Rock ’n’ Soul

Sattersby makes an impressive debut with this rocking, touching romance between a Boston bellboy and the ghost of a famous musician. Tyler Lindsey finds famous rock star Chris Raiden dead of a heroin overdose in his hotel room. Bad as that is, things get worse when Chris’s ghost winds up attached to him. Chris is intangible, invisible to everyone else, and intolerable to Tyler—until the journey to help Chris resolve his unfinished business brings the two men together, first as friends, and then maybe as more. But even as Tyler realizes that he’s falling for his adorable, infuriating, inescapable non-corporeal companion, the time for Chris to move on approaches. This richly rendered portrayal of death and love unites two people in desperate need of real friends, turning “till death do us part” into a wrenching taunt as much as an affirmation. Fans of traditional romance arcs will approve of the ending, which keeps the two men together despite the difficulties presented by Chris’s incorporeality, immortality, and inability to travel more than 20 feet away from Tyler; some readers might wish Sattersby had pushed for a conclusion more fitting to the book’s early promise. (Jan.)