Review: "With All My Haunted Heart" by Isabel Sterling

With All My Haunted Heart by Isabel Sterling
Published September 2026 via Berkley
★★★★

Pippa's magic business is struggling—but when her friend asks her to go against her usual instincts and bring ghosts to his new B&B rather than banishing them, well...it's a challenge. But one she's up for. Especially because her friend's business partner is just about as intriguing as the magic challenge...

This was super cute. I'm reminded a bit of The Faraway Inn in the way magic works here—there are kinks to work out, but it's mostly fairly light. For Pippa, magic is something creative; she has, for various reasons, turned away from the type of magic her family uses, and her days (when she has the clients, anyway) are spent counteracting curses and banishing ghosts. Haunting (instead of un-haunting) a B&B has its own unique set of challenges, starting with finding ghosts who will be a good fit for the place, and I thoroughly enjoyed Pippa's thought processes as she figured out what was possible and what was necessary.

The stakes stay relatively small in the book (big for the people involved, but not always more broadly) but there are some pretty heavy themes. I avoid spoilers, but readers who have had significant loss might want to check the trigger warnings. They're in there for a reason, though, and those themes inform the way the relationship shakes out. I like the relationship quite a lot—both characters taking care to ensure that they help the other with their baggage—though I think I would have liked to learn a bit more about Elle. I'm not sure Pippa really gets the closure that she deserves (her family, man!), and I did wonder whether there might be setup for a future book, or if not setup then at least a door left intentionally open.

I'd love to see a future book that involves the ghosts more; there are some fun characters among them, and it would be super fun to see what hijinks the ghosts get up to when...well, when they're bored, or when there's a problem that can best be solved by people without corporeal bodies...I don't know if this is meant to be a series eventually, but I'd happily read more.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.