With All My Haunted Heart by Isabel Sterling follows Pippa Ainsley, a witch who runs a business that helps mundanes with magical maladies. Recently, the new DIY magic shop across the street has been poaching her clients. Pippa is afraid she won’t be able to keep her business running much longer.
Then, her best friend from college, Xander, reaches out about a new B&B he’s running with his attractive co-owner, Elle. However, instead of having Pippa rid the B&B of spirits, Elle wants her to bring spirits to the B&B to attract customers.
Pippa is wary of the ethics and safety of such an idea. But as she spends more time with Elle, she realizes there’s more to the haunting of this B&B — and Elle — than meets the eye.
Cozy fantasies have gained traction over the years, and With All My Haunted Heart is no exception. With a unique and fun premise and queer female characters leading the story, this novel appears to be the perfect next addition to the cozy fantasy genre.
However, the novel lacks strong character writing and development, making the rest of the story fall relatively flat.
The novel relies too much on telling versus showing us character emotions. This especially shows up in the narrator and protagonist, Pippa. She has potential — she has a bitterly estranged relationship with her family, and her decision to run a business helping mundanes with magical problems they encounter.
However, Pippa lacks depth. She mentions feeling grief, anger, and hurt over her family’s treatment of her. Still, by naming the emotions explicitly instead of showing them, it takes away from her emotional depth as a character.
As a result, Pippa feels flat, even as the protagonist of her own story.
Elle isn’t much better. She’s mysterious and enigmatic to Pippa, but when we finally discover some of her secrets, they don’t come as particularly shocking.
While Pippa and Elle have a fun relationship, it feels surface-level because of how underdeveloped both characters are. This also shows up in their mutual relationship with Xander and other characters that show up throughout the book.
As a result of this, the plot itself is also rather predictable. As you read along, you will be able to predict much of what happens next. This makes the novel, unfortunately, very easy to put down.
The magical system is there, but it serves as a backdrop to the plot’s focus on the budding B&B and romance. Pippa does explain, occasionally, how magic can work, but you never get a sense of how it really works.
For example, Pippa still drives to get to places, but she has magic that can silence rooms. Why she can’t make magic or chooses not to for easier transportation is never explained. This is how most of the magic works in With All My Haunted Heart.
This is not bad for a novel less focused on magic than it is on the rest of the story. However, it does stand out as yet another area the book falls flat in and makes it less memorable as a result.
With All My Haunted Heart is not a bad novel by any means. It tackles heartfelt themes of parental estrangement, trauma, and found family. But it also lacks depth, both character and story-wise, and is too predictable to keep you turning the pages.
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With All My Haunted Heart is a cozy romance novel by Isabel Sterling and published by Berkeley Publishing Group. It releases on September 8, 2026.
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Fairley Lloyd
Fairley Lloyd is a content editor at Unwritten, freelance writer, and bibliophile born and raised in eastern North Carolina. She has a BFA in creative writing and publishing certificate from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. In her free time, she enjoys reading YA dystopian novels, line dancing, listening to hard rock music, and upcycling clothes.