Entities to Lovers

by Mallory Marlowe

Genres: General Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance; Paranormal Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A connection that’s more than supernatural emerges between two rival tour guides who wish they could ghost each other in this sparkling romantic comedy from USA Today bestselling author Mallory Marlowe.

Paranormal medium Rory Woods spends her days offering psychic readings at Ye Olde Spirit Shop and nights haunting the streets of Boston as a ghost-tour guide. Sure, business could be better, but she’s proud of the shop she runs with her mom.

Enter Ezra Blackwell: adjunct history professor, noted thorn in Rory’s side, and—though she’d only admit it under threat of medieval torture he surely knows too much about—a distractingly handsome, charismatic coworker.

Rory can’t stand Ezra’s know-it-all, show-offy behavior. Ezra loves to tease the gorgeous, brilliant medium at the shop. And when the two are forced to host a tour together? It’s no wonder they end up hexed after disturbing a matchmaking ghost.

Saddled with perpetual bad luck unless they’re physically near each other, Rory and Ezra will try anything, from séances to kissing, to stop the jinx from wreaking havoc on both their lives. But in their quest to appease the spirit, they realize that growing closer might not be the curse they once thought it was.

Release date: October 13, 2026

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 368

Sample

Chapter 1

Rory

Please don't forget to tip your crypt keeper!"

The midnight-black trolley pulls up to the cobblestone curb outside Ye Olde Spirit Shop and an autumn breeze off Boston Harbor sweeps through the open cabin. I snatch the engraved urn behind me and jingle the spare change inside. Though I've spent the past two hours dressed in a Victorian ensemble with ghostly makeup smudged on my face, I can't ignore the obvious.

Even spirits are capitalists at heart.

Hence why I'm pleading for tips and depositing them at the gift shop.

"Oh, don't worry, folks!" I add with an airy mid-Atlantic accent. "I remembered to take my own ashes out. We've loved having you aboard Ye Olde Spirit Tours this evening."

The satisfied, and hopefully spooked, guests search their wallets for tip money, drop gratuities as they disembark, and thank me for my undoubtedly excellent service.

While most children wanted to be doctors and pop stars when they grew up, I was destined to haunt the Boston streets as the ghostly alter ego I created for the tour-Katherine "Kitty" O'Brien, sparkling socialite turned tuberculosis patient. I take the role seriously, thus the corset, a timely updo secured with a little bird hairpin, and my accent. Even the tip urn is engraved with Kitty's birth and death dates. It helps that my mother owns the store we run the tours from.

However, I'm the only ghost tour guide here who can actually speak to the dead.

"Please do remember if you had a magnificent time this evening and would like to get in touch with your spiritual side, I offer readings and medium services through Ye Olde Spirit Shop."

I pull a stack of fresh business cards from my satchel. They're black with purple stars, and the words rory woods, psychic medium printed in gold. They list my number, email, the store's address, and social media accounts. In a field where every other person on the street is quick to call me and my mother nuts, I must look as legitimate as possible.

A couple passengers take my card with varying degrees of intent before I depart. We begin tours nightly at sundown. Two trolleys run alternating routes around the city, so we don't cross paths. The itinerary takes an hour and a half, leaving me with a fifteen-minute break before I greet my next group.

It's late October: the time of year when Boston truly comes alive and magic bleeds from every brick, building, and corner of the city. The crisp fall air casts a spell on tourists and locals alike, all hypnotized and delighted by the crunch of leaves beneath shoes, jack-o'-lanterns parked on stone stoops, and the scents of cinnamon and pumpkin wafting from coffee shops.

I follow the street back to Ye Olde Spirit Shop. It sits at the bottom floor of an old brownstone near the harbor with a big, windowed storefront and the name hanging from a wooden sign above. I've had the Halloween displays up since August, filling the shelves and tables with pumpkins, orange calcite for joy and creativity, clove and cardamom incense, and a striking vintage portrait I've been trying to find a good home for. There are, of course, also some charming decorative skeletons keeping vigil over it all.

I pause at the door when something glimmers in the corner of my eye. Spirits rarely have enough energy to appear as full-body apparitions. They mostly look like shimmering blurs in my periphery, but their voices are clear as a bell in my head.

I had a ring like this, the spirit says, gazing at an ornate ring on display. Their voice is sharp with longing. It belonged to my mother. May I have it?

"Sorry," I tell it, keeping my voice low. The street is empty, so I can commune without judgment here. "I can't do freebies."

My mom and I have a small business to run, dammit.

