Review copy was received from Publicity team. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Published by Self-Published on January 27, 2025
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 288
Format: eARC
Source: Publicity team
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Finley
Twenty years ago, Rynn abandoned me to an abyss without her. Her betrayal haunts me more than any ghost at my manor ever could. Years of grief and suffering have even changed my face.
But now I’ve found her.
She’s hiding in a den of iniquity, working as a courtesan under a false name. She won't recognize me or the scars that her actions caused—not until it’s too late. My cage is ready for her inside my haunted estate. Rynn’s heart is mine, and I intend to break it.
Rynn
I found a man hiding out in my room. I should have known better than to trust him, but there was a beautiful darkness to him that captivated me. He had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.
He was just a pretty devil in disguise.
If Finley thinks he can trap me for long inside a cage, even a gilded one, he will rue the day. I always give as good as I get. He can have my heart if he wants it so badly. The organ is nothing but a nuisance.
I’m growing to enjoy S.L. Prater and her catalog of books with broken characters and worlds brushed lightly with magic and mysticism. This Haunted Heart’s main characters are both broken by their shared past and the choices made that destroyed them for the last twenty years they spent apart. This second chance romance with ghosts from the past is full of tender moments and unusual events as the tale of Rynn and Finley is laid bare for the reader.
Rynn’s choices and shame led her to a life as a lady of the night. Finley led a life of loneliness, thinking the girl he loved was dead. It is twenty years later and in his anger, grief and sense of betrayal he has a plan to make Rynn pay. One problem, the more he talks to her, the more time he spends with her, the less he wants revenge and the more he just wants her.
“After all I’ve done, you still want me terribly. I bet you hate that, don’t you?”
“I hate it,” I breathed. “I hate wanting you. I want to ruin you. I want to break your heart and carry around the shattered remains inside my breast pocket forevermore. I don’t want to long for your body another moment. It’s a baneful way to exist, wanting you. I wish I hated you.”
Finley has made something of himself since the death of his adoptive Duke of a Father. He has the perfect house, one he built for the memory of a girl he thought long dead. When he finds she is not in fact dead, but alive and well he comes up with a plan to lock her away in it. Sure it isn’t exactly rational, but I was pulling for Finley the entire time. Everyone’s secrets will be revealed and teased out as the reader discovers Finley and Rynn’s history, along with what makes the house so special.
Personally I love broken and scarred characters. Both Finley and Rynn are extremely scarred in different ways. Finley wears his scars on the outside while Rynn’s are emotional and some self inflicted. As they dealt with their past and their present, I fell a little in love with the two characters. Sure Finley kinda kidnaps Rynn, but I was all for it knowing they had a past and what they meant to each other at one time. The haunted house also added to the ambiance of the story and the ghosts that Finley and Rynn needed to exercise from their pasts.
For me this was exactly the kind of second chance romance I like, with a nice side of paranormal activity on the side. Characters that both needed to be forgiven and find a way to release the past to find a future. Great cotton candy kind of read.
“I should have known you were the devil,” she muttered. “Lucifer is always beautiful. I should have known it the second I laid eyes on you.”
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Romance with a touch of paranormal is one of my favorite kinds of books. I think I’d really like this one. 😀
Yes!!! It is a favorite of mine too. I like it when the magic or paranormal aspects are there but not overpowering. The Haunting in this was how I would imagine living with ghosts to be.
“Personally I love broken and scarred characters” I def have a soft spot for characters like that too
Yes!!! I adore them. Beautifully Broken Bastards is one of my shelves.
Love the cover of this one. Glad you enjoyed it!