3 stars—I liked it.
I was lured by the flowery purple cover, y'all. Plus the idea of a romance taking place in a haunted house. Lucky Hart is the cheeky young psychic who has been the successful candidate to star in a show about a caretaker of Hennessee House. The previous attempts have ended quickly, but Lucky hopes to live up to her name. During her interview process, she butts heads with the money man Xander, owner of the house. I expected him to become the romantic interest but I was way off base. Instead it's the rather misnamed Maverick Phillips who has the usually brash Lucky stammering and blushing.
As psychic women main characters go, Lucky is neither the best nor the worst. I didn't find myself wanting to shake her but I couldn't find a way to care much about her either. The whole production team was available to be used as found family, but the author chose to only involve half of them in any meaningful way. Even those relationships felt rather thin. Maverick was totally the wrong name for the very cautious, introverted love interest. I did like the addition of his daughter Rebel, who did at least try to live up to her label.
I far prefer enemies to lovers as the premise for a romance, so Xander would have been a better choice from my perspective. Frankly, the whole novel felt more like a mere vehicle for explaining asexuality than for dealing with a haunting or even running a film project. I would have preferred a really good haunted house story where I learned about asexual people as a subtheme but to each their own.
I know there is an audience out there for this book. I never thought I'd say this, but it was too tame for me. If I, Queen of the Cowardly, can read a ghost book after dark, it is not nearly edgy enough.
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