PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at the bestselling author’s upcoming enemies-to-lovers romance novel
Credit: Marlayna Demond; Avon / HarperCollins Publishers
NEED TO KNOW
- B.K. Borison will continue her Ghosted romance series with a new novel
- In Grim Tidings, a Grim Reaper and a guardian angel form an unlikely relationship
- PEOPLE can share an exclusive excerpt from the novel, out Sept. 15
Can the Grim Reaper fall in love? This is the question central to B.K. Borison‘s next novel.
The bestselling author, known for her cozy romance books, will return in September with Grim Tidings, out from the HarperCollins Publishers imprint Avon.
The novel, which continues Borison’s Ghosted series, centers on Darcy Moore, a Grim Reaper having serious doubts about her path. Tired of being the villain, Darcy comes up with a plan: she will save her next assignment instead of bringing him to the underworld, per the book’s synopsis.
But trouble comes in the form of Gabriel Aetos, a guardian angel who doesn’t appreciate threats to his terrain. When Gabriel starts developing feelings for Darcy, they must figure out if their love can prevail.
Hooked? Read an exclusive excerpt from Grim Tidings below.
Credit: Avon / HarperCollins Publishers
I roll my shoulders and make my way toward the bar, pulling my coat tighter around me. I traded my cloak for a long, black wool jacket, my scythe magically tucked into the bag strapped across my chest. My chestnut-colored hair is twisted back in a sensible braid, and my hands and wrists are bare of any jewelry. To anyone passing by on the street, I’m a completely normal, unassuming 27-year-old woman.
A man with a fisherman’s cap pulled low over his eyes emerges from the bar, one arm caught in the sleeve of his jacket. He jerks as I move closer, his fight-or-flight activated by my presence. He catches the door, his jacket forgotten, staring at me like — well, like he’s seen a ghost.
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“In or out?” he asks, his voice faint.
“In,” I say, reaching for the handle.
Though I know it shouldn’t. I can’t fault the mortals for their instincts. Death clings to me like a second skin. I am the goose bumps on the back of his neck. The whisper in the back of his mind that warns him of danger. But the feeling will fade, and tomorrow, he won’t think of the strange woman standing on the front stoop of his favorite bar. His memory of me will muddle. I exist at the very edge of his comprehension. It’s the only way we’re able to continue our work. The mortals would rather live in their own delusion than confront the magic that drifts among them.
I was the same way when I was alive.
The man moves past me without another word, glancing over his shoulder several times as he wanders down the street.
What would it be like, I wonder, to be something people move toward instead of away from? It’s been so long since I’ve been anything other than feared.
Credit: Marlayna Demond
Morose thoughts for a morose woman. If Aelia were here, she’d flick me in the forehead and tell me to get something fruity and frozen from the bar.
Unfortunately, this bar doesn’t look like it has anything fruity or frozen.
I let the door swing shut behind me, the warmth and the noise drawing me in. A wide oak bar top stretches across one side of the room, stools with cracked green leather tucked close. Round wooden tables fill the rest of the space, mismatched chairs and old paper menus stacked in the middle of each. There’s a group of midshipmen at one, some fishermen at another. The ceiling arches in the back, hiding a tiny alcove where a couple sits tucked close, their legs tangled beneath the table. It smells like beer and salt water and cigarette smoke, an ancient jukebox in the back creaking out Pearl Jam.
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I immediately love it.
Maybe the tree did hear me. Maybe this time I’ve been dropped in a place that’ll do me some good. Maybe I can even make a little vacation out of it, before the whole business of collecting my marked soul.
There’s one stool open at the bar, wedged between a wide window and a man with his sleeves rolled to his elbows. Blond hair, not black. Mid-fifties. No laugh lines. I go through my mental checklist as I slide onto the stool next to him. He gives me a cursory glance and a grunt of a greeting before turning his attention back to the baseball game playing on the slightly crooked television above the bar. I drop my messenger bag at my feet, toss my coat over my lap, and pick up a menu.
It’s immediately plucked out of my hands.
“You don’t need that.”
On the other side of the bar, a man watches me with a half smile carved across his face. He’s . . . big. Even with a bar between us I can tell he’s easily over six feet. Strong arms and a broad chest. Dark hair curly and messy, like he just tumbled out of bed or spent the last fifteen minutes dragging his hands through it. He tosses the menu on the counter behind him, then braces himself against the edge of the bar, tipping into my space. The muscles of his arms shift beneath the rolled sleeves of his plain white T-shirt and my eyes don’t know where to land. He’s striking in a way mortals rarely are. The eyes, the hair, the face.
And his bare arms, covered with hundreds of small, seemingly random tattoos. A withering vine on his wrist. A lighter with a burst of wildflowers on the inside of his elbow. A butterfly on his bicep and an empty jar, right below it. More disappear beneath his sleeve, and I find myself squinting, trying to make out their shape beneath the thin material of his shirt.
He clicks his tongue. “Eyes up here, sweetheart.”
Excerpted from the book GRIM TIDINGS, provided courtesy of Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 2026 by B.K. Borison. Reprinted by permission.
Grim Tidings will be published on Sept. 15 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.
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