When a fortieth birthday celebration leads to a ghostly visitor, four friends find themselves navigating surprising mysteries and spiritual hijinks, in this clever debut from Melissa Holtz.
Alyssa Mann isn’t adventurous, not since her husband died and she found herself the single mom of a teenage daughter. But there’s no way to avoid celebrating the big 4-0, so when her best friends drag her out for drinks and a tarot reading, she throws caution to the wind and decides to see what the spirits have to say. It’s all fun and games, until she wakes up the next morning with a wicked hangover—and a ghost perched on the edge of her bed.
Sheer panic sends her running to get help from Nick West, the (very attractive) detective who lives next door. When he finds no one inside, Alyssa has to accept that she really did see a ghost. As the dearly departed keep appearing, Alyssa and her friends do their best to learn how to control her newfound power. Trading insults with ghosts, tracking down family heirlooms, and getting closer to the skeptical but helpful Nick is more fun than Alyssa imagined. But when looking into one ghost’s past reveals unexpected—and unwelcome—facts about Alyssa’s late husband’s death, she discovers she just may be in over her head.
A bit of a mix between rom com and cozy mystery, I’ll say this one started off a little slow for me but I’m glad I stuck with it. We can see Alyssa is clearly struggling after the untimely death of her husband, and as she approaches 40 as a now-single mom, things seem too hard for her. She is lucky to have best friends firmly by her side, and when they suggest a tarot reading, she thinks nothing worse could happen to her – until she wakes up to spot a ghost in her home. This causes a clash with her next door neighbor who just happens to be a hot detective, and he wonders if his Alyssa has finally broken after the loss of her husband – or if there could be any truth to this ghost story.
I will say some of the ghosts we meet along the way gave me a good laugh, which was great for comedic relief throughout the book. It was easy to feel sympathetic for Alyssa, and also easy to see the romance brewing between her and her neighbor, Nick. Once I was a few chapters in, the storyline started to pick up, get more interesting, and give me a few laughs. Overall not a favorite on the year, but would be a fun pick for light-paranormal fans to look at.
