Joey Bennett hasn't said her brother's name in twenty-seven years. She's said everything else.
She spent twenty-five years at a dental practice front desk making everyone laugh. She spent twenty-four years in a marriage making Mark laugh. She walked into a bookstore in Fairhaven, four days after arriving, and did five minutes of stand-up so good the mic stand bowed, the folding chairs crossed their arms, and thirty strangers gave her a standing ovation.
One person didn't clap. He was in the back by the storeroom door with a cup of coffee he wasn't drinking, and he was the only one who could see she was falling apart.
That's the thing about Joey. She's genuinely, actually funny. The comedy isn't the lie. The lie is thinking the comedy is all she is. Every joke she makes, the magic plays along. The world yes-ands the bit. A generous pour overflows. The diner lights go candlelight when she calls the locksmith's quiet "the kind they have in cathedrals." A pie contest turns into twelve inscribed dedications to the dead when Joey makes a joke about grief she didn't know was real.
The magic gets louder as the deflection gets bigger. And the deflection is twenty-seven years deep.
Hayes Marsh is a locksmith with an F-150, a bad back, three unfinished guitars in a garage he won't open, and the professional courtesy to not laugh at anything Joey says. He fixes her front-door lock, her diner's cash register (he's a locksmith, not a repairman, but Patti called and Patti only has one number), and the back door nobody asked him to fix. He is not charming. He is not interested in being charmed. He is a man who showed up in the walk-in cooler with a towel when she couldn't cry and said, "I'm not going to laugh."
Between Margaret's no-nonsense training, a coven of midlife witches who keep showing up at Sunday dinner, a great-aunt's tape recorder with a warning inside, and a basset hound who communicates exclusively in sighs and deliberate social choices, Joey has to figure out whether funny is a gift or a wall, before the magic, the man, and the dog who finally thumps his tail make the decision for her.
Read the Room is Book 9 in the Hot Flashes & Hexes series, a cozy paranormal romcom for women who've spent their whole lives being the funny one and are ready to find out what happens when they stop. Expect accidental magic, a Keurig with feelings, a locksmith who builds guitars, a pie contest that goes beautifully wrong, found family that won't take no for an answer, and a midlife witch romance with a grumpy hero who communicates in silences and a burned grilled cheese.
Perfect for readers who love:
She spent twenty-five years at a dental practice front desk making everyone laugh. She spent twenty-four years in a marriage making Mark laugh. She walked into a bookstore in Fairhaven, four days after arriving, and did five minutes of stand-up so good the mic stand bowed, the folding chairs crossed their arms, and thirty strangers gave her a standing ovation.
One person didn't clap. He was in the back by the storeroom door with a cup of coffee he wasn't drinking, and he was the only one who could see she was falling apart.
That's the thing about Joey. She's genuinely, actually funny. The comedy isn't the lie. The lie is thinking the comedy is all she is. Every joke she makes, the magic plays along. The world yes-ands the bit. A generous pour overflows. The diner lights go candlelight when she calls the locksmith's quiet "the kind they have in cathedrals." A pie contest turns into twelve inscribed dedications to the dead when Joey makes a joke about grief she didn't know was real.
The magic gets louder as the deflection gets bigger. And the deflection is twenty-seven years deep.
Hayes Marsh is a locksmith with an F-150, a bad back, three unfinished guitars in a garage he won't open, and the professional courtesy to not laugh at anything Joey says. He fixes her front-door lock, her diner's cash register (he's a locksmith, not a repairman, but Patti called and Patti only has one number), and the back door nobody asked him to fix. He is not charming. He is not interested in being charmed. He is a man who showed up in the walk-in cooler with a towel when she couldn't cry and said, "I'm not going to laugh."
Between Margaret's no-nonsense training, a coven of midlife witches who keep showing up at Sunday dinner, a great-aunt's tape recorder with a warning inside, and a basset hound who communicates exclusively in sighs and deliberate social choices, Joey has to figure out whether funny is a gift or a wall, before the magic, the man, and the dog who finally thumps his tail make the decision for her.
Read the Room is Book 9 in the Hot Flashes & Hexes series, a cozy paranormal romcom for women who've spent their whole lives being the funny one and are ready to find out what happens when they stop. Expect accidental magic, a Keurig with feelings, a locksmith who builds guitars, a pie contest that goes beautifully wrong, found family that won't take no for an answer, and a midlife witch romance with a grumpy hero who communicates in silences and a burned grilled cheese.
Perfect for readers who love:
- Funny midlife witch romance with real heart
Comedian heroine meets impossibly quiet hero
Grumpy locksmith romance with slow burn
Starting over at rock bottom in a small town
Cozy paranormal rom com with found family
Books you can finish in a weekend and think about all week
Each Hot Flashes & Hexes book stands alone. But once you've been to Sunday dinner at Cassie's, you're not getting out easy.
Genre: Paranormal Romance