I really enjoyed this paranormal read! It was a little more gruesome than I was expecting, but I really liked that aspect. Enemies to lovers and the banter between Pen and Neil was perfect too. When they realize they are stuck for a week at the same castle together for a writing retreat, they have to learn to make the best of it. In between all the sparks flying and trying to figure out why these ghosts still roam the halls, they don't get much work done, but I was completely invested in these two finding out what happened and why Georgina was searching the halls for her Archie.
I had so much fun reading this book and seeing Pen and Neil overcome their obstacles.
Thanks to St. Martins, Netgalley and Colby Wilkens for an early copy.

I wanted to love this one so badly. Enemies tol overs, set in Scotland (I've been to Scotland a few weeks ago and fell in love with the country), a great cover, and a spooky twist? It's all up my alley!

But sadly, I didn't like the writing, the characters, or anything else, and therefore, I decided to DNF at 21%. I hope other people will love this one more than I did.

This book explores a mix of ghost hunting vibes with romance. I enjoyed this book. It's definitely different than most romance books now and I appreciate it as some have become too predictable. My only issue was that the story felt lacking at times. It would make distinct switches from romance to the paranormal and it just didn't ease for me as I would've liked. I do think for paranormal fans and romance fans this could definitely be a hit. I'm just more romance than anything else

I'm reading an eARC provided by NetGalley.

Yeesh, 37 pages in and not loving this. Penelope Skinner (Pen *eyeroll) is an author and apparently a tempramental shrew who physically assaulted another author, Neil Storm, at an author event where she threw a book at his face and split his eyebrow. And it's all HIS fault because his book disappointed her with stereotypes and tropes about his Native American characters. (*eyeroll #2). Wonder how Colby Wilkens would feel if somebody if somebody nailed her in the face with a book because she wrote her female character as someone who is ridiculously emotional and out of control, who has a public tantrum and blames the man for it, taking no responsibility for her own behavior? As a woman, this is pretty offensive to me so far.

Ok, I finished the book because I'm a completionist and apparently a bit of a masochist. It was bad. Neil is a limp lettuce leaf of a man who apologizes for everything. Pen is remarkably self-centered, with zero self-control or emotional regulation. The other two characters are (also) idiots. A man receives 3 head injuries in like 12 hours and after the 3rd in which he falls down the stairs, they dump his unconscious body onto a couch and decide they "won't know how bad it is until he wakes up". When Captain BrainDamage wakes up and decides to stagger out in the snow after our Halfwit Heroine the "friends" do fuck-all to stop him even though he can barely remain upright. (*eyeroll the third)

Final rating - 1 star. Everybody in this book is stupid.

Enemies to lovers, writers block, a haunted castle in Scotland! What’s not to love. I enjoyed this book and its setting and over all vibe. It’s a cute little story about two people who have to overcome a lot before they can open up. I do think they were never true enemies and their love felt a little insta lovey and at times the story was more tell than show but I would suggest this to anyone looking for a fun spooky read.

Cute enemies to lovers rom com that take place in a haunted castle in Scotland. Two dueling indigenous writers are forced together by mutual friends at a remote writing retreat at a castle only to find along the way the castle is hosting more than just their group hoping for writing inspiration. When the ghost who inhabits the house starts making her presence known Penelope and Neil have to figure out how to work together to find the long buried secrets about the former inhabitants to make it through a snow storm that had them trapped in the castle with no way out.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

This book was very cute. It’s a quick read (maybe because I couldn’t put it down) and I really liked it. The whole thing takes place over a couple of days and the plot just runs so smoothly that you sort of forget that it takes place over such a short amount of time.

The romance between Pen and Neil was amazing. It was enemies to lovers and did turn to lovers pretty quick given the time frame that the book is set in, but it didn’t feel like that. It was a decent percentage into the book when it happened, and given the fact that we kept getting insights to the history of their enemies era, I didn’t feel unhappy with it. It was so cute watching them fall in love with each other.

The spooky plot of this book was also so good. It had enough spook to it to be good, but it was more of a cozy horror vibe that I really liked. It was something I could read at night when no one else was awake without freaking myself out. I also got really invested in the spooky plot, what the history of the castle they’re staying at was, and I basically had two plots that flowed together very nicely and kept me turning the page the whole time.

I liked the added context of both of them being Native authors and being able to hear some information about the publishing industry that I haven’t really known about before, especially on Pen’s part.

This book comes out this October, and I would recommend picking it up when it come out!

*rounded up to 4 stars from 3.5*

I really wanted to like this. The cover is stunning, it had an interesting premise, and was set in Scotland. Sounds great right?

However, it just wasn't for me. The characters (there are 4) had no real personality and felt flat. The only two who really mattered (Pen and Neil) had a strange dynamic. Pen was extremely childish, manipulative and abusive both emotionally and physically. Neil was a ok but had no character depth that made me interested in liking him and he just let Pen get away with blaming her actions on him. There was zero character growth for any of the characters.

