This was a cute summer read filled with ghosts and love. I loved the small town setting & the whole plot around ghosts.
It wasn't my favorite by this author but adorable none the less.

“You’re going to make this house beautiful.”

This was exactly what I’ve come to expect from Jen DeLuca, and I loved the switch up from the renaissance fair setting to a haunted town in Florida. It feels different and fun, and our main couple is really sweet. It has DeLuca's patented mix of sweet and spicy, and the pivot toward the paranormal was a really welcome change.

Cassie is on this self-discovery journey as all of her friends have reached milestone she hasn’t. Her efforts to buy a house land her in a supposedly haunted town and her house is a main attraction. She has quick chemistry with Nick, who owns a coffee shop and has ties to the paranormal himself. I found Cassie so relatable in how she feels behind her friend group as they are all getting married and having children. Her problems seem insignificant compared to what they're dealing with. It's satisfying to see her come into her own despite her house being haunted and discover how to be happy with her life.

Nick has his own ghost to deal with who previously ran the cafe Nick now owns. I enjoyed the text messages Nick shares with Elmer and how it shape how he runs the cafe. I do think there was a bit left to be desired from Nick, especially with his previous relationship. It felt like he was not as fully-fleshed out as Cassie was.

As the bigger story unfolds, Cassie and Nick’s burgeoning relationship is juxtaposed with the haunting of her house that reveals a deeper history to the house and the town. They dig deeper, with a fun supporting cast, to uncover the truth for the woman haunting the house. I will say this was a great twist because it comes together so well. The backdrop of the haunted house and the history of why it's haunted is a really fun mystery to follow with the main characters. It adds an additional layer and I really enjoyed it.

“The sunsets look so much better with you.”

While this is such an enjoyable book, I found myself enjoying the haunting storyline more than the romantic one. Cassie and Nick lack just a bit of chemistry to really bring their romance to the forefront. They feel just a bit forced, even thought it does get better by the midway point. It almost feels like too much is trying to happen between Cassie, Nick, and the haunting. I think there just needed to be some truncating of the plot to really pull it all together.

WHAT A GREAT BOOK. This was SO much fun. I've been looking for a later summer/early fall book and ughh!!
I loved everything about this from the characters to the plot. It made my heart melt, while also busting out laughing at times.
The relationship was everything and I would read 50 books about these two MCs.

Haunted Ever After was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I've loved Jen DeLuca's previous books and this one sounded so fun. A little haunted house mystery with a steamy romance? Count me in!

I am absolutely delighted to report that this book exceeded my expectations. It was so fun. I loved the characters, the plot, the setting and the romance. Everything blended together perfectly.

Cassie & Nick were everything. I liked their dynamic and felt they had a lot of chemistry. I also thought the ghost interfering was so funny.

This book is perfect for spooky summer!

4.25 stars


I absolutely love Jen DeLuca's Well Met series, so I was excited to see her coming out with a new one with a paranormal twist. This has all the cozy small town charm and fun side characters I've come to expect from her books, but like most first in series, I felt like the setting was the star and we didn't get much depth with the main characters.

Cassie Rutherford has decided on a whim to move from Orlando to the small town of Boneyard Key, in response to feeling stuck in a rut while her friend group is moving on in life, getting married and having babies. She buys a historic cottage sight unseen, and soon learns why it was so cheap when her laptop will not stay charged and the words of the magnetic poetry set on her refrigerator move seemingly on their own. Forced out of her home to get any work done, she sets up camp at the local coffee shop, where owner Nick Royer doesn't take too kindly to tourists. Initially getting off on the wrong foot, he warms to her when he realizes she's newly moved into the ghostly town's most infamous house, and shows her the curiosities and quirks of living in Boneyard Key. I loved how the ghosts of Boneyard Key all had their own personalities, and how they were treated as if they were still living. This was more of a plot driven story than character driven, and the romance between Cassie and Nick felt a bit forced. Cassie really didn't show much personality of her own, and I felt we got more depth and insight into Nick. I looked forward more to the chapters that pivoted to his perspective than those of Cassie's. The next story looks to be about Sophie the ghost tour leader and Theo, the book store owner/local history buff, so I'm hoping it pivots to more of a character driven romance than just a cozy setting.

