ALA Booklist (Wed Sep 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Hattie Tilney, a student at Northanger Abbey, purportedly the "most haunted high school," is struggling to hold it together. She needs to get to graduation in one piece, which is made difficult by the death of her ghost-hunting father, her headmistress mother's inattention, and her siblings who need more help than she can give. Even worse, she's just been assigned to help new student Kit, a transfer at Northanger on a ghost-hunting scholarship. Hattie accepts, even though she has no patience for the ghost hunters who plague the campus searching for famous ghosts. Kit's senior project, to prove that Northanger is really haunted, makes life hard for Hattie, forcing her to hide how much she misses her dad, but her initial impressions of Kit are shuffled off as she quickly falls for him. Teen fans of Austen will see the parallels and enjoy this modern twist on the story. Others unfamiliar with the original story will still enjoy the fun of a haunted-school romance.

Kirkus Reviews

A teenage girl must decide between normalcy and being true to herself.Hattie Tilney has been a skeptic since her ghost-loving father died right before the family moved to Northanger Abbey boarding school, a hotbed for supposed paranormal activity where her mother became headmistress. All Hattie wants is to have a normal senior year with her friends and get into a good college, but when she's assigned by her mom to be school ambassador to disarming transfer student Kit Morland, Hattie is horrified to find out that he is a ghost hunter on a scholarship from the National Paranormal Society of Investigators. Worse, Hattie must partner with Kit for their journalism class to investigate claims about paranormal activity at Northanger. Still grieving and determined to avoid anything to do with the paranormal world her dad loved, Hattie agrees to the project under one condition: Kit will try to prove the stories are true, and she will try to debunk them. It isn't long before Hattie finds her feelings for Kit growing as he pulls her into exploring subjects she has avoided for several years. In her second novel inspired by a Jane Austen classic, Quain draws a realistic portrait of a young person struggling with loss, social pressures, and familial expectations. Readers need not be familiar with the original to appreciate this retelling with a supernatural twist. Main characters read White; there is some racial diversity in the supporting cast.Fresh and compelling. (Paranormal romance. 13-18)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this gender-bent Northanger Abbey retelling, straitlaced skeptic Hattie Tilney, a high school senior who cues as white, attends boarding school at a storied and allegedly haunted abbey. Once a devotee of all things supernatural, Hattie renounced her belief in ghosts when her paranormal enthusiast father died during her freshman year. All Hattie wants now is to study pre-law at her dream college, protect her reckless younger brother and avoid her chaotic older sister, and be a model daughter for her absent mother, the school’s headmistress. But when she’s paired up with enthusiastic new student—and staunch believer in the paranormal—Kit Morland, also white, for an investigative journalism project about ghostly activity on campus, Hattie finds herself digging up memories and emotions she’d rather keep buried. As the two grow closer, Hattie gradually confronts her feelings of loss, all while learning to seek joy in things she once loved. Through introspective prose, Quain (Accomplished) illustrates the ways in which Hattie uses hyper-independence and practicality to mask her grief and loneliness. Quick-witted humor, banter, and a slow-burn romance evoke familiar Austenian relationship fare, making this cozy read a satisfyingly modern take on a classic. Hattie and Kit read as white. Ages 13–up. Agent: Moe Ferrara, BookEnds Literary. (July)