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| Image copied from Goodreads |
If I Stopped Haunting You is the first paranormal romance that I've read by Colby Wilkens. It is a spicy and entertaining enemies-to-lovers romance with plenty of paranormal touches that are often fun nods to horror classics such as Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. It also features Native American main characters who are each writers in their own right and delves into the struggles to get published if you are a BIPOC novelist.
The enemies-to-lovers trope between the main characters, Penelope and Neil, opens with them at a horror writer's convention where each are author panelists. The two have been pitted against one another by traditional publishers as "the competition" in large part because there are still abysmally few Native writers who have managed to successfully break into traditional publishing. Both Neil and Pen are novelists who who have each struggled to tell their authentic stories because the publishing world still seems to want to whitewash their experiences or promote negative stereotypes about their people. Penelope accuses Neil of selling out at the convention and when Neil responds to her accusation, he so infuriates her that she throws a book at him. Months later, they are horrified to find they will be stuck with each other at a writing retreat they both agreed to attend in a haunted castle in part to overcome the writer's block each are facing after the horror convention fiasco.
Despite the fact that Pen and Neil start out as rivals in the story, they've both secretly admired one another too. Neil has admired Pen for being brave and not letting any publisher coerce her into telling her stories differently from how she wants to write them. Pen admired Neil's earlier work and looked up to him as a role model she could aspire to be like as a writer until she felt he sold out to achieve traditional publishing success. But as they are holed up together for the writing retreat at a haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands, they slowly begin to understand each other more fully and their attraction begins to transform their animosity into passion of a different kind. As for the ghost story, the hauntings in the castle are introduced in creepy and fun ways such as the feel of cold fingers grazing one's neck, names whispered in one's ear, and the compulsion of Pen to want to open that door in the forbidden and spooky west wing they've been told to stay away from. It lends a bit of mystery to the story, as well, that made me want to keep reading to figure out how they would resolve whatever was keeping these spirits trapped in the castle. All in all I recommend this book for fans of the enemies-to-lovers trope who also like a bit of paranormal suspense mixed in with their romance. It is a fun, spicy and slightly spooky read.
I want to thank both NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me the chance to read this free eARC in exchange for this honest review. If I Stopped Haunting You will be available for purchase everywhere books are sold on October 15th.
Stay tuned for my next spooky season review in a couple of weeks of Sign of the Slayer by Sharina Harris, a young adult paranormal romance. The image and book blurb below are both copied from Goodreads.
Full Metal Alchemist meets Vampire Diaries in this fun and clever dark academia series…
High school is supposed to be about studying, socializing, and marching- band practice. Not fighting vampires. Then one night flipped my world inside out―now, my life sucks. But it isn’t all bad. I’m at a slayer academy, learning things like the real origin of vamps and how to make serious weapons out of thin air.
Every last one of them will pay for what they did. I’m doing great.
Until I come face-to-face with the actual vampire prince…and I’m not sure of anything anymore. Vampires are supposed to be soul-sucking demons. But Khamari is…something else. He’s intelligent and reasonable―and he seems to know things about me that could change everything.
He’s also hiding something big, even from his own kind. And when a threat from an ancient evil is so extreme that a vampire will team up with a slayer to take it down, it isn’t just my need for revenge that’s at stake anymore.
It’s the whole damn world.
