Mourner for Hire

Vada Daughtry cries for a living—she just refuses to do it for herself.

As a professional mourner, Vada crafts perfect eulogies and sheds genuine tears for strangers' dearly departed, a career that keeps her conveniently rootless and her own buried trauma exactly where she likes it. When a mojito-soaked night introduces her to Dominic Dunne—all dark eyes and bartender charm—she does what she does best: she disappears before things get complicated.

Complicated finds her anyway.

Months later, Vada arrives at a funeral only to discover the woman she's been hired to mourn is Dominic's mother. Worse, Annabelle Dunne has left Vada something in her estate—and Dominic is absolutely certain it's the punchline to an elaborate con. He's furious, suspicious, and unfortunately just as devastatingly attractive as she remembered. The feeling, he makes clear, is not mutual.

But Annabelle isn't done meddling. The dearly departed begins haunting Vada with all the subtlety of a woman who has nothing left to lose, seemingly determined to push her son and this tearful stranger together whether they like it or not.

What unfolds is a wickedly funny, surprisingly tender contemporary romance with genuine paranormal bite—grief and humor tangled together in ways that feel uncomfortably real. Because sometimes the person most determined to keep you at arm's length is the one a meddling ghost knows you need most.

Annabelle always did know best.