I am really disappointed by all the drama around this author because I finished and enjoyed this title just before it came out that she might not be Native. It's one of the things that I pay attention to in my reading. I'm sorry that she is likely done in publishing, but I wish y'all hadn't done this.

*I did not finishing this book, stopping at 34%. My review reflects only the portion I read.*

If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens is an enemies-to-lovers romance about two horror writers on a writing retreat with friends at a haunted castle in Scotland. Penelope Skinner and Neil Storm haven't been in the same room together for months after she threw a book at him during a panel for Native writers. Both are suffering from writer's block when their mutual friend invites them on a writing retreat. The two find themselves fighting feelings they didn't realize they had all while avoiding the ghost that haunts the castle's halls.

The premise of this story caught my attention. I love books about books or authors. This one is set during a writer's retreat AND features a haunted castle. Perfectly spooky for this season, however I couldn't get past the FMC. I loved Neil. He seems genuinely kind and empathetic, even understanding as to why Penelope feels the way she does about his books. However, I couldn't get past her treatment of him. It was borderline abusive, narcissistic at the very least. She's physically hitting him at one point, verbally "sparring" with him at another, and not once does she say anything kind, but she'll kiss him in a heart beat? Not my kind of romance. I honestly didn't even make it to the haunting part of the story.

Overall, this one isn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy of If I Stopped Haunting You
by Colby Wilkens

Enemies to lovers
paranormal / rom com

Both the romance and the paranormal mystery were really enjoyable! I All in all, this is a nice, cozy read.Perfect for spooky season, the relationship between the two main characters seemed a little more rushed, I would have preferred a little more time for the character was more development

I have decided not to read this book due to the controversy surrounding the author's claim of indigenous heritage that is unverifiable.

I have decided not to read this book due to the controversy surrounding the author. The author has claimed that she is Native American, and her books feature native characters; however, the Native American tribal council conducted research and found that there is no genealogical connection to any indigenous tribe.

Unfortunately I didn’t click with this book and decided to DNF at 30%. I tried multiple times over the last couple of weeks to get into it (to make sure the mood reader in me wasn’t taking over my enjoyment of the book) but ultimately I found I wasn’t invested in the characters or the story. I feel like the haunted castle/horror writers storyline had potential but it fell flat for me. I didn’t love the dynamic between Neil and Penelope. The side characters were a bit annoying. I did love the Scotland setting!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC. It got pushed to the back burner and now that certain events have come to light I will not be continuing.

Boring and obvious are the words that come to mind with this novel. It's fine to be formulaic, but at least make things interesting. And if you claim to have a "spooky twist", maybe make it actually spooky. I was really hoping for more of the haunting aspect here and was very disappointed.

Thank you for the opportunity to read an advance copy of If I Stopped Haunting You.

If I Stopped Haunting You had such an interesting synopsis that I was drawn in. But unfortunately I felt that the book did not hold up to the expectations. I found at times the plot of the book hard to follow, I was getting confused with timeline and the different “facts” that pertained to the ghosts.

Pen and Neil were interesting characters, and the change in their plot was interesting. Although it was a romance, it felt at times that the author wanted to be writing a horror/thriller.

Overall I just didn’t find myself enjoying how the story was professing as it was hard to follow in my opinion. Since concluding the book I have decided to not put my reviews on social media.

This book is a cute enemies to lovers romance! I loved the setting and the tension between the love interests. I think this book will appeal to anyone who likes academia vibes. Although the characters are authors, the old haunted castle and writers retreat setting gives scholarly energy. If you like enemies to lovers who pretend to hate each other when they are really in love, you’ll like this!

Unfortunately this book was not enjoyable for me. I didn't buy into the enemies/rivals to lovers trope, the arguing between characters felt petty and childish. I was hoping the setting would provide more fun quips for the story but I didn't get that either. I appreciate the ARC, but this is not one I'd recommend.

