I loved the introduction to Jen DeLuca’s Boneyard Key series, Haunted Ever After (it made my best of 2024 list), so I was excited to read the next instalment, Ghost Business. The series is an interesting take on the paranormal romance genre, in which the main characters are fully human and the world is our world of today rather than one where paranormal creatures like vampires, ghosts, shifters etc. co-exist with humans. But this town has real ghosts who inhabit some of the dwellings and the locals know that they are real and can interact with some of them.

In Haunted Ever After, we were introduced to Sophie, who hosts a ghost walking tour a few nights a week during tourist season. Though she wasn’t born in Boneyard Key, she lived there with her aunt for several years and inherited her aunt’s condo when she passed away. Sophie takes pride in knowing the accurate history of the people, historic homes, and businesses in the small beachside town, and she knows that the ghosts there are real, former residents of the area who were devastated by a hurricane a hundred or so years earlier. So when Tristan comes to town with a rival ghost walking tour (made of totally fake stories, because he doesn’t believe in ghosts – obviously), she’s affronted. The town isn’t big enough for two walking tours, and hers is obviously the best one and the one that deserves to stay.

Tristan’s multi-city Ghouls Night Out ghost tour business is not exactly thriving, but he enjoys it and wants to keep it afloat. The trouble is that time is coming due to prove his idea has been a success, or he’ll have to close up shop and go to work for his dad at his dad’s boring Fortune 500 company. A theatre kid at heart, Tristan’s in his element when he’s wearing his Victorian-era coat and top hat and playing up the stories that tourists want to hear (recycled for each location – there’s always a pirate, there’s always a man who died losing his arm in an accident and wears a hook, etc.). With his former boyfriend-turned-business partner Eric doing the accounting part of the operation, Tristan researched Boneyard Key as a possible site for his business, and finding nothing on social media about any other entrepreneur doing the same thing, he’d moved into a beachside condo his father bought in Boneyard Key a few years ago (but never lived in) with the intention of getting his ghost tour business up and running. So finding out that there is already a well-established ghost walking tour in Boneyard Key, throws a big wrench into his plans.

Now Sophie and Tristan are out to prove that each of their tours is the better one, and when a confrontation between them goes viral, business becomes better than ever for them both. And while she initially begrudges Tristan’s presence, he starts to become part of her friend circle. Then a kiss between them really heats things up. Can these rivals find a way to win in both business and love?

I really like visiting this town! It feels very real; the author has done a terrific job with the worldbuilding of a small Florida tourist location and the townspeople are ones you can see getting to know and like if you lived there. You can totally feel for Sophie as she worries about losing out to Tristan and having to cede ground to his ghost tour. At first it doesn’t seem like it’s possible for them to co-exist, but as Tristan learns the odds and ends of the town (and the reality of the very real ghostly presences) and starts to feel like a local, you can tell that he’s equally torn between his admiration and growing feelings for Sophie and the stress of proving to his father that he is successful in his own way and would be much happier left to his own devices. Add to that an approaching hurricane and things come to a head.

The enemies-to-lovers trope is well articulated with a believable happy ending for the couple with all the issues between them getting a satisfactory resolution. Great LGBTQ+ representation with Tristan being bisexual, quirky ghosts having their own personalities, found family friendships, and a warm and fun contemporary romance make for a thoroughly enjoyable read. I love visiting this seaside town and though I’m not sure if there are more books planned for this series, I’d be totally happy to take a scenic route here again!