This was the perfect summer transitioning into fall/spooky season read for me. I need to find more books with this vibe asap! This is my first read by this author, but it will certainly not be my last. I loved all of the characters (Boneyard Keys has quite a few interesting residence) and I loved the storyline and the researching the past. I flew through this one and had such a good time reading it. I hope there is more to come for this little haunted town!

This was a delightful romantic ghost story! It’s a fast paced story filled with some fun characters. I liked the idea of the whole town being haunted. It has a bit of a mystery that adds to the story. I enjoyed much more than I was expecting to.

I loved the set up of this series. Perfect references to Florida (pub subs!!) and the fun of the town's set up.

I found myself not super in love with Nick though. His struggles from his ex who left him was just no engaging as his issues with her potentially leaving.

I am curious enough that I would possibly try the second book in this series because maybe this couple just didn't work for me.

Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca
Release Date: 8/13/24
Format: audio/ebook hybrid
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Tis the season to be haunted fa la la la la….ok ok I know it’s only August but it’s in the 70s and gloomy in NJ today so I decided what better time to review this contemporary romance full of the best ghostly autumn vibes!

I really adore the idea of this new series by DeLuca. I am such a sucker for her Well Met series and I had been dying to see what she would tackle next. She’s giving us a ghosty twist and I’m not mad about it!

DeLuca really excels at writing small town romances and side characters you can’t help but root for. I did love all the ensemble cast in this book but there was a moment where the MMC’s behavior almost had me DNFing. This is addressed and redeemed later on but I will say, if I wasn’t already a big fan of her writing and trusted her story, this might be a very different review.

Regardless, it is a pretty quick & fun romcom to get you ready for the Halloween season! I am excited to see what she does with the next installment!

Jen DeLuca has sucked me in again. I loved her last series! When I heard she was writing a new one with Magical Realism elements, I knew I would love it just as much!! I hope that this will be a series too because I am not ready to leave Boneyard Key yet!!!

4.5 stars rounded up to 5
1 spice

This was my first foray into the world of paranormal romance and it did not disappoint. I am a big fan of cozy mysteries and this novel managed to capture that atmosphere in spades. I absolutely loved the setting and all of the characters. The is-it-or-isn't aspect of the home being haunted also added a layer of fun and intrigue for the reader. Cassie is an amazing lead character and I want more in this series.
My only issue was the ending as I felt it was dim compared to what it was supposedly going to be a big bright finale.

Thank you Berkley!

Cassie Rutherford buys a house and moves to Boneyard Key, Florida when she feels like her friends’ lives are leaving her behind. They were all getting married and having kids, and Cassie wanted a break from constantly feeling left out. She didn’t realize she was moving to a haunted house in a haunted town, though. Cassie has to make sense of her laptop never charging at her house and with cryptic magnetic poetry on her fridge. Local coffee shop owner Nick Royer doesn’t do relationships but he’s more than happy to show Cassie around his local haunts.

This was my first by Jen DeLuca and I was totally charmed by it! Cassie was a really relatable FMC, and moving to a new place when she was feeling left out really resonated with me. Nick was a cute golden retriever (when he was himself) and I thought it was sweet how quickly he went all in with Cassie.

I liked that this was self aware enough to call out the pace of the romance, too. It’s definitely a slow burn but once they get together it moves fast. In many romances I read that fast timeline is normalized and here I really enjoyed that they acknowledged that it was fast but also that it worked for them. There’s no wrong or right way to fall in love and I like that Cassie and Nick show that here.

