This was a fun and cute read that gave me all the feels for the winter season. It was Halloween meets hallmark Christmas movie and it Actually blended together nicely. It was the perfect small town good feels book for the cozy season.

Haunt Your Heart Out is a cute Halloween AND Christmas read if you can believe it. It’s a fun book to get you in the spirit for the ‘ber’ months if you’re just looking for something easy with major small town vibes.

That being said, I didn’t really love the plot of this book. The fake hauntings were a little goofy. The transcripts of Lex and Natalie’s teenage Youtube shows seem to come out of nowhere and never connected in anyway with the story other than showing you the fact that they were being mischievous teens.

One moment Lex is shy and awkward around James, the next she is hitting on him and making sexual innuendos to flirt which kind of gave me whiplash. James and Lex’s relationship needed more development, and unfortunately I wasn’t totally in love with them by the end of the book.

Although it wasn’t a fave of mine, I still thought it was cute for what it was!

DNF at 41%

This may be a case of right book wrong time but I just had such a hard time getting into this one. I didn't really care about the characters and was annoyed with the FMC's constant lying. Ultimately I just have too many other books to read to continue to read a book that I'm not really enjoying and I'm forcing myself to read.

Thank you NetGalley and Alcove Press for granting me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a fun, cozy, and delightful romance set in a charming small town in Vermont, where ghost hunting adventures and a quaint bookstore bring magic to the winter season!! The story is filled with witty banter, crackling tension, and a heartwarming sense of found family. Tender moments and wonderful secondary characters enrich the narrative, while it thoughtfully addresses heavy topics like family relationships, abandonment, and mental health struggles, all handled with sensitivity and care. These deeper themes are balanced beautifully with humor and lighter moments. Honestly, this story felt like being wrapped in a warm hug, offering all the feel-good vibes with a sprinkle of spookiness! I was completely captivated from start to finish and highly recommend this book! 👻💜❄️💜⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cozy, sweet, and delicious - loved this spooky season read for the Vermont history, ever more complicated shenanigans, and heartrending family dynamics.

Haunt Your Heart Out
Amber Roberts
⭐️⭐️⭐️

SYNOPSIS
Lex loves her small sleepy town in Vermont and the quiet cosy bookstore that is her whole life. After her whole family and all her exes up and left her, she sets one rule. She does not date out-of-towners or tourists who are bound to up and leave eventually. That is until a handsome stranger stumbles into the bookstore. James is in town filming a documentary about the towns ghost stories, most of which he seen on YouTube channel back in the day. The same YouTube channel that just so happened to be Lex's high school entertainment, which involved staging ghost stories with her best friend Natalie. Worried her ghost-faking secrets will get out & ruin her chance of buying the bookstore, she picks up right where she left off and does what she can to skew James' results for the documentary. Because after all he's only temporary....or is he?

THOUGHTS:
This is book is definitely a blend of Halloween and Christmas, with the snowy setting and the spooky atmosphere. At times I really enjoyed this story and at times Lex really annoyed the hell of out me. I found her extremely childish at certain points. I liked the relationship between Lex and James and the easy back and forth. However what I did struggle with was the lack of communication towards the end of the book which didn't feel in character for what we'd seen so far. I also felt like the decisions Lex came to at the end of the book were far too fast and felt like a flip switched. And I felt like the conflict was sorted very easily.

I loved the setting and the atmosphere of this book though. A snowy small town, with plenty of spooky locations - sign me up! Lex describes it as a "snow globes" small town in the book & that just feels like perfection.

Thank you to Netgallety, Amber Roberts & Alcove Press for the e-arc.

This has everything in it that I love yet I really wasn't a fan. I couldn't connect to the FMC or MMC. The lying also felt childish to me. The setting was super cozy cute and perfect for Halloween.

Thank you to NetGalley, Alcove Press and Amber Roberts for providing me with an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love this cover art, it’s so cute and fits well with the plot.
I found this one difficult to read, purely because it felt so ‘insta love-ish’ the plot seemed like it was on x2 speed in a bid to make romance happen faster.
It felt rushed and kind of like when you force two Sims to get married by dragging their ‘relationship’ bar to 100 after they’ve just met.
I liked the premise of this, but it just didn’t feel believable based on how quickly everything happened.
It’s not a bad book, but more time developing the relationship would have made this better, in my opinion.

MY THOUGHTS?
MEH. This seems to be a cycle I'm stuck in. I'm not loving anything I'm reading currently,which is a real bummer.

This one did get better as the book progressed,but overall it wasn't a memorable read for me.

I did enjoy the whole "spooky ghost locations at Christmas," though! I was expecting a Halloween story, but was wrong!

You can't love em all right? But maybe you will love this one!

Hey @alcovepress and @netgalley -thanks for the arc opportunity! Always appreciated!