The ghost plot felt like a Scooby- doo episode, which I thought was great. It ended pretty anticlimactically though and rather quickly at the end of the book. There was some good bones to the book but everything was underwhelming for me. The writing and dialogue weren't interesting, and two of the characters had no real reason for being in the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this title for my honest review.

Found the book rather confusing when I first started, but the more I read while still confused I found myself enjoying it. It took me longer to read that I had hoped it would, though that isn't a bad thing.
Its incredibly slow burn, but it works well for the story. I didn't expect the whole horror and romance thing to work, but wow did it ever work!

2.5 ⭐️

Ugh I hate giving half points, but I’ll round to 3 because this a debut novel for this author and the premise of the story had so much potential!!
Two BIPOC authors & their friends sign up for a writers retreat in the beautiful country of Scotland to alleviate their writers block, yet they unintentionally end up a haunted castle in Scotland and have to work together to figure out a ghost mystery in the castle. Sounds like a good Scooby- Doo plot right?
After reading Kilt Trip I was so ready for another tale exploring all the beauty of Scotland, the rich history of its land and of its castles. Sadly this story did not deliver me to that destination, but instead left me feeling really frustrated on why I even invested my time on this trip.
The story had all the bones there but no meat. There was enemies to lovers, mystery, witty banter, diverse characters, romance, but the story was flat and the main characters, Pen & Storm, relationship went from negative zero to boiling in 0.3 seconds. The main doozy was the ghost plot which was a big build up and led to a head scratching ending. No joke it brought me back to the deep Reddit threads of ignoring the basic logic that Meyer threw out on how Bella had a vampire baby in Twilight. I still have sooo many questions around that. Moving on.
Overall, it was just okay and left me wanting to go visit Disneys haunted mansion to see that creepy eyes that follow you painting.

Thank you Netgalley, the author, and St.Martins Griffin for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This had such a cool premise. But I just didn't think it quite hit the mark. I enjoyed the relationships with the characters. I thought some of the dialog was funny. And I did enjoy the enemies to lovers trope. But I felt it was messy. And the ghost part was such a huge build up but I felt really let down by its ending. So definitely a meh read for me.

This is my first time reading a book where both main characters are Native people so I found hearing about their struggles and experiences with belonging to a tribe or not, very interesting! It surprised me that it was set in Scotland but it definitely worked. I really liked Penelope and eventually Neil grew on me. Laszlo and Daniela were great side characters but I would have liked to see them more involved than they were.

<spoiler> Spoilers ahead

As I mentioned, I really liked Penelope since the beginning and I enjoyed the opening scene but I do have to say that it felt a little counterproductive that they had so little time to "like each other" and then have Penelope be so against admitting her feelings because it had been such a short time for them to get over their issues.

I think this would have worked better if the retreat was longer and they had a chance to see the other person with other people which caused them to doubt their assumptions or if this was a friends to lovers situation instead.

I had trouble liking Neil and I think it was mainly because I didn't see the point of his POV since they were with each other so much so his POV was just mainly him talking about how he liked Penelope. He also felt a little two dimensional at the beginning but as Penelope started to get to know him, I could see more of his personality.

The mystery and history of the castle was fun and there was enough foreshadowing that I was able to figure out where it was going; except the fact that Archie Sr actually made it back because I was sure he had died in the war. I would have wished we had found out if Penelope was related to them but I am assuming yes since she had grey eyes and so did Georgina.

I am happy we got to see them happy and being somewhat domestic and I'll definitely keep and eyes on future book from Ms Wilkens!</spoiler>

I had such high hopes for this book. What drew me first was the cover, I love a slightly retro cartoon illustration! What hooked me next was the synopsis, "an enemies to lovers romance with a spooky twist where two feuding writers end up on a writers retreat together at a haunted castle in Scotland" sounded right up my rom-com alley. Next, I came across "cozy horror" in another review and that absolutely did it for me.

Unfortunately If I Stopped Haunting You just fell flat for me. I so badly wanted to love it. There were so many components that I would normally obsessively look for in a book to read. The incorporation of problematic publishers for BIPOC authors was such an important topic in this book, but because there were so many other points of interest going on it was hard for me to stay focused. Overall, the entire book felt incredibly distracting. The various themes were clunky, regardless of the fact that separately I would have loved them in different books. The plot would jerkily switch from the MCs fearing for their lives to then making bedroom eyes at one another. For me, this canceled out any emotion I should have had while reading and it made it incredibly hard to focus on the pacing. I wasn't emotionally invested in any of it, from the spice to the fear. I didn't feel it.

The first 50% felt very slow for this reason. Fortunately it did pick up once the ghost plot began to unfold, but then the final conclusion/mystery that they were attempting to solve just....ended. There was no real resolution to the horror story of this book. It was so anticlimactic. There was an attempt at wrapping up the feud between the FMC and MMC, but it didn't feel quite believable to me because there was so much going on that the author was trying to tie up at the same time.

