With All My Haunted Heart
by Isabel Sterling
Paranormal Sapphic romance fans will be enamored With All My Haunted Heart by Isabel Sterling. Pippa’s magic business has been suffering due to a new competitor opening in town, when she is asked by an owner of a B&B to help haunt her new business in order to have a marketing gimmick to encourage guests to stay there. Usually Pippa only banishes ghosts, rather than make them appear, but her need for cash and her feelings towards Elle have her using her magic in potentially dangerous new ways. I enjoyed the relationship dynamic between the couple, but also how the novel handled issues of friendship and family estrangement. The romance is the focus of the story, but there is also strong world building with a society were only a small portion of the population are witches and many have chosen to only use their powers for healing in order not to upset the larger nonmagical populace, which felt like an analogy for some larger societal issues in our own world. With All My Haunted Heart is categorized as adult fiction, but if you also enjoy YA literature as well, you can check out Sterling’s teen witch series, These Witches Don’t Burn.
The Vampire Knitting Club
by Nancy Warren
The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren will appeal to both those who enjoy cozy mysteries as well as contemporary paranormal romance fans. Lucy is getting over a breakup with a cheating ex-boyfriend when she travels to Oxford, England to visit her grandmother, who owns a knitting shop. When she arrives she learns that her grandmother has passed away and though she is told it was due to natural causes, Lucy is suspicious. The audiobook narrated by Sarah Zimmerman kept me entertained on my work commute, although I felt the narrator’s tone was a bit snarkier then the character seemed intended by the author. The book is the first in a continuing series with 15 books and a novella length prequel about one of Lucy’s love interest as well as a Christmas novella, and a spinoff series starring one of Lucy’s friends. If you prefer your romances closed door and sweet rather than spicy as well as mysteries and fantasies without gore than this would be a great pick. Warren also has written the The Great Witches Baking Show series for those who enjoy foodie fiction.
Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager
