Book 1 in the Ghosted series Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 (📖🎧)
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Good Spirits yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
Opening Hook
This one has been sitting in my favorites shelf all year and I finally have an excuse to talk about it properly. Again. I picked Grim Tidings up two days ago, finished it, and immediately turned right back around to relive Good Spirits because it deserves more than a passing mention. It was an easy five stars from me without a single complaint. If you want a holiday romance that also has some weight to it, this is the one.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
Harriet York inherits the Crow’s Nest, her late aunt’s antique shop, along with the house above it and despite the awful circumstances with her aunt passing, it’s the first good thing that’s happened to her in a while. Her family is cold, critical, and it’s the kind of household where approval is always just out of reach no matter what you do. Harriet has spent her whole life killing herself as a people-pleaser, trying to be exactly what her parents want. She had a legal career and played her part as the perfect daughter, but it still wasn’t enough for them. When her beloved aunt passes everything on to her, she decides that she can’t live her life for her parents anymore. She walks away from law, and moves completely into her beloved aunt’s life, where she tries to create some of the happiness she always felt there.
This brings us to December first, where Harriet’s day has been a steady run of bad luck. When she finally sits down that evening to watch TV and relax, she looks up to see a man standing next to her Christmas tree. Nolan doesn’t exactly introduce himself gently. He’s the ghost of Christmas past, sent by the Holiday Spirit Division of the Department of Haunting and Spirits, and he’s used to being assigned to awful people, so he goes in a little judgey and assuming the worst. When Harriet insists that she’s a decent person, he doesn’t buy it. That doesn’t last long, because it becomes obvious to Nolan pretty quick that Harriet is lovely and kind.
He’s confused by why he’s there, but they decide to go through the process anyway, traveling back into her past where Nolan watches her get scolded and cut down by her mother again and again, being starved of the kind of love and affection she should have had. Something about that changes him, and he becomes protective of her in a way that’s completely counter to everything he’s experienced as a ghost of Christmas Past.
Harriet starts to wonder if maybe she’s supposed to help him the same way and begins to dig into his past the way he dug into hers. He is not sure that’s why they’ve been paired together, but they keep spending time together outside the actual hauntings, and the relationship builds from there. Nolan’s magic starts acting up as they get closer, but he’s unsure how it’s connected. Harriet’s digging around the antique shop trying to find something that may be familiar to Nolan while he’s working on rebuilding her confidence; trying to get her to a place where she can stand up to her family. Eventually at her parent’s holiday dinner party, her family makes it clear that she’s only welcome if she falls in line (wears what she’s told to wear, plays the part she’s told to play) and to the satisfaction of this reader, she does not. Nolan backs her up, and that’s one more moment among many, where the two of them start to feel what they are to each other.
After that comes one last trip into Nolan’s past, into the storm that killed him on his fishing boat long ago. Harriet watches him drown, reaching for him, and he see flashes of his memory from the day he died, realizing he actually saw her, reaching back, all those years before she was ever born. She was there when he died, and they’ve been connected the whole time.
So, they decide to focus on the time they have left by enjoying the Christmas they would have had together if he were alive. Harriet gives him a compass from the shop, but it seems to complete his assignment and his magic pulls him away. When a haunt ends on December 26, the humans are meant to forget their time with their Christmas Spirit, but Harriet doesn’t lose her memory of him the way every other human does. Because he was a fisherman, she follows the old custom for guiding lost sailors home, and puts a candle in the window. To her surprise, a bit of lingering magic keeps it burning as the days come and go.
Her sister shows up wanting to work on their relationship. And in the afterlife, Nolan finds out Harriet was never an assignment at all, she’s his soulmate. Soulmates will find each other across time no matter what, so he’s basically been a ghost this whole time waiting for her to exist. This is where he’s given a choice: to move on to his final resting place, or go back to Harriet as a mortal. He picks Harriet, obviously. Just as she’s giving up hope that he’ll return to her, there’s a knock at the door and he’s standing there, alive, human, and not expecting her to remember him at all. Lucky for us, she remembers him completely and it’s a beautiful way to start their next chapter together.
Best Part of This Book
Hands down, it’s that ending. Harriet keeping every single memory of Nolan and holding out hope that he will return. I love that so much more than the alternative, where he’d have to make her fall for him all over again from scratch.
Worst Part of This Book
Nothing. I don’t have a complaint to give you here because everything about this one worked for me from start to finish.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥🔥 — Spicy. The romance is central to the whole story. This isn’t a fade-to-black situation, but it’s also not the spiciest thing on the shelf.
Worth knowing going in: there’s grief and family estrangement threaded through this one, plus a death (Nolan’s, shown via flashback), so if either of those is a tender subject for you, keep that in mind.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Completely satisfied. This is exactly the kind of ending I want from my holiday romance.
Would We Reread It?
Yes, and I already have. This was a one-day read the first time through, and the audiobook pulled me back in just as hard on the reread. Did I mention that it’s fantastic and absolutely worth listening to?
A Character We Loved to Hate
Harriet’s mother. She can’t get past appearances and their family image long enough to see her kids for who they are, Harriet especially. It’s the kind of cold that makes the found-your-people warmth of Harriet and Nolan’s relationship burn so much brighter by comparison.
A Moment That Stood Out
The full-circle reveal that as Nolan was drowning a century ago he saw Harriet reaching for him, and they’ve been connected all this time.
Who Is This For
Anyone who wants a deeply emotional read wrapped in a Christmas bow. I’m not usually big on heavy emotional reads, but the writing here is so good that I was never overwhelmed despite feeling all the feels.
Where to Get This Book
📖 Physical Book
🎧 Audiobook
📱 Ebook
📚 More from the Ghosted Series
- Book 1 — Good Spirits | Reviewed by CJ | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — you’re reading it!
- Book 2 — Grim Tidings | Reviewed by CJ |⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥— [Read the Review]
Ready for more reviews from CJ? Find More Here
Plot Twisted. 🔥 📖🎧 | Series: Ghosted Book 1 | Genre: Holiday Romance / Paranormal Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
TAGS: Holiday Romance, Paranormal Romance, Ghost Romance, Small Town Romance, BK Borison, Ghosted Series, Book Review, Full Spoiler Review, Christmas Romance