The intentions were there, and I applaud the inclusion of the authors' struggles within publishing as Native Americans as well. For the vibes, yes this book might do the deed and pass the time. It definitely felt cozy, and the setting added to that also. But I personally need more to at least move the pacing along.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Horror and romance don't seem like genres that could comfortably coexist, but Colby Wilkens makes it work. The story follows a group of four horror authors, two of whom might as well not even be in the story, as they go to a Scottish castle reputed to be haunted for a writer's retreat. Penelope and Neil have a contentious relationship (read: repressed longing/lust, and also she threw a book at him at a convention) discover that the haunting is real, and then they have to balance breaking through their writer's block, fixing the ghost problem, and wanting to screw for the rest of the book. I'm being flippant, but I also read it in two sittings, so this is a fun time.

The romance definitely outweighs the horror here, and that's okay. There are elements, like the other two writers, that feel lost or extraneous for most of the book, which isn't great, and I don't feel like Pen and Neil's Native identities were as strictly necessary as they're billed as. But as a racial and ethnic minority myself, I still love that that piece was there, because there's nothing like actually seeing yourself represented on the page, especially in a book that isn't about racial trauma.

All in all, this is a nice, cozy read. The balance isn't always right, but if you just want an escape, this is a very good bet.

Fun and sexy story that also managed to terrify me. The lore behind the castle is very fascinating and creepy. I loved Pen and Neil's banter and initial enemies dynamics. While it was cute after they had gotten together, they moved a little fast and were somewhat completely consumed with each other - not sure how I felt about that.

An aspect I really appreciated reading about was the discussion about race, culture, gender, and the publishing industry, specifically when it comes to Indigenous writers and authenticity. Pen and Neil both struggle in their own ways with being an Indigenous writer and I loved that the story also explored that facet of their lives.

Penelope Skinner and Neil Storm are both writers. They're also enemies. Pen despises Neil's work and believes him to be a phony.
Months after the two had a public argument at a book convention, they both, unknowingly, attend the same writing retreat at a haunted castle in Scotland. What can go wrong? Or, what can go right? This is a fun, enemies to lovers romcom, but with a spooky twist added to the mix. I love the eerie setting, and all the characters that play a part. Throughout the book, not only is there a romance, but also a spooky plot that'll keep you on your toes. This is THE perfect romcom for spooky season.

This book is not what I thought it would be.

I disliked our FMC Pen from the first page. Not only is she abusive emotionally and physically, but she is manipulative and delusional. She actually scars our MMC Neil the first time we see them together (in the Prologue!). She then goes on to blame him for the reason no one reads her books (sorry girl, but maybe you just write bad stories) and says he makes a mockery of their race (I’m not going to touch that one).

Neil is actually a sweetheart and I liked him. However, I don’t like how he let Pen gaslight him into believing he is the reason no one likes her reading. He feels responsible for her, which he absolutely shouldn’t.

The writing itself was dull. The dialogue is meant to move the scene along, but most of it consisted of yelling and fighting. I also couldn’t get a feel on a lot of characters when we first meet them. For example, Daniela. I first felt like we shouldn’t like her based on her attitude, but the next thing we know we’re traveling with her. Just weird vibes all around.

Yeah, I just really couldn’t get into this one.

*An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review.

All the feels of romance with all the thrills of a horror. This book takes two enemies, places them in a haunted house in Scotland, and watches just how fast they can turn to lovers. How romantic!

Penelope Skinner is a Native American author who loathes Neil Storm for being a native writer that caters to stereotypes and cleaned versions of their culture for a white audience. I loved how there was this underlying tension of native representation vs. what publishers actually want between the author main characters. It forced both writers to come to grips with their dual identities, highlighted the complexity of their feud, and allowed them to grow from each other's experiences. Unfortunately, while a core piece of their tension, the discussion on native representation didn't go deep and wasn't touched on much throughout the book. If the book was set in a native location, that might have given it more opportunities. (Note: I'm Native Hawaiian, so this issue might matter to me more than others)

The genre switching between romance and mystery/horror wasn't jarring like I was expecting, and very well done! The setting was a perfect place so the characters could bond through their fear. And I really appreciated that the female lead wasn't a cliched damsel in distress, but instead, in my opinion, stronger than the male. She was strong to the point of aggressive. It felt like this was intended to transform into sexual tension, but did make me like the character a little less.

Overall: 4 stars, it was a great little read, and different from books I've read before.

Digital copy received by publisher through NetGalley for an honest review.

I just couldn't get into it - Pen's character was a bit too 'woe is me' for me to connect with and the repetitive writing about motivations felt like I was being told too much rather than discovering it.

I received this as arc, and it was a cute story! Following two rival authors, a 200 year old ghost, and a castle in Ireland .. what more could you want? The story follows Pen, a write who is told no, way more the yes when it comes to her writing. Enter Neil, a similar history and writing style, yet his stories sell (which drives Pen crazy). When Pen accepts an invitation to a writers retreat, imagine her surprise when she finds Neil there. Soon they realize that the castle isn’t as quiet as it seems, and they are both thrown headfirst into solving a mystery. Overall I found this pretty low steak story, and I do wish that we had bit more detail with their surroundings.