Genre: ghosts

A+ #BookReview: The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
A+ #BookReview: The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan ParrishThe Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, ghosts, Halloween, paranormal romance, queer romance
Pages: 384
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on September 9, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Jamie Wendon-Dale may design haunted houses, but they don't actually believe in ghosts—until they meet Edgar Lovejoy, who is tall, clever, beautiful…and 100% haunted.

A COZY, GHOSTLY LGBTQIA+ ROMANCE

Jamie Wendon-Dale creates haunted houses for a living. Haunting is their life—but nobody working New Orleans' spooky circuit actually believes in ghosts.

Edgar Lovejoy is 100% haunted. No, really. Ghosts have tormented him since childhood and he's organized his life around attempts to avoid them.

Opposites? Get ready to attract. But while Jamie's biggest concern is that Edgar sometimes seems a bit distracted, Edgar's fears are much greater. Not only is he scared of encountering the dearly departed whenever he leaves the house, but he's terrified of making himself vulnerable to Jamie. After all, how do you tell someone who believes ghosts only exist as smoke and mirrors that you see them everywhere you go? And how can you trust in a happy future when you can't even believe in yourself?

A little spooky, a little magical, and a whole lot The (Most Unusual) Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy will leave you feeling like you've found a brand new bookish family of your own.

My Review:

This isn’t exactly an ‘opposites attract’ romance – or it is from a certain, slightly magical, just a teensy bit paranormal point of view. Or at least in a kind of ‘laissez les bon temps roulez’ perspective. Because the ability to see ghosts is exactly the kind of thing that New Orleans is famous for.

Edgar Lovejoy, as it turns out, comes by his ability to see spectres the old fashioned way. He inherited it – as did his sister Allie and his brother Poe (and yes, that pun is laying there just waiting to be picked up, (n)evermore). The Lovejoys are descended from an old New Orleans dynasty that has always had something spooky going on.

Edgar just got the hard end of that legacy, as it’s not just that he SEES ghosts everywhere (it’s New Orleans, ghosts ARE everywhere whether the rest of us can see them or not). Edgar sees the ghosts as decaying bodies who literally make him sick when they touch him. Which they do, frequently and often, every single time he leaves his apartment, which is painted in ‘haint blue’ specifically to ward them out.

Edgar’s life has been self-limited by his fear of the ghosts – and it’s crippling him emotionally and psychologically in ways that he can’t even see from his self-imposed prison.

Jamie Wendon-Dale’s life-work is creating haunted houses. They fund that creative but seasonal and not terribly lucrative calling by doing more mundane jobs to pay the rent. Being a ‘haunter’ is what they feel they were born to do. Just as transitioning and figuring themselves out as nonbinary is who they were born to be, in spite of an overbearing family who refuses to accept them as they are and seems determined to shove them back into a box they even more strongly refuse to go back into.

Jamie fights their own corner at every single turn – because they must. Edgar has refused to fight his way out of his. When they meet, it’s magic – and tragic at the same time. Jamie, as a part-time burlesque performer, is as far out of his comfort zone as a person could be. Edgar wants to let Jamie into his in every way possible.

All he has to do is let Jamie in on the secret that he’s kept all his life. Not just the secret that he sees ghosts. But the real secret. That he’s afraid, everywhere, all the time, of pretty much everything. That he’s particularly, especially, and just about catatonic with fear that if he lets himself love anyone except his sister, in any way at all, they will leave him. Because except for his sister Allie, every single other person he’s ever loved has left – including their brother.

But with Jamie in his life, showing Edgar a world that he has isolated himself from, there’s a way for all that love – and more – to come back into his life. All Edgar has to do is let it in. If he can. If his ghosts will let him.

Escape Rating A+: I’m going to TRY to tone down the ‘SQUEE’ in this review, but it’s NOT going to be easy. This turned out to be a single-sitting read for me – and an utterly rapt one at that – because I loved this story EVEN MORE than I expected to. And I came into it expecting a LOT, because of just how much I enjoyed the author’s previous ‘holiday’ romance, The Holiday Trap.

I fell hard for the story because I adored the characters, and watching them navigate a relationship where both parties are constantly wondering whether they are too much complication for each other or just right was marvelous – especially with the differently but equally effed-up family dynamics on BOTH sides.