Recommended if you enjoy:

👻paranormal
☕️ slow burn
💘 found family
🪦 slightly spooky
🌹 taking down the patriarchy one ghost at a time

This is a really cute paranormal romance book. I really enjoyed the characters and the small town vibes. I read this book in one sitting and it is the perfect book for fall! I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

Read if you like:
🏘️ Small Town Romances
👻 Ghost Stories
🏡 Haunted Houses/Towns
🧐 Meddlers
🔥 Slow Burn
❤️ Insta-Attraction

Oh my gosh! This was my first book by Jen Deluca and now I can’t wait to read more as I absolutely ate up her storytelling with this one! And the fact that it’s the first in a series I am sooo excited to come back to this spooky small town with her future installments!

If you like meddling & small town romances and a bit of supernatural aspects with spooky ghosts haunting the small town, make sure to pick this one up! The vibes that Happy Medium had earlier this year are definitely similar to the vibes of this book, so if you loved that one, you’ll love this one too!

All in all, I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed this one, and really hope others read and enjoy it as much as I did!

I loved the insta-attraction, but slow burn, meddling ghosts, the reveals of what was happening with the ghosts in town, and all the side characters as it just made it such a well rounded feeling romance.

TW did discussion of infertility, abusive partners, and abandonment.

Thank you so so so much to Berkley and PHRA and Libro.fm for my gifted ARC and audiobook copies of this new favorite of mine in exchange for my honest review!

✨ Review ✨ Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca

Thanks to Berkley, PRHAudio and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!

I was a huge fan of Jen's Well Met series, but this one just didn't quite do it for me. I didn't feel captured by the chemistry between the characters, and so the romance was just kind of meh for me.

I did love the ghostiness of it all and the town that they're living in, but if I'm being honest, by the end, I was reading more for the resolution of the ghost story than for the romance. Maybe it was just a wrong book, wrong time situation for me, but this one was just okay.

This book grew on me as I was reading it. The first half was a little rough and the romance didn’t really grab me how I liked. But I was THERE for all the ghost history! The paranormal aspect was my favorite theme and I ended up invested in the mystery.

I enjoyed the location and the world building was charming, small town with ghosts and interesting history. The romance between Cassie and Nick was a little instant so I didn’t feel involved as much in their characters but it was an enjoyable book with a happy ending.

I’m curious to read more books in this series, perhaps about a tour guide and a bookstore owner with a few spooky ghosts 👀

3.5⭐️

Thanks to Berkeley for the giveaway copy.

Thank you to Berkeley Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of “Haunted Ever After” by Jen DeLuca in exchange for an honest review.

Cassie Rutherford, feeling left behind as her friends get married and start families, decides her life needs a big change. She buys a sea-side cottage in Boneyard Key, a town entirely devoted to ghost tourism. She belatedly discovers that it’s not just the town that has ghosts; her new home comes with an undead roommate called Mean Mrs. Hawkins.

Meanwhile, local coffee shop owner Nick Royer also has a roommate. Elmer, the former owner of the coffee shop, long deceased, continues to offer suggestions on how the coffee shop should be run. Elmer hates the way Nick makes banana bread but he does approve of the cute, new girl in town, encouraging Nick to ask her out. Nick does not need much encouragement. After a slightly bumpy start, they get along swimmingly.

What follows is an incredibly adorable, low key romance between Cassie and Nick, supported by a fully charming cast of characters, both living and dead. Cassie and Nick are both appealing characters, if maybe a little too flawless. There is no terrible 3rd act break-up; their brief separation is brought about circumstances they didn’t yet understand (though readers will absolutely surmise what’s happening). There’s just no question that these two crazy kids will wind up together; their on-page chemistry is apparent from the start.

Strongly recommended for folks who want the romance equivalent of a cozy mystery and readers who prefer ghosts more like Casper than the Librarian from Ghostbusters. Pick this up if you need a Florida vacation, minus the Florida Man antics.

2/5 Stars

Thank you to Berkley for blessing me with an arc.

I was so excited when I got a widget for this one as I loved the Well met series by Jen Deluca but this one fell flat for me. I thought the paranormal elements were interesting but felt somewhat surface level. The relationship between the two main characters didn’t work for me and I didn’t fully believe it. And then the part that bothered me most was what I found to be a poor representation of Endometriosis.

Cassie Rutherford is a transplant to Boneyard Key, a quiet coastal town that boasts about being haunted for tourism so she thinks. She bought an adorable cottage that seemed perfect until weird things start happening, she can’t charge her laptop but the electrician said everything is fine, magnets on her fridge started moving on their own, giving her messages and so much more. Nick Royer the owner of the Hallowed Grounds coffee shop embraces the spookiness and tolerates tourists so when Cassie walks into his shop and ignores him just to steal his wifi and outlet he just thinks it is another tourist. But soon they strike up a friendship and try to figure out what is happening in her house and soon Cassie worries she is in too deep with her haunted house and what was supposed to be a casual relationship.

Cassie and Nick’s relationship felt somewhat surface level because they really only accept being more than casual at like 80% or so in but it wasn’t like it was them fully developing a friendship because things kept getting in their way. Cassie was fine but I felt like she could have developed a lot more like she could have accepted or talked to her so called friends, we don’t know much about her family or what her life was really like before moving.

It also is said in one line that Cassie has endometriosis, it felt like a throwaway line and it was purely her internal monologue and it also hinted that she had ovarian cysts. But it felt like she was ashamed of the endo and she never talks about it more. All she tells the MMC is that she can’t have children due to medical reasons which is fine because they had just made up but I wish we had seen another conversation that dove more into it. What also made if feel like an afterthought was during the spicy scene her stomach is actually mentioned and there are no scars when Endo can only be diagnosed via surgery so the odds are she would have one scar that would have been visible during that and it would have been a great way to bring it back up. But instead the only mention was one time 60% in and that was it. Many with endo can have kids but some can’t and it could have been great representation if it was gone into more but instead it felt like an afterthought. I don’t know if this is based on the author’s experiences. I didn't see anything in the acknowledgments but I don’t want to discount that it could be. I just think that it was lacking as someone who has endo.

I didn’t have a bad time with this book for most of it but it wasn’t what I wanted or expected from Jen’s other books. The representation truly was what was the most disappointing in this book. I probably would have given this 3.5 until the endometriosis was brought up and done in what I thought was a poor way.

What a fun read for spooky season! Or the summer season! Or really any season! This is a great romance read any time of the year, with real depth to the story. Both Cassie and Nick are lovable main characters, and the setting of Boneyard Key is delightful kitschy - it's a character in and of itself! The paranormal element adds a unique layer. Nothing feels gimmicky. Ghosts are a way of life in Boneyard Key and if you accept that, you're along for a wonderful ride.

There were some repetitive moments in terms of inner monologues in both the POVs but that was easy to overlook for me. I was invested in the mystery the of Hawkins House and the budding relationship between Nick and Cassie. The spice was also very tasteful (and minimal at that, so this is definitely still accessible to closed-door readers - just skip that scene)! Excellent pacing as well - it was fast without feeling too fast.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for my ARC!

Thank you to Jen DeLuca and Berkeley Publishing Group via NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I loved DeLuca’s “Well Met” series and was super excited for a new series from her. “Haunted Ever After” was an enjoyable read. I found the characters to be dynamic and realistic and loved how DeLuca built the town of Boneyard Key. It’s like if a Hallmark small town was full of ghosts. The relationship between the main characters was sweet and wholesome (besides some plot related issues). If you’re looking for an enemies to lovers or even friends to lovers style romance, then I’d look elsewhere. This story followed the two meeting, minor issues that are quickly squashed, instant attraction and interest, and then the relationship developed from there.

I really loved the haunted aspect. The main mystery is fairly obvious early on, but DeLuca does a great job creating both living and dead characters that are interesting and endearing. I would recommend this book to fans of DeLuca’s first book, “Gilmore Girls” lovers, and anyone who likes the spooky not scary Halloween movies.