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for an ARC of Haunt Your Heart Out by Amber Roberts in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3/5

⭐⭐⭐

I was hoping for a mix of spookiness and romance in this book, but it focused more on the romantic aspect than the paranormal. I liked the exploration of family relationships, but the main character was sometimes difficult to empathize with. If you're looking for a romance book with lots of excitement and a spooky, occasionally holiday-themed setting, then this book is for you.

Local Stowe, Vermont bookstore manager, Lex, meets a traveling paranormal documentary filmmaker, James. They both have troubling dynamics with their families and it was nice to see them work through them together. My favorite parts of the book were the throwback scripts to Lex's defunct YouTube channel.

This was a cozy read, I loved feeling the vibes of the town they were in, but overall I thought the plot and storyline was just okay and it felt like it dragged on. These characters were supposed to be in their 30s but they acted like they were in their early 20s.

Thank you, NetGalley, for giving me the opportunity to read and review Haunt Your Heart Out.

Fine. Nothing particularly special. The middle definitely struggled from pacing issues. Lex was very very whiny.
Gilmore Girls coded.

This was a cute fall/Winter read. Perfect for fans of small town book store vibes and working through family drama.
I didn’t like the parts of the book where Lex, James, and the crew went on their “haunt” searches. I can see why they were added but found that it happened too much throughout the book and I found quite boring.
The parts of the book I really enjoyed was Lex and James getting to know each other and sharing their anxieties and family problems. I liked the dynamics between Lex and her family and how it was written.
The ending was very cute and happy how it concluded in a well rounded way.

Some “haunted happenings” set during winter in Vermont equals a fun rom-com with emotional connection between the two leads. Plus there’s a cute dog in the mix.

Lex was someone who was content and settled with her place in her hometown, happy to maintain her roots and ties while still having ambitions for growth in the space she is in. I admired that about her. She got a lot of pushback from people in her life who thought she needed to aspire to bigger, better, and adventure away, but she was confident in the life she chose and willing to work hard to move forward in the way she wanted. Her stubbornness (affectionate) was slightly detrimental to allowing people in but it allowed for personal growth as she opened up.

James was an endearing character who had the opposite lifestyle from Lex. He spent his days wandering from place to place, experiencing all the different places the world had to offer. The two of them found common ground in their challenging familial relationships that really helped deepen the bond between them. Their flirty banter was cute and was a good source of lighthearted moments throughout the book.

Lex’s reasons for her haunted happenings and James’s connection to them was a touch that really added depth to the story and to that particular part of the plot that could have been silly and quirky. I appreciated that.

There were some pacing issues for me in the middle where it felt like things were stuck in the same place for a while but once it all started moving again I enjoyed the journey. There was a third act that had me want to shake both James and Lex and tell them to use the words they’d been so good with earlier in the book, but no one is a perfect communicator.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book definitely gave me Hallmark movie vibes, which made me laugh when Hallmark movies were mentioned at one point in the book. It was definitely a cute, cozy, and fun read! Very heartwarming. The ending had me in tears multiple times! The combination of winter and hauntings definitely surprised me but it worked out oddly well! Overall, it was an adorable book that gave me feels!

I think I had a different expectation about this book going from the cover and title.

In the beginning I expected it to be paranormalish, At one point I even thought James was going to turn out to be a ghost himself. I was also surprised to discover the age of Lex... who I'd presumed to be in her late teens. I certainly didnt expect all the family angst and house drama to be from someone in her 30's, let alone the pranks and lying about the ghosts. I didnt really get the attraction between Lex and James either, tbh,

The second half was almost like it was a different book. Maybe because there was less of the angsty stuff and more of the actual romance. I still feel like the black moment was pale grey at best. It was over way too easily, with everything tied up in a very neat bow, totally ignoring all the pranks and lies, because they found a solution with the documentary.

It took me a very long time to read (months instead of weeks) and I almost DNF more than once.

I did enjoy the book references, and the love of second hand books with annotations. It was easy to read and I am sure it will find its audience.

Thank you, Netgalley, for allowing me to read and review this book. These opinions are completely my own

Although the characters are enjoyable as is the setting, this wasn't the book for me. I stopped reading by page 61, as the pace was a little slow for my liking

Ghost hunting AND bookstores? I loved this book. What a fun concept. I wish I lived in this town and could be friends with these characters.

Reading this book was exactly like watching a Hallmark movie. Warm cozy winter setting, small town romance, family drama, and some ghost stories. All the characters were likeable, and there was a dog with a silly name. I thought there would be more ghosts, but honestly I just kind of enjoyed the vibes.

I did DNF this book, but it has zero bearing on the book's quality; I just can't quite get back into it after a reading slump.

I will say that from what I did read, Roberts is a great writer; it's easy to fall into the world she's created, and I was invested from the start. The atmosphere is top tier; cozy old bookstore in the middle of winter? Sign me up. Lex is such a great character, and Roberts makes her feel like an old friend.

I'll definitely edit my review when I come back to this one (because I absolutely plan to!)

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing me with a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.