Nine Lives: A Lily Dale Mystery

This sweet, romantically melancholic first in a new paranormal series from bestseller Staub (Nightwatcher) introduces newly widowed Isabella Jordan, who embarks on a road trip with her young son, Max, from Bedford, N.Y., to visit her hated mother-in-law in Chicago. Car trouble strands Bella and Max in the spiritualist enclave of Lily Dale, N.Y., where they wind up attending to the needs of a very pregnant cat. In addition, the Victorian guesthouse where they’re staying suddenly needs tourist-season help due to the drowning of the caretaker, Leona Gatto. The locals’ attitude that contact with the dead is possible makes Bella wonder whether her beloved late husband could be watching over them, but she’s terrified by dreams that suggest Leona’s death was no accident. Staub doesn’t overplay the quirkiness of the guesthouse residents for color, nor does she rely on ghosts and psychics to solve the murder, opting instead to pull the heartstrings of readers soft on animals, young kids, and the idea of love beyond the grave. [em]Agent: Laura Blake Peterson, Curtis Brown. (Oct.) [/em]