falling in love, with ghosts

Cassie Rutherford has found herself in the Most Haunted Small Town in Florida. She had wanted to buy a house in her native Florida, and this was what she found that she could afford. However, she didn’t know about that nickname until after she showed up and signed her mortgage papers. And she didn’t hear the whole story about her new place, “the Hawkins house,” until she was home during a ghost tour and heard the tour guide talk about the woman who had once lived in the house.

Boneyard Key is such a small town that there aren’t many restaurants. There is a coffee shop near Cassie’s house though, which is good because for some reason her laptop won’t charge at her house. That’s how she finds herself in a back booth at Hallowed Grounds, plugging her laptop in just in time to join the online work meeting she had to be in. She didn’t have a chance to order coffee before the meeting and was going to afterwards, when she goes up to the counter and finds the barista on his phone. She threatens to tell the owner, Nick Royer, he tells her to go ahead. And when she asks his name, he is happy to tell her: Nick Royer.

Nick returns the favor though when Cassie asks if he knows an electrician. He tells her to ask the owner of the house to take care of whatever is wrong. She informs him that she is the owner, and it’s his turn to look sheepish at thinking she was a tourist. But Nick gives her the name of a local handyman. But when Cassie goes back home and finds that the magnetic words she left on her refrigerator were rearranged to say “My house,” she realizes she may not need an electrician. Cassie may need a ghost hunter instead.

Cassie realizes that the ghost story she’d heard about her house might be real after all. Sarah had lived in the house with her husband from when they married in 1904 until he died in 1911. After his death, she had stayed in the house but refused to let anyone get near it. She had planted roses by the front fence to discourage kids to get too close. She had come to be known as “Mean Mrs. Hawkins.” Sarah had lived there alone until her death in the 1940s, and the house sat untouched for decades. Finally a house flipper bought it and refurbished it, which is how Cassie came to own it. But Cassie starts to doubt the accuracy of the story when she looks at her refrigerator and sees the word. “Wrong.”

As Cassie is coming to the believe that not only is she living with a ghost but also that the ghost is talking to her, she worries about sounding crazy. But when she tells Nick, Cassie finds out that not only does he believe in ghosts, he has one of his own. Elmer had owned the coffee shop before him, and he has been texting Nick all his advice ever since Nick took it over, starting with not putting cinnamon in the banana bread.

Cassie can’t deny that she is feeling some electricity with Nick, even though the electricity in her home is still sketchy. But living with a ghost comes with challenges, and she can’t but think she might be better off selling the house and finding another place to live. But she also wants to find out what Sarah’s real story was. Can Cassie get used to the idea of living with a ghost, if it means she gets to be with Nick? Or is Boneyard Key just not the home Cassie dreamed of?

Haunted Ever After is the first novel of Jen DeLuca’s that is not set in a Renaissance Faire. That popular series, which started with Well Met, is filled with smart characters, a strong sense of place, and sweet romances. And this Boneyard Key book is the same. It’s filled with charming characters who steal your heart, even from beyond, and a strong sense of place. And the romance is sweet and spicy, with lots of fun surprises.

I am a big fan of the Well Met books, and I loved Haunted Ever After almost as much. I loved how DeLuca used the ghosts in this story, adding fun and intrigue as they figured out ways to communicate with the living. This book brings romance and comedy, past and present, coffee and pastries, and blends it all into one big sloppy happy book about small-town Florida. It’s so much fun, and I can’t help but hope this will turn out to be the first in a series, so I can hang out some more with the humans and ghosts of Boneyard Key. And for me, DeLuca gets bonus points for knowing the pain of losing the Oxford comma while using AP style.

Egalleys for Haunted Ever After were provided by Berkley through NetGalley, with many thanks.