A New Lease on Death by Olivia Blacke is a 336 page novel, the first in a planned series called Supernatural Mysteries.
Genre:
Mystery, Paranormal, Cozy
Opening Line:
I didn’t know how long I sat cross-legged in the snow, waiting for the dead man crumples on the ground in front of my building to wake up.
Synopsis:
In this darkly funny supernatural mystery about an unlikely crime-solving duo that launches a commercial, unique, and genre-blending series, death is only the beginning.
Ruby Young’s new Boston apartment comes with all the usual perks. Windows facing the brick wall of the next-door building. Heat that barely works. A malfunctioning buzzer. Noisy neighbors. A dead body on the sidewalk outside. And of course, a ghost.
Since Cordelia Graves died in her apartment a few months ago, she’s kept up her residency, despite being bored out of her (non-tangible) skull and frustrated by her new roommate. When her across-the-hall neighbor, Jake Macintyre, is shot and killed in an apparent mugging gone wrong outside their building, Cordelia is convinced there’s more to it and is determined to bring his killer to justice.
Unfortunately, Cordelia, being dead herself, can’t solve the mystery alone. She has to enlist the help of the obnoxiously perky, living tenant of her apartment. Ruby is twenty, annoying, and has never met a houseplant she couldn’t kill. But she also can do everything Cordelia can’t, from interviewing suspects to researching Jake on the library computers that go up in a puff of smoke if Cordelia gets too close. The roommates form an unlikely friendship as they get closer to the truth about Jake’s death…and maybe other dangerous secrets as well.
My Thoughts:
This book features a murder mystery investigation by an unlikely duo: the ghost of recently deceased Cordelia Graves, and Ruby, the twenty year old who moved into her apartment after her death.
The writing was decent and there were fun elements to the story, but the pacing was not ideal. After the murder being investigated occurs and the initial evidence collected, there is zero advancement in this regard until very near to the end. What there is instead is learning a lot about Cordelia’s life before she ghosted, which was fine and relevant to the overall arc of the series, but also a whole lot of repeating the same information already provided over and over again. The characters comment on how strange it is that a mugger would not take their victim’s nice phone again and again, and I think the job duties of the front desk position at software startup TrendCelerate were listed for us at least three times. Cordelia’s limitations and bonus abilities as a ghost are also revisited many times, going over the same information. The attempted red herrings were not super successful either.
Overall I was mostly able to enjoy this paranormal story for it’s fun and quirky elements, but as a mystery it didn’t work as well as it might.
That being said, it definitely has its charms, and if the description tickles your fancy at all I do think you could consider giving it a shot yourself.
Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Jessica Crawford 