This book was such a slow burn, wayyy too slow and so that is why I took a whole star away. I really wanted to see more passion burning between the two of them while they bickered. I think they were too in their heads and not enough banter and overall dialogue about how they felt about each other directed to each other.

I do absolutely appreciate the native representation and I learned something new from reading about Skinner and Storm and their heritage and how they see themselves in the eyes of their book audience. I also loved that it wasn’t important to find out if Skinner was in fact related to the Scottish lady in black (or white, depending on the book cover versus description discrepancy lol).

Overall, a decent read but I definitely wanted to put it down multiple times and do something else because I was getting a bit bored with Lazlo and Daniella. Thanks to Colby Wilkens, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

I made it 13% to chapter 4. I tried.

However it’s hard to look past the abusive acts of FMC from the prologue and the fact that by chapter 4, she still can’t take accountability for her actions.

Enemies to lovers doesn’t need to start out like this one did. The FMC is a writer (who hasn’t released a new book in five years) that’s upset that the MMC has more success than her and has released more books.

The FMC didn’t need to go to Scotland, she needed to go to therapy.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC, sadly I will not be finishing this one.

EDIT: 25 Oct 2024

If you still have any interest in this book, please look up the author and recent events that have occurred. Personally, I do not feel like I cannot recommend this book to anyone both for the plot and for the character of the author.

Penelope Skinner found horror author Neil Storm infuriating enough to throw a book at, but she's unable to write herself. Invited to a writers retreat in a supposedly haunted Scottish castle, Penelope wonders if it's too good to be true. Neil is there as well, doubting himself as well. The two are trapped in a ghost story and attracted to each other. If they don't figure out what the ghosts want, their own story might never find a conclusion.

This is a romance with some horror elements, perfect for Halloween. Penelope is mixed white with Native, and always felt judged by others for not being enough. Neil is fully Native, but got popular writing conventional horror stories with characters that followed hurtful stereotypes. Both actually were insecure about their writing and successes, so a mutual friend invited each of them as well as another writing friend to the Scottish castle as a way to kickstart the muse. While there were stories about it being haunted, Penelope and Neil are the only ones that actually see the ghosts and experience the haunting for themselves. It brings them closer together, forcing them to acknowledge their feelings and attraction. Along the way they discover the identity of the ghosts, and get inspired to write again.

The meet cute was more like a horror show, and the dramatic parts with the ghosts are really well done and fit with a horror movie. This book is firmly a romance, so we get our happily ever after. Even the ghosts do!

First and foremost I am most grateful to have received an arc for this book! I was really intrigued by the description and the cover, also the possibility of finding a new favorite author was what got me interested. I started this immediately after getting approved of the arc and it sat on my kindle for about 40-ish days not being continued. I got until 20% the first time I started it and tried to push myself to finish this but I really do not want to read a book I have no good feelings about while there are so many other books out there that I am definetly more interested to read so I decided to dnf this one at 31%.
My biggest issue with this book was what happened in the very beginning, the fmc and mmc are at a book convention in which the mmc has a panel discussion about his books (I do not want to assume anything about being a native person/creator in any way shape or form) but the fmc certainly does not like the way the mmc presents himself and his books so she casually throws her book at his head - in broad daylight, not to mention that any type of (physical) assault no matter when is disgusting!!!!, at an official talk about his books because she does not like them and is jealous because she does not have the kind of success he does? Mind you he got a scar because of that! In addition to that every single time it is brought up in conversation after the event (they are kinda forced by a mutual friend to do a writing retreat in a haunted castle in Scotland) she blames the mmc and does not apologize a single time. I did not like her at all, she had no redeeming qualities for me in the 31% I read. They also started to form a weird physical attraction that I could not get behind. Whilst being in the haunted castle there where some descriptions in both povs about the other mc in terms of being sexually attracted and I am absolutely baffled because how in the world could you forgive a woman who not only physical assaults you in front of your whole fandom, leaves you with a scar and never once apologizes but still blames you for that? No, I'm not even sorry but this is 100% not it.
What I liked about this book was the Edinburgh and Scotland description in the beginning because I just visited the city with my best friend!!

