With All My Haunted Heart may look like a cozy, witchy sapphic romance, but underneath the ghosts, crystals, and sigils is a surprisingly emotional story about abandonment, trauma, found family, and healing.
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💜I received this book as an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
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💜 The Premise
With All My Haunted Heart is a sapphic paranormal romance following Pippa, who is a down-on-her-luck witch trying to keep her witch services business afloat. Pippa’s college friend, Xander, comes to her with business. He and his business partner and childhood best friend Elle are starting a haunted bed-and-breakfast and they want Pippa’s help to bring the ghosts. Sparks fly between Pippa and Elle and this book promised a a happily-ever-after and plenty of LGBTQIA+ representation throughout the story.
The world itself was one of my favorite elements of the book. Magic is known and visible to non-magic users (aka “mundanes”) rather than something witches have to keep secret. I especially enjoyed the magic system and the use of crystals and sigils. There’s also an interesting dichotomy between traditional/healer magic and more non-traditional approaches to magic and the chasm it created between Pippa and her blood-related family. Pippa’s lack of healing magic and use of innovative and experimental magic is considered a failure to her traditionalist healing magic blood family.
Throughout the story, Pippa tries to overcome her past trauma in order to help her friends realize their goals and prove to herself once and for all that her magic and what she does with it is not a failure.
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💥 The Dynamic
In addition to the romance, some of the best interactions in the books involved side characters that the author made hard to overlook. Xander was one of my favorite characters and I wanted to see even more interaction with Xander, Pippa and Elle. I wanted to hear embarrassing childhood stories that Xander and Elle shared growing up. I wanted to hear wild and crazy stories about Xander and Pippa in college. I wanted the author to push the envelope just a little more in these interactions, but that’s because I liked the characters so much and wanted more of this dynamic explored.
I also loved the ghosts. 👻
I enjoyed the romance between Pippa and Elle and seeing them work towards finding their happy ending, but some of my favorite relationship development actually came from outside the central romance. I particularly liked the resolution of Pippa’s relationship with a member of her family. I also really liked the resolution of Pippa’s perceived rivalry with another business owner. I liked seeing Pippa realize that what she believed about someone else’s intentions wasn’t necessarily the reality.
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⏱️ Pacing & Progression
The pacing worked well, especially as the relationships began to shift. I found myself getting more invested in the character dynamics the deeper I got into the story.
My biggest issue with the book came during the first quarter of the book. Pippa was initially adamant that haunting the bed-and-breakfast would be unethical, so I found it jarring when she changed her position relatively quickly. I would have liked a little more development between those two positions because the transition felt abrupt to me.
As the story progressed, though, I became much more invested in Pippa’s emotional journey. The book had a surprising amount of emotional depth, particularly as she dealt with feelings of abandonment and trauma from her past. By the end, I was crying.
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✨ Final Thoughts
This book ended up being considerably more emotional than I expected. I appreciated the author’s content warning because it prepared me for the deep-rooted trauma the characters would have to confront before finding their happy ending.The author’s note at the end added another layer to that emotional weight. The author shares an incredibly painful personal experience and explains that writing this story was, in part, an attempt to capture “a tiny piece of that hurt.” After finishing the book, that context made the themes of abandonment, trauma, grief, and healing hit even harder.
If you’re looking for a cozy sapphic romance (plus queer representation), found family and overcoming past abuse and trauma, I highly recommend With All My Haunted Heart.
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🔥 Rating & Spice Level
🌶️ Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️
⭐️ Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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📚 Where to Read
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