I push open the door and the antique skeleton key mobile jingles above. Ye Olde Spirit Shop was always meant to be a haven. My great-aunt Vera passed away shortly after I was born, bequeathing my mother a large sum of money. She and my mom were both black sheep of their family in a way-strange, spiritual, and ferociously curious about things they didn't understand. My mother felt the best way to honor her memory was to open a place that could become a gathering spot for Boston's paranormal community.

Not only do we sell antiques and oddities that change hands, we collaborate with local artisans to sell soaps, spell supplies, tarot cards, and books on all things otherworldly. The store is small, but packed to the gills with the unfamiliar. Display cases line the walls, each containing aged brooches, preserved specimens, withered photos and paintings with peculiar provenances, and much more.

While my peers had stuffed animals and Barbie dolls in their playrooms, I grew up surrounded by taxidermy woodland creatures and filled my company with haunted dolls and relics, breathing in the smell of antiques, aged cedar, and sage.

I run my medium business out of a tiny alcove inside, separated by a draping scarlet curtain. It contains a séance table, a bureau full of my incense, tarot cards, and a collection of my favorite maybe-haunted paintings hanging on the walls.

As I reach the front counter, a rocking chair creaks behind me, and I turn. Not only did my mom inherit money from Vera, but she also inherited many of her possessions-including Clementine.

I kneel before the porcelain doll. Some might call Clementine horrifying on account of her absent, beady black eyes and painted-on smile. They just haven't gotten on her good side.

"Whatcha got for me, girl?" I ask.

Clementine holds a purple primrose in her tiny hand. No one's ever been able to explain it, but Clementine has the supernatural ability to offer people gifts (if she likes them). For me, it's often flowers. She must know I like making little salves and pouches for spells and protection, but I have a special place for her gifts.

"Thank you, Clementine," I tell her, and retreat to my alcove. I open the small scrapbook I've kept for years, find a blank spot, and press Clementine's flower into it with a smile.

I check the grandfather clock in the corner. Just a few more minutes before I've got to greet my next tour group.

I part the beaded curtain leading to our dressing rooms. The ghost tours were my idea. Everything from the black trolleys to the old-fashioned costumes and ghostly makeup is a performance. We allow each guide to create their own persona, alter their costume to their liking, and play the part however they wish, so long as they're getting the history right. Sometimes, I swear I'm more comfortable as Kitty O'Brien than Rory Woods.

Kitty is fun, lively, and brave. Things I've never been able to master myself. Kitty isn't weighed down by anxiety and insecurities, and she doesn't fear rejection the way I do. People are enraptured by her stories and peculiarities. Rory, though, never feels like enough.

I pop open my locker. I'm halfway through applying a new coat of Midnight Plum lip stain when the beaded curtain rustles again and I'm hit with the smell of razor-sharp citrus and leather. I don't have time to groan before Ezra Blackwell-the store's most popular and my least favorite tour guide-saunters in. He buttons his black satin waistcoat with his embroidered violet and charcoal jacket slung over his shoulder. He takes his place in front of the full-length mirror behind me.

"Evening, Ms. O'Brien," he says. His accent stops short of mid-Atlantic, but is deep and proper posh nevertheless. He's astonishingly good with dialects and has tried out a few in his time at the Spirit Tours. This is the one he stuck with. "Looking particularly dead this evening."

Our eyes meet in the mirror. He smirks.

Simply put, Ezra Blackwell looks like he would not survive the Industrial Revolution. He's below average height-though everything feels tall to my five feet-with a lean body of sharp angles. On his head, there's a shock of dark hair that curls at the ends. Everything about him is an unpredictable danger, from the occasionally painted nails to the silver hoop earring hugging his cartilage, and the myriad of black tattoos peeking from his rolled-up sleeves.

It's particularly dangerous because I am alarmingly into all of that.

Ezra joined the Spirit Tours last Halloween, when we bring on seasonal hires to accommodate the flourish of business during spooky season. Usually they're students searching for a fun temporary gig, or local actors with a free window in their schedule, and then they depart. Ezra, however, immediately became our most beloved tour guide and stuck around.

What I'll give him is that he's the most qualified of any of us. I can't rag on Ezra's master's degree or his job as an adjunct history professor at Revere University, but I sure can grumble at his arrogant attitude and insistence on proving he's the smartest man in the room. He's rustled every feather, disrupted every resting place, and dethroned me in reviews. When Ezra is at Ye Olde Spirit Shop, it's no longer a haven.

"Oh, being dead is quite delightful, Mr. Montgomery." I regard his own ghostly character and slip into my accent as well. "You should try it sometime."

