The Haunting of Brynn Wilder: A Northern Gothic

In this touching paranormal romantic thriller, college professor Brynn Wilder, who has suffered her mother’s death and other misfortunes while on sabbatical, readily accepts the invitation of her friend Kate Granger, the protagonist of Webb’s Daughters of the Lake, to join Kate in Wharton, a tourist town on the shore of Lake Superior, for the summer. In Wharton, she stays at a historic boardinghouse that’s rumored to be haunted. Brynn’s nights are wracked with strange, lucid dreams, in which a ghost, an old woman in a nightdress, beckons her to visit a room where a woman’s dead body lies. Meanwhile, she meets the handsome Dominic James. Wary of starting a relationship, and leery after hearing the local gossip about two women who have died and were supposedly last seen with Dominic, Brynn is nonetheless drawn to him. She’s soon having more vivid dreams, not only of the old woman but of her and Dominic in another place and time. The action builds to a satisfying and uplifting ending, in which the ghost’s surprising identity is revealed. Webb consistently entertains. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean Naggar Literary. (Oct.)