What got me, and got to me, was the way that they gravitate to each other – but that this isn’t a ‘love conquers all’ kind of story. Jamie can help Edgar figure out what his increasing fear and paranoia is about, Jamie can hold the door open, but Edgar has to be the one to step through and he’s conditioned himself to stay inside. And Jamie is hopeful but realistic that Edgar might not manage it and that they don’t have a chance together if he doesn’t.

So a lot of the story is about navigating trauma and their very different responses to it. And it’s heartbreaking and affirming at the same time that Edgar has kind of done this to himself, and he breaks his own heart when he finally figures that out – that his life didn’t have to be the way it was. And that he can’t let the regrets that are now drowning him isolate him yet again..

In the end, it’s a lot more about Edgar’s learning to step outside of his fear bubble and starting to deal with the traumas that created that bubble than it is about the ghosts that both cause and represent that fear. In other words, the paranormal elements aren’t the focus of the story. Edgar’s healing and his relationship with Jamie, along with Jamie’s standing up for themselves in the face of their family’s coercions – and making it stick this time no matter the cost – are the focus(es). Foci. Whichever word is correct the story’s focus is on the living and not the haunting dead.

The contrast between Edgar’s wacky but supportive siblings versus Jamie’s manipulative and passive-aggressively unsupportive parents gave me vibes of The Stand-In Dad (which I also loved), especially in the way that Edgar’s family and Jamie’s found family band together to support and celebrate them both.

The romance between Edgar and Jamie does turn out to be steamy hot, but the overall vibe of the story is delightfully cozy. That combination turned out to be exactly what I was looking for to end this week’s reading with a terrific story that made me look forward to the upcoming spooky season – whether or not there’s a haunted house in my future!

#BookReview: Love at First Fright by Nadia El-Fassi

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Love at First Fright by Nadia El-FassiLove at First Fright by Nadia El-Fassi
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: age-gap romance, contemporary romance, ghosts, paranormal romance, spicy romance
Pages: 360
Published by Dell on September 16, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

In this cosy and spicy paranormal romance, a successful horror author whose novel is being adapted into a movie clashes with the actor cast as the male lead, all in a spooky mansion filled with ghosts, from the author of Best Hex Ever.
Rosemary is a successful horror author with a secret: she can see ghosts. So when the set of her hit novel’s film adaptation turns out to be a haunted countryside manor, she’s unfazed. What she’s less prepared for is the maddeningly handsome, completely miscast actor playing her leading man.
Ellis is a Hollywood heartthrob tired of his action-hero persona. Instead, he dreams of being a serious actor, and having free time to spend gardening with his dog. Landing the lead in a historical horror movie is his chance to start fresh… until he discovers the author tried to have him replaced.
But as filming progresses, and the manor's ghosts make their presence known, the chemistry between Rosemary and Ellis becomes undeniable. With secrets being spilled, sparks flying, and spirits stirring up trouble, can they face their demons and write themselves a happily-ever-after before it's a wrap?

My Review:

The blurb for this book, while it isn’t exactly wrong, isn’t right either. Those elements are all there, but, if I were saying this aloud I’d be saying that the “accent is on a different syllable” but with “syllable” pronounced with its accent in the wrong place. Verbally, the difference is clear, even though it sounds like it might be subtle in description.

That’s true of the blurb for this book as well. The picture of Rosemary Shaw that we get from the blurb is exactly right as far as it goes – although it’s just the surface. She IS a successful horror writer and she CAN see ghosts. She’s certainly unfazed by the ghosts that haunt the haunted filming location. But she is plenty fazed by being part of the filming of her novel. And not just because of the maddeningly handsome Ellis Finch.

Ellis’ description is the one that gets shortchanged – by a lot and by all the important bits. Rosemary believed that he was miscast because her protagonist is a brooding Victorian, and she was expecting someone a bit thin and weedy – at least in her head. Ellis’ career has been confined to and defined by his action hero roles. On screen he doesn’t appear to have either the looks or the range for the part, but then he’s an actor and both looks and actions can be deceiving with the right costumes and lighting.