Ezra runs his tongue against the back of his teeth and leaves the top of his dark button-down undone. Ezra did put considerable effort into his costume. Immediately after my mom complimented his getup, he went on some tangent about the special brocades and the history of the Jacquard loom.

I remember this not because I find his intelligence alluring, of course, but because it was annoying.

He stares back, unblinking like it's a contest. It always is with him. Ezra has the searing, uncanny look of a Victorian portrait, one with deep, dark eyes that follow you around the room, long eyelashes, and heavy, expressive brows. The otherworldly, old-timey haunted essence he has makes the waistcoat and jacket feel natural. He even owns a pocket watch.

I blink and lose the contest. Fuck.

Ezra chuckles and pulls the coffin-shaped button through the top hole on his shirt. "Afraid I have a tour aboard the Grisly Fate this evening, so I've no time to perish."

I freeze and spin. Ezra's moved on to applying a smudged layer of eyeliner to his lower lids. Then he rubs the tip of his index finger along his waterline.

"No, you don't."

"Yes? I do?"

"No, because I have the nine p.m. on Grisly Fate."

We stare at each other in silence, like cats waiting for the perfect moment to pounce, but I do not trust Ezra Blackwell not to bite.

Finally, his posture shifts, and before he beats me to it, I fling myself through the beaded curtains into the store.

"Mom!" I shout.

My mother pokes her head out of the storage room. Her cat-eye glasses sit atop her wispy blond hair and she's lugging a hefty box in her arms, which immediately makes my heart sink. She turned fifty a few months ago and figured it was time to try a new hobby. Pickleball and her meniscus did not get along. My mother may be a beloved figure in Boston's paranormal scene, but she is the most hated patient at her physical therapist's office. It's been months of trying to keep her from overdoing it as much as possible, but she's a Taurus, after all.

I know my mother's been trying to pass more off to me for years, whether it be coming up with new programming ideas or expanding my own business. But this shop is her baby. I couldn't bear running it into the ground on her.

I trust cards, spirits, and stars more than I ever trust myself.

"Yes, dear?" When she sees both of us together, she smiles at first, but frowns when she spots my scrunched-up, angry posture. "What is it?"

I love my mother dearly. But we all have flaws.

Her most glaring flaw is she doesn't mind Ezra. Dare I say, she likes him. She sees him as an asset to the team and the "best external hire we've ever had!"

"Who do you have touring the Grisly Fate tonight?" I demand.

"You, I thought," she replies, setting the box down with a grunt. My mom lacks the same psychic skills I do, but she does have a look of hazy mystery in her eyes. It's an undeniable intuition and read on people that makes it near impossible to ever lie to her.

"Delia, you also had me booked aboard the Grisly Fate tonight," Ezra says, leaning on an upholstered wingback chair behind me. This man is human drapery. He drapes himself places he shouldn't be draped.

I open my mouth to retort, but my mom holds up both of her hands to hush us. She slides her glasses on and opens the schedule book on the counter. She reads carefully, underlining each shift with her black fingernails.

Then she mutters, "Shit."

"What?" I ask.

"I double-booked you two," she groans. "I'm sorry. I meant to double-check when Mercury went direct, but got caught up with how busy it's been."

"So, one of us has to leave," I surmise. "I vote Ezra."

"Hey now," he counters. "Delia gave me this shift because I swapped with Joey last week when his hamster died. Rory, would you really deprive the good people of Boston of an informative tour-"

"Personally, I think I'm saving them from a nonconsensual game of Jeopardy!"

"Sounds like someone who couldn't get out of the red-"

My mom clangs the small singing bowl on the counter. "You two-enough, please. How about you do the tour together? This was my error, and I can't keep Ezra from a paycheck because of my mistake. That's not fair."

Ezra peels himself from the chairback and presses his hand to his heart. He's always wearing at least two rings, and today his nails are painted forest green, so dark it's nearly black. "And I am so grateful, Delia. Your understanding doesn't go unnoticed."

Nepotism saves me from having to go home and lose my paycheck, but it also means my mother can inflict cruel and unusual punishment on me. The last thing I want to do is spend my night sharing the stage with Ezra and his supreme ass-kissing. He's irksome enough in passing.

"I don't think that's a good idea," I say. "I can't possibly give a good tour alongside him. Come on, Mom. Think of the customers!"

"The customers yearn for more of Royce Montgomery the Fourth." Ezra manifests a paisley ascot from his jacket pocket. He delicately laces it around his neck and ties it at his throat. I'm resisting the urge to tie it even tighter. Maybe his head will fall off.