The premise of If I Stopped Haunting You was really cute, but the execution was not great. I wanted a little more "scare" in my haunted house. The couple went from enemies to interested a little too quickly without enough interaction to justify to swift change of emotion. Ultimately, the book was just ok. I would have given it a 3-star rating. However, since then the author has come out with a statement:

I have only ever created stories that are authentic to me and my life experiences. I am not enrolled, I have never claimed to be enrolled or to represent the viewpoint of an enrolled tribal member, as reflected in my stories and statements. I have grown up with family and in a home that shared this experience, which goes back to my Great-Grandfather and extended family, and has been part of our culture and identity.

I have always been transparent about my identity, and our struggle to gather the paperwork necessary to enroll because of bad record keeping and missing and inaccurate documentation. This is not unheard of and is a difficult part of forming family histories.

I am working hard alongside my family to find more documentation, which takes time, but until I can prove my ties beyond a shadow of a doubt and in alignment with the Cherokee Nation’s statement on Sovereignty and Identity, I will no longer be writing Native stories. My team and I have decided to pull “If I Dig You” from publication until further notice and “If I Stopped Haunting You” will be my last Native story. Thank you for your patience as we work through this.

Because of this statement, I almost marked this book as "I will not be giving feedback". If she had kept the Native American storyline, but not tried to bill herself as such, there would not have been an issue. It is that she was given a $250k bookdeal to write stories as an "owned voices" POC. Therefore I am giving this book a 2-star rating.

This book got a lot of hype, and I do not think it lived up to it. It is supposed to be an enemy to lovers Romance, but she threw a book at him! And then they immediately fall in lust without much reason. The character development is lacking. I know it's very cool these days to mix genres (Romance and horror or mystery in this case) but I think the book took on too much without being particularly good at any of the genres. The mystery doesn't seem that important to solve. I wasn't very scared by any of the spooky things that happened in the haunted castle.

I should also say that it was hard to read this book without thinking about the controversy surrounding this author. Colby Wilkens claims to be white and of Cherokee and Choctaw descent. The Tribal Alliance Against Frauds investigated her claims and found no Native ancestry at all. So much about this book felt not full fleshed out, especially the parts that were supposed to be about "Native themes." It is like she read some stereotypes of generalizations about Native people and decided to write a book employing them.

I do not recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley for the digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was in the middle of working on this review when all the news came out about Colby Wilkens' identity. It puts a damper on the story as a whole for sure and is completely unacceptable.

When I began, I knew nothing of Colby Wilkens. At the most basic level, I knew this was touted as a romance with ghosts involved and that piqued my interest. Oftentimes, after reading the initial synopsis and gauging my interest, I won't delve too far into what I'm getting ready to read because I try to go in as unbiased as possible to form my own thoughts and conclusions.

Suffice it to say, the haunted house aspect of the story outshone everything else for me. I was more invested in that side story and the history than I was in Penelope and Neil. I could not get past Penelope's actions in the Prologue and her ensuing audacity to claim that she's the real victim when it was her own actions that caused her fall from grace.

This was the first book I had read by Colby Wilkens, and based on everything come to light, will more than likely be my last. I can even say that had this come to light before I read the book, I wouldn't have even picked it up at all.

I had high hopes for this book but it fell flat for me. This is an enemies to lovers/forced proximity romance that takes place in a haunted scottish castle during a writers retreat. The spice level was high but the spooky/Halloween vibes were just a bit too silly. This book was a miss for me but if you love these tropes/paranormal romances then this may be the book for you.

Thank you to St. Martins press and NetGalley for this Advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

If I Stopped Haunting You is a delightful paranormal romance featuring two main characters that appear to dislike each other based off a rather wild incident. I enjoyed the beginning where Penelope loses it a big over Neil not be "true" to his background. It made for some interesting key points later in the story. Loved how they came together not only romantically, but to solve the ghost mystery in the castle they were staying in.