He’s also being blackmailed by his agent to take all those action-hero roles, no matter how much he’s come to hate them. AND just how much he needs to start branching out now that he’s over 40 and the clock on him credibly being an action hero is starting to tick fairly loudly.

The chemistry between Rosemary and Ellis IS absolutely undeniable – no matter how much they each try, and ultimately fail, to deny it. However much they are utterly perfect for each other, in ways that neither of them is initially willing to even reveal in the early stages of their attraction, the private little bubble they manage to create around themselves in their semi-isolated filming location is sure to burst once the real world intrudes.

And it does, with the kind of vengeance that seems designed to tear them apart – only because it is. There’s a money-grubbing devil Agent whispering into Ellis’ ear that if he doesn’t publicly give Rosemary up – for her own good – that damaging publicity will be unleashed to do it for him.

Escape Rating B-: First of all, it was driving me crazy that I was sure that I recently read a book where the writer protagonist had the same variety of writer’s block that Rosemary has in this story – and I had and it’s Stacy Sivinski’s The Witching Moon Manor (Which I loved and HIGHLY recommend). I was equally certain that I recently read an entirely different book where the male protagonist is being blackmailed by his agent/or boss in a similar way to what Ellis is going through. I think it might be First-Time Caller by B.K. Borison but it if is, HIS workplace manipulator isn’t evil, just persistent and honestly does have the character’s best interests at heart along with their own – and not just their own as occurs in this story. (If it isn’t First-Time Caller, and you know what the book really is, please let me know!)

Now that I’ve got THAT off my chest, so to speak, let’s talk about the book. Initially, I enjoyed this A LOT. Rosemary, with her writer’s block, her social anxiety, and her positive but still sometimes hiding under the covers attitude about her life, her perfect-for-her but not size 0 body, her quirks, her kinks, and just everything about her, including her ghosts, was just terrific.

I loved the way that she felt the fear and did so much anyway, including being a fish out of water at the shoot for the movie made out of her book. And her besties are to die for in all the best ways.

Not to mention, the romance between Rosemary and Ellis is seriously smoking hot. When they manage to keep the world and all of its villains out of their business, they are fantastic together, in bed and out.

The story also hits on some lovely themes and side stories, especially the sidebar about the two Regency-era ghosts who, even after literal centuries of friendship, need a bit of an intervention as well as a package of 21st century sapphic romances to finally admit that the reason they’re still haunting the house is because they’ve been in love with each other all along.

While the ghost dog hanging around Ellis Finch and still playing with his best doggie buddy even from the afterlife was adorable and gave me the weepies.

Which leads us right back to Ellis, because that’s where my issues with the story come in. They’re not the same issues Rosemary had with his casting, but they are all about the reasons that Rosemary had such issues.

Ellis is taking all those action-hero roles that he hates BECAUSE he is being blackmailed into the roles with the biggest paycheck by his agent, who is an abusive bastard of the first order. He’s even worse because he does all his manipulations from the sidelines and never appears in person. He’s such a slimeball that calling him a slimeball is insulting to other slimeballs because he’s giving them a worse name than even slimeballs deserve.

Howsomever, just as much as Ellis is being manipulated by this asshat – and EVERYBODY in the industry seems to know it – Ellis is, OMG I can’t even with his attitude. He just keeps letting it happen and going along and I just didn’t buy the whole thing. Ellis is the one who makes the money – not his agent. His secret, that he’s bisexual, isn’t all that big a deal now that his career is well-established. And, more importantly, Ellis is the one who makes the money, not Agent Brody the douchecanoe. That arsehole is too selfish to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, even out of spite.

But Ellis is a doormat, and he blows the whole thing up in his head so BIG that I got just-plain tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop but when I finally reached the end to see WTF it turned out to be a big buildup to not very much and that downgraded the story for me.

Not that Brody doesn’t try to do his damndest to keep Ellis under his control, and not that he doesn’t turn out to be really evil about doing it. But even at that extreme point his evil is about keeping Ellis working for him and not burning the career that is paying his fat percentages into the ground.

That letdown at the end, which was entirely too close to shifting the story into a misunderstandammit, is the reason why I’m still really bummed about it all because I started out liking it quite a bit and now my feelings are very mixed.

Your reading mileage may, and hopefully will, vary.