When Ruby rents a fully furnished apartment, she doesn’t expect it to come with the ghost of the previous tenant too. When her neighbor across the hall winds up dead, and the police dismiss it as a mugging gone wrong rather than a murder, she and her deceased roommate decide to investigate.
I got this book through Netgalley and requested it primarily because of the cover and I wanted a mystery. It’s a decent mystery that was fun to read. I liked the main characters of Cordelia (my favorite), and Ruby. Ruby I thought at times was annoying, but I can’t explain why exactly. I think it was because she was so outgoing? Example, who in their right mind is gonna go to the murder victim’s work and interrogate his coworkers? What company would even allow this woman to walk on in and conduct an investigation in their break room. This is probably where I should say that this begins what I disliked about the book. Why in the world would all of Jake’s (the dead guy) coworkers answer this woman? She isn’t the police, she has no power or authority. There’s a bit later on when one of Jake’s girlfriends turns up at Cordelia’s and Ruby’s apartment to answer questions. What?! Why? Why would she do that. I can suspend my disbelief for ghosts, but I can not envision a world where a woman who seems to be so full of herself would travel to the apartment of some unknown woman to answer questions to help further along Ruby’s investigation. It doesn’t make sense.
Also, this book has me wondering if everybody in Boston is obsessed with beer and drinking? Because I would have thought that no, of course not, but this book has every character (besides Ruby) asking for a beer. I’m surprised the author didn’t write in the bus driver as drinking on the job.
I also liked some of the explanation on the ghost mechanics, like why ghosts don’t want to actually come in contact with a living person. That’s a great idea, make it painful for the ghost too. However, I did not care for the whole “if I believe it to be true, it suddenly is”. Need to make a whole garbage bag disappear, just will it to be so! Yet Cordelia struggles with floating, but can walk through the walls, and sink through the ground. I get that ghosts have magical abilities in a folklore sense, making things appear and disappear. I just thought explaining it away with simply thinking it’s true makes it