I downloaded this audiobook because I wanted the company of a holiday romance for Christmas chores. I was iffy about the premise, but it was on sale at Libro.fm. And who doesn’t love audiobook sales?

From the beginning, the story exceeded expectations. I could NOT stop listening and now have the worst audiobook hangover. The narrators—Karissa Vacker and Will Watt—are pitch perfect, and I thoroughly enjoyed the quirky, often hilarious, paranormal world building.

100 years ago, Irish fisherman Nolan Callahan drowned during a storm. He died as he lived: alone. Since then, he’s been a ghost of Christmas past, pushing the worst of humanity toward reconciliation. He gets in, gets the work done, and hands off to the other ghosts. A standard assignment demands three visitations, tops.

When the haunting season is over, he reads, knits, and takes in stray cats. His existence is empty—no touch, no taste, no dreams. Humans forget him instantly, and he yearns for the elusive next stage: eternal peace.

Until  … he materializes in Harriet York’s cluttered, candy cane filled living room on December 1^st.

Nothing about his latest assignment makes sense. Her worst habits are an addiction to sugar and hideous Christmas-themed pajamas bought from someone called Nordstrom. He’s both irritated and intrigued. Something about her feels familiar, and her unruly hair is truly mesmerizing.

Harriet runs the antique store inherited from her beloved aunt and has never thought of herself as a bad person. A touch lonely, perhaps. Bit of a people pleaser, definitely. She goes out of her way to accommodate both difficult customers and family members who treat her as a disappointment, but she has no problem standing up to the handsome intruder who thinks he’s a ghost.

She threatens him with a candy cane and refuses to take his hand to visit her past. She demands he return the next day, via her front door. And he does.

Then they’re off, traveling through time, learning each other’s secrets, and discovering mysterious connections that raise the question: who is meant to rescue whom?

The twists and turns of their relationship set against the ticking clock of Nolan’s Christmas Eve deadline kept me guessing as if I were reading a thriller. The more I learned about both characters, the more I wanted the HEA they deserved.

But can a ghost and a mortal share a future?