Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me.

To start the conflict that kicks off the book and defines Pen and Storm as enemies felt lacking. While on one hand I could understand Pens feelings towards Storm and how his portrayal of natives in his books made her feel and on the other Pens feelings seemed over the top and more rooted in her jealousy of him and his career than anything else. I felt like there was such a possibility for this to be an informative and constructive conversation between the two but instead Pen saw red and lost it.

Additionally the interactions between Pen and Storm throughout the book also felt hot and cold and not in a way I did not enjoy. One second one of them will be thinking about how attractive the other is and then the next sentence it’s about how awful they are. Overall I wanted there to be more of a build up in tension between the two of them. But I found the tension lacking and couldn’t find myself rooting for either of them.

One of the things that I did enjoy about the book was getting the dual POV from both Pen and Storm. This is one of my favorite writing styles as I like getting to see what both of the characters are thinking.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately this was not the book for me. I was not into the violence that the FMC displayed toward the MMC. I love a good enemies to lovers, this took enemy a little too far for my tastes.

A cute paranormal romance that had me giggling and kicking my feet in public, like I was a ghost people couldn’t see.

A very fun October read! Overall, I did not finish it because this quickly became a book I don't typically read. I saw a friend review this and loved it and thought I would give it a go, but just not for me. Would be fun for a young adult and perfect suspense for Halloween!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

This book confused me. I want to be clear that if someone is a Gothic horror girlie (gender neutral), this may be way more up their alley than it was for me. But I found the descriptions of the castle and constant discussion of the ghosts really slowed the pace down for me. The romance was spicy but clashed in tone with the horror and I found it difficult to get into one way or another. The big reveal at the end also felt very anticlimactic to me, I don't know that a malevolent terrifying ghost would manifest from the events that happened. It could be someone's vibe during the Halloween spooky season, but I felt a bit disappointed by the ending.

I enthusiastically embraced the idea of breaking writer's block at a haunted Scottish castle alongside rival writers Penelope and Neil. Their gothic horror-filled tale, complete with entertaining banter and simmering tension, kept me glued to the pages. The representation of native writers and their struggles resonated authentically, enhancing the story. Despite some immature elements in Pen and Neil's rivalry, their professional battles hit home. The engaging supporting characters added fun to the narrative. This paranormal romance promises an enjoyable read with its gothic ambiance and fiery chemistry. I highly recommend this captivating romcom.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

I want to take a moment to think Ness was the publishing company for providing me a copy of this book and exchange for my honest review.

This book brought me so much joy and you can never go wrong with an enemies to lovers book! I will definitely pick this book back up around Halloween because of the fun spooky vibes.

I appreciate the opportunity to read and review this debut. I love a spooky, cozy read. I also like an enemies to lovers trope with an unlikeable character element to overcome. That being said, this…wasn’t my favorite. The characters were too unlikeable to overcome, and I felt like I had to force myself to keep going. The plot didn’t move quite fast enough for my taste, either. I’m not saying it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it wasn’t really mine.

It's hard to get past a character who comes off as unlikable in the first few pages of the book. Unfortunately both the hero and heroine were deeply unlikable from the jump and it stayed that way the whole book. I understand trying to instill the whole enemies to lovers trope early on to establish the eventual character development, but they just came off as unlikable and childish.

While I did appreciate the content warnings, they felt based and specifically for the pearl clutches of the reading world. While no warning is needed, I found the excessive/repetitive sexual scenes boring and wanted to skim them.

Saying all that, the premise and the characters are what really got my attention. They were the main reason I wanted to read this book. But, unfortunately, everything fell so flat to me. Maybe I was expecting too much. Maybe I was expecting more of a paranormal aspect to the story for some reason. Maybe I just went into this with the wrong mindset. But unfortunately this book was a major miss for me. Which is disappointing to say the least. Especially when we don't get enough Indigenous representation, especially in romance leaning books.

I recieved this book from NetGalley but all reviews and opinions are my own.

I felt this book was more 3.5 but definitely not a 3 star. It had so much potential with romance and horror and I feel like it fell a little short on both. The romance felt rushed and missed opportunities for more tension between the main characters as their enemies to lovers unfolds. And the haunting portion started of so strong but I was left underwhelmed with the conclusion of the haunting. I did enjoy the side characters and I loved the haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands. Just wish for a bit more here. I believe there is promise for future works.

This book was so entertaining to read! Definitely an unforgettable experience with a great ending. The characters were incredibly relatable and fascinating to read about.

