Claire Kann (The Romantic Agenda; If It Makes You Happy) offers a fresh take on the contemporary paranormal romance in Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places.
Lucky Hart has a "lifelong dream of legitimizing the supernatural," driven by her loved ones' rejection and fear of her extrasensory perceptive abilities. When the opportunity to audition for a role in a web series set in a haunted house comes up, she jumps for it. The challenge: live in Hennessee House for a month. The twist: every caretaker before her has fled the premises within a few nights. "Three white men hiring a Black woman to be the caretaker for a found-footage haunted-house web series," Lucky reflects. "It was the ominous opening sequence to a horror film before the real final girl showed up." But Lucky is determined to face the house and be the final girl. She might even find love along the way as she falls for Maverick Phillips, a production team member who seems to see--and value--her in a way no one else does.
Kann weaves several subplots into Lucky's experience, including a miniseries starring Maverick's young ghost-hunting daughter and a troubled producer with his own history in the house, to name a few. At times, this can feel unwieldy; the novel is at its best when Kann is exploring Lucky's relationships with Hennessee House and Maverick Phillips. It's here that Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places really shines, offering a smart, spooky romance with an asexual heroine, the hot single dad she's falling for, and the sentient (and possibly evil) house standing between them. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer