The book was very slow paced and I did not find the horror elements creepy.

I... could not finish this book without both skimming and hate reading this. From the description and cover, I was going to love this. Instead, I hate it. I got whiplash from how quickly things were swinging from one way to another and I definitely couldn't find any situation in which these characters would have ever felt any of these feelings described. For me, this just wasn't it.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

It seemed that this book did not know what kind of book it wanted to be. I didn't buy into its enemies-to-lovers romance; but I also didn't find the thriller/horror elements of the book satisfying. I probably should have stopped reading when I realized that it wasn't a good fit for me, but I kept reading to see whether the ghost story resolved itself in a satisfying way. Unfortunately, it did not.

One thing that I did find interesting was its commentary around indigenous authors and contemporary publishing trends. The story started off strong with this theme at its center but didn't seem to know where to go from there.

Even now, I'm left with many questions: What was the thinking behind setting the story in the UK? It seemed like the caretaker would play a bigger role in the story; what happened there? Why did the haunting seem to be resolved so quickly with (ultimately) so little effort?

This wasn't totally what I was expecting. Especially with the ghosts side of things. A little out there, but I still enjoyed the book. The enemies to lovers trope made up for the weird ghost story.

This book is about two indigenous authors who begin as enemies due to one whitewashing their work for publication. They then go to the same writing retreat at a haunted castle in Ireland and spend zero time writing and 100% of the time investigating ghosts.

I was excited for this book when I received this ARC, but it really fell flat for me. I didn’t feel a connection to either main character, the ghost solution was anticlimactic, and they got over their issues and fell in love in like 3 days. It felt like there was too much going on outside of their relationship for that to really develop on the page. That being said, the premise and the plot were very interesting! But I wouldn’t read this for a great love story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

No, we do not romanticize physical assault and no we do not support this author pretending to be a poc to appeal to bipoc readers.

I wanted to play outside my usual sandbox of genres, and the mention of a haunted Scottish castle persuaded me to give this book a try. I'm not much of a romance reader other than the occasional rom-com, and if it's not the primary focus of a story I'm usually fine with it. That wasn't the case with this novel. I'm clearly not the audience for it, but I'm glad I tried it. I'm sure there are plenty of readers out there who'd love it (my book club would devour it), but it just wasn't for me.

I wanted to like this one, the premise sounds great and I like the cover art. Unfortunately abuse from one main character to the other is not going to work for me. I tried, but was unable to finish.

I’ve been following Colby for years on Instagram and when she announced she was writing a book I was excited to see what she would write. The synopsis and her character art just drew me in and I was hooked. I loved the part where they get to the castle and the descriptions. I felt like I was in for a dark creepy book with romance while ghost wondered around. I just couldn’t continue reading after a while, the fmc was really mean and she had problems with herself and her identity (which I don’t mind it happens) she just didn’t deal with it okay and had lots of hate. Then the news came out with Colby’s whole not being a Native American and I just had to stop reading. Didn’t feel right at that point. I wasn’t that into it and that just told me why.