Thank you for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this debut! I think this will be the perfect spooky romp for autumn and a lot of people are going to love it. With that said, it fell a little flat for me personally.

My biggest complaint is that the story didn’t flow well. I felt like a lot of the emotional buildup was created towards the end of the book when Pen and Neil had already gotten together - making their initial chemistry seem forced. I would have liked to see a little more of their backstory/history prior to arriving at the castle. (Penelope looking up to Neil as a writer and having a bit of a crush on him. Neil loving Pen’s writing so much he got a tattoo of it.) I just didn’t believe they cared about each other enough until well after they hooked up.

I think we also could have used more exposition regarding their rivalry to build tension. The panel incident/Pen’s anger felt like it came out of nowhere when the reader wasn’t let in on how she felt about Neil being a hero to Native writers in the first place. And dido to knowing how Pen’s public dis affected Neil. There are definitely some real emotions here to play with, but the payoff wasn’t there due to the placement of all this information later in the story.

Daniela and Lazlo were fun characters, but I just didn’t care about them as much as I wanted to. It was mentioned very early on that Daniela and Penelope hooked up, but there was no sexual tension between them at all. And it felt odd that Lazlo and Neil have been friends for over a decade but Neil never shared his feelings about Penelope with him. Daniela and Lazlo could have been replaced by two strangers and I don’t think it would have made that much of a difference.

The second half of the book really picked up when we started to hear more of Georgiana and Archie’s story. I would have loved to see that incorporated a little earlier and be a bigger part of the plot. It felt like prior to that there were very low stakes keeping them at the castle and working together.

Overall, I’m giving this book three stars. I loved the concept and main characters but it felt disjointed and confused. Regardless of my feelings about this book, I am excited for more work by Colby Wilkens.

this book was... okay. the romance aspect was decent and i found the whole publishing industry scene to be fascinating. but the whole thing is super repetitive, i felt like i kept reading the same thing over and over. even though the romance was okay, the characters weren't great and i really didn't connect with them. the story itself is supposed to be mainly character driven and these 2 just didn't do it for me, or the story really. i might give this a reread down the road to see if my mind changes.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.
I did not love this book like I hoped. Honestly, I don't even have much to say about it. The main reason, the only reason, honestly, I didn't care for this book is the characters. None of them are likeable. I've read plenty of enemies to lovers romances and it doesn't mean the characters have to be annoying. And the romance was way too quick. They've hated each other for months and then the second time seeing each other they almost kiss? They are in the castle for a week. It didn't need to happen the second time post incident. Our main female character is definitely one of the most annoying book characters I've ever read. Now a part from this large negative, I did think the "haunted" parts were written quite well. Some scenes did give me a bit of goosebumps and so for that, I give the book two stars. It shows me the author can write well, just the people in this book were the most annoying people on the planet. That being said, I would still recommend it to others, as the annoyance is more of a personal thing.

Song of the book: Ghost - Sir Sly

This book was not for me. I’m sad to be rating it so low, but so much of it didn’t work. I was excited by the premise of the novel, but I found the execution lacking.

I struggled to like Penelope, the FMC. The author puts herself in a very difficult position when she opens the novel with Penelope throwing a book at the MMC, Neil. She never manages to get Penelope to overcome this mistake in the eyes of the reader (or at least, in the eyes of this reader). Penelope is super stubborn and never seems to genuinely regret physically assaulting someone. It’s kind of bizarre. When Penelope talks about the incident with Neil, she makes arguments about WHY she disliked Neil and his writing, but she uses those (reasonable) arguments to then make the massive leap to say it was acceptable to throw a book at his head. I could not get over it!

The bulk of the novel takes place at the haunted castle where Penelope, Neil, and two of their author friends are doing a writers retreat (just to preface, let me say ZERO writing gets done at this retreat. I feel like this was kind of a missed opportunity for a cool story-within-a-story, but this is the lest of my issues with this book). These other two author friends are entirely two-dimensional and basically only exist so that Penelope and Neil have a reason to be at the retreat together. Penelope and Neil treat these two friends like trash by not even warning them that the ghosts in the castle are real and possibly murderous. I think if they had roped their friends into helping them solve the mystery of the ghost/castle, it might’ve given those two characters the opportunity to become more well-rounded and interesting, but that just did not happen.

Regarding the haunting of the castle, one of things I did appreciate about the novel was that the horror moments did feel very visceral and creepy at times. I also liked that the horror aspect was not super overwhelming to me as someone who generally dislikes horror movies and creepy plotlines. However, one thing I absolutely hated was how BIZARRELY the horror was juxtaposed with the romance. This is possibly my biggest problem with the book. There were at least three occasions where Penelope and Neil would have a close encounter with a ghost, and their response would be to make out or have sex IMMEDIATELY after. And I mean immediately! It was super jarring.

On the topic of the romance, I found it very strange that Penelope and Neil go from enemies to lovers in the course of a day. A DAY! The tension was not simmering like it should have. Neil, she threw a book at your head! I saw another reviewer that had the audacity to call this a slow burn. A slow burn? Be serious for a minute. Do NOT go into this expecting tons of yearning, I’ll tell you that much. I also feel like the author tried to retcon the total hatred Penelope and Neil felt for each other at the beginning of the book by having them both be like “ohhhh, I used to see you at these literary events and I was totally into you,” but I was really not getting that from the first half of the novel. Additionally, some of the dialogue between Penelope and Neil felt so stilted to me, especially when they were talking about the publishing industry. It was like the dialogue was intended as a presentation for the audience, not as two characters having an authentic conversation. Overall, it made it hard to enjoy the romance aspect of the book. I will give the author kudos for not having an idiotic third-act breakup.

In conclusion, I would not recommend this book. I’m sorry I didn’t like it more.

Horror isn’t my first genre I pick, but I thought the idea of a romance horror would be too good to pass up. It took my awhile to finish this as I never found it to grab my attention for more than 10 minutes at a time. I’m sadly disappointed with this book as this is just not a book I’d buy or read again.

I didn’t think the story within the plot made sense. Things randomly fell into place. I will say a couple parts of the book did give me that eerie feeling I was looking for and was described well, but for the most part I was not “on the edge of my seat”. This enemy to lovers trope was too predictable for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was the first horror romance I've read. I really enjoyed it and hope to read Wilkens' other books.

I beleive this was also the first novel I've happened to read with main characters who are Native. At the beginning I was half-concerned that I wouldn't relate to or understand, as I'm not Native myself, but those feelings were unfounded and now seem ridiculous.

Pen was such a relatable character. The subbornness, the sense of inadequecy, being passionate about her values! These are human traits, found in all cultures and exclusive to none. That being said, I did learn a fair bit about Native cultures, the publishing industry, and issues relating both, as well as other minority representation and stereotypes.

Neil Storm also kept me intrigued. I love that he is the one to have extended an olive branch to Skinner after everything, including bodily harm. I felt myself rooting for them.

I wanted to give this one five stars as a rating, but took one off because I feel Laszlo and Daniela seemed like they could be interesting characters if developed further, but otherwise felt like afterthoughts only there for plot development. Honestly, THEY felt like the ghosts who popped in and out of the story, like they spent most of their time in an unseen, otherworldly plane.

I wish more was cleared up on the Skinner family name coincidence. That feels like a strange thing to mention then not really take anywhere.

Overall, really enjoyed it and will recommend to friends!

At about 60% is when the book had me invested. I couldn't connect to Pen that much, and I am stubborn just like her. But to me, she took too long to let go of her fury when she was part of the problem. Her attitude is very standoffish.
But the castle being hunted and it's mystery had me intrigued. I found Neil's awkwardness charming. I found the romance between Neil and Pen intense and spicy. And I respect Pen's dedication and drive.

Penelope and Neil are attending a writers' retreat in a spooky old (probably haunted) castle. But the isolated castle isn't the biggest problem—Pen and Neil are rival colleagues, and they haven't seen each other since their public blowout a few months prior. Since then, Pen hasn't written and Neil has been questioning his artistic integrity. A ghost might actually be the distraction they need.
Romance and horror are fraternal twin genres. No, I will not elaborate. Even still, I was skeptical about the marriage of the two in a single book (especially one with an on-trend cartoon cover). My misplaced concerns were met with delightful Indigenous and queer rep, witty banter, light spice, and some genuinely spooky moments. It might actually be genius to add some supernatural horror into a rom-com. Maybe this is actually something I need a lot more of in my life.

I was so excited to read this, it sounded so good to me! Unfortunately I was pretty disappointed.
This wasn't really an enemies to lovers, it seemed the enemies part only lasted a couple chapters. After that, it felt really repetitive with them each in their POVs rehashing the same stuff over and over again. I also was let down by the horror/paranormal aspect. It didn't feel like much was happening, and I did not understand why they kept saying they could be killed by the ghost. It was just a lot of jumping from them pining for each other to one slightly spooky moment interrupted by them going at it again, then another spooky moment. 2.5 rounding to 3. I'm sad, but I just wasn't having much fun with this one.