Dear Fellow Reader,

Hey look!  It isn’t a Christmas book. Yea! 

But this book is a different genre than my usual. It is not historical fiction, or cozy mystery, or fiction or even biography. This is in the supernatural mystery category. Now, I know that some of you might be turned off by that label, but I ask you to have an open mind.

The book opens with the death of Jake Macintyre. Jake lived in Apartment 4H. Jake is lying dead in front of the apartment building with a bullet hole in his head. Cordelia Graves is standing over the body. She notices that Jake is holding an expensive cell phone in his hand and comes to the conclusion that Jake did not die from a robbery attempt. Jake suddenly sits up. He recognizes Cordelia as the dead girl from across the hall from him. She assures him that she is the dead girl from across the hall. It takes Jake a few minutes to realize that he can see her because he is also dead. He is very confused. Cordelia urges him to come inside the building and after convincing him that he can walk through the front door, he realizes that he is a ghost but he doesn’t believe in ghosts, so he vaporizes. Cordelia is alone again.

Cordelia Graves is dead. She knows this but she also knows that she is still living in her apartment in Boston. Unfortunately, she is living there with a roommate. The first issue is that the roommate is alive and doesn’t really know that Cordelia is there. Ruby Young has moved to the city to escape a love story gone wrong. Her boyfriend was cheating and she decided that she had to leave town and move to Boston. She found an apartment that seemed to have someone’s things still there, but she could afford it and moved in. She is steadily killing off the house plants that were in the apartment.

The killing of the houseplants is driving Cordelia crazy. She doesn’t get what the problem is with this girl. Ruby figures out that Cordelia is living in the apartment with her and the two of them join forces to find out what happened to Jake. And maybe they will find out what happened to Cordelia. Cordelia doesn’t know and doesn’t think that her death makes sense. Through many rough starts, the two find they can communicate – not perfectly but they can exchange information.

Cordelia can find out things (by walking through walls) that Ruby can’t, but Cordelia cannot touch electronics because they blow up when she touches them. (They both learned this from experience.) So, they imperfectly work together to solve the mystery.

I liked this book. I enjoyed the interplay of the characters. It is a mystery written differently (at least for me) I recommend that you read this. I  think it is the first book of a new series.

Thanks for reading!

I was given an advance copy of this book in return for my unbiased review. The book will be published on October 29, 2024.