Rating: ★★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 370 pages
Author: Caitlin Moss
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: September 9th, 2025
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A romantic comedy about death, forgotten pasts, and unfinished business.

Vada Daughtry is a professional mourner. For a fee, she’ll cry at your funeral, whisper invented memories, and spin tales of heartbreak. It’s a job that keeps her moving—and keeps her past buried.

But when a wrong turn leads her to a roadside bar and a mojito-soaked night with bartender Dominic Dunne, something shifts. Then she vanishes, like she always does.

Nearly a year later, Vada shows up at a funeral… and realizes the deceased is Dominic’s mother.

Now he’s grieving, furious, and stunned to learn Vada’s been left a generous piece of his mother’s estate. He knows what she does for a living. He thinks it’s all a con. Vada wants to slip away quietly—again—but the late Annabelle Dunne has other plans: haunting Vada until she completes a list of posthumous demands, starting with renovating her crumbling seaside cottage.

Drawn back to the coastal town of Shellport, Vada and Dominic are forced to confront the truth—about the past, about each other, and about a ghost of a woman who isn’t done pulling strings.

Perfect for fans of enemies-to-lovers tension, slow burns, and ghost stories with bite.

TURNED OUT TO BE A BANGER.

Y’all should know I have some high levels of death anxiety and I usually don’t foray into a book where that’s basically the entire premise. But I do love Caitlin Moss (and we spell our names the same so it’s only right) and wanted to give it a go anyways.

I loved how this balanced the heaviness that comes with losing a loved one and the hope and lightness of a life lived and a future that can still be what you want it to be. There’s a small mystery and a paranormal aspect to the story that works so well!! It matched the vibe of the plot and only enhanced the book.

If you’re looking for some enemies banter, look no further. This gets grouchy and maybe a touch mean as grief is navigated and truth is released. I loved that this created a genuine slow burn between Dominic and Vada though. They really grew from strangers to lovers and helped carry each other’s burdens.

The side characters are awesome, the beachside setting is lovely and those last reveals you can see coming bring the heart of this story to life. I devoured this book on a road trip and can’t wait for more CM books.

Overall audience notes:

• Contemporary Romance
• Language: moderate
• Romance: 2-3ish open door
• Violence: mild
• Content warnings: thematically the book involves a lot of death conversation, loss of a parent, retrograde amnesia, cancer

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