If you are still feeling cozy and spooky, and not ready to move on to cozy and festive, then I suggest you spend an afternoon in the library with Amelia Bates.
The Haunted Librarian by Auralee Wallace follows Amelia Bates from her former life to her dream life, that of a librarian in Nova Scotia. But books are not the only thing that haunts Amelia, she is a ghostseer and spends 80% of her waking time trying not to look at the spectres around her, lest they discover her gift and want to talk to her. She follows a set of strict self imposed rules to keep the ghouls and ghosts in her peripheries and out of her direct line of sight. Until she comes to the library, where the ghosts refuse to believe that she cannot see them. She is drawn into their “lives” and must lean in to her gifts and assist them if she wants to stop her new life falling apart. There are quirky ghosts, intriguing neighbors and a handsome co-librarian to occupy her time and talents. When an interdimensional portal eats her kitten poster she realizes there is no turning back from this new path she is on.
I’m not usually one for ghost stories outside of A Christmas Carol, but I really can’t resist the tale of a woman who upends her life to become a night librarian in a sleepy Canadian town. What kind of library is popular enough to support a night librarian, and can I sign up for the job please.
While Amelia is the main character, it is the head librarian Rosalinda that captivates me and who I would very much like to be when I grow up.
Now, I realize how this may sound, but I’ve worked at this library since I was a young girl, and I believe after so many years of witnessing people at their most destitute, it has learned to care about those who step into the shelter of its walls.
Well into her 80s, she is small and spry, wears a shirt dress and pearls, and has a wit to rival Elizabeth Bennet. With her mild but endless teasing of Simon, the librarian she has known since he was a boy, and the wistful way she views the library and the people who visit it, she is an utter delight. A future novel about a young Rosalinda’s adventures would be most welcome.
The story moves along at a comfortable clip, the three library ghosts are entertaining and so very different from each other, and Simon is just handsome and shy enough to be a nice palate cleanser between my usual morally ambiguous reads, helping me reset my romantic radar a little. Each chapter begins with a quote from classic literature, which I adore, and the story brings in many familiar ghostly elements whilst also creating some of it’s own mythology to ponder.
Amelia nearly spit out her cocoa. “Is it good?” he asked, glancing over at the mug in her hand. The ghost mug. She hadn’t even realized that she’d picked it up. She was drinking ghost cocoa! The second she had the thought, it disappeared, which, admittedly, was too bad. It had been good.
Librarians keep magic alive, and this library certainly has more than it’s fair share of magic.
The Haunted Librarian was released on October 6, GeekMom received a copy for review purposes.
