I’ll Come Back for You by Charish Reid

I read Charish Reid’s upcoming novel, I’ll Come Back for You, last week, and it’s still haunting my brain. But it’s a friendly sort of haunting, you know? Like Casper but grown up and with an understanding of all the messiness that comes with adulthood. Anyway, I love it, and since it deserves more than just a quick note in a Reading Roundup, I’m writing this full review, in the hopes that you’ll love it, too.

Whitney Beck and Deon Grant have liked each other since high school, but their timing was always off. Now, she’s running a haunted bed and breakfast, and he’s cameraman for the “Ghost Punters” (yes, punters) show her sister called for help. Neither Whitney nor Deon want to believe the ghost is real, of course, but try telling that to the levitating objects and the scratches at the door. Soon, the sisters and the TV crew are fighting for their lives. But despite the dangerous distractions, could this finally be the right time for Whitney and Deon? And could they build something real after years of missed connections?

From the first chapter, I was hooked. The humor had me cracking up, the premise is gold (fake ghost hunters meet real ghost? hilarious), and the characters are extremely likeable. Whitney and Deon are swoony and perfect for each other. Even when they hit a rough patch, I didn’t worry because I knew their relationship’s foundation was rock solid. Whitney’s sister, Helen, is also a great character, full of energy and determination, and I love that Reid gives the sisterly relationship as much weight as the romance.

Because while this is a love story and a ghost story, above all else, it’s a story about healing. Whitney’s haunted not just by the ghost in the attic but also by the traumatizing events of a Miami hurricane months earlier, and her stoic approach isn’t working for any of it. Watching her learn to confront her fears and accept help got me right in the heart, as it’s something I struggle with, too. (But thankfully, I have no attic for spectres to haunt.) I admit, I teared up when she finally confronted her literal and figurative ghosts because it was funny, it was scary, and it was incredibly cathartic.

And speaking of the spook-factor, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it would be. I typically steer away from anything horror-adjacent, but with the exception of a couple tense scenes, this was very manageable for my anxiety levels and, thankfully, not gory at all. It helps, too, that there’s so much humor in the story, from the characters to the makeshift exorcism materials. So if you, too, are worried about getting too stressed, I just want to say that if I survived and loved it, you’ll do fine. There’s just enough to make you sit up and take the threat seriously but not so much that you can’t enjoy the love story.

A week after reading, I’m still thinking of I’ll Come Back for You, its humor, and its wonderful characters, and I suspect this might even become a comfort read for me. Not something I would have expected of a ghost story, but that just shows you how much I enjoyed it. If you’re at all tempted, I highly recommend giving this book a chance to win you over, too. It releases March 24, 2022, so mark your calendar and pre-order now!

Many thanks to author Charish Reid for providing an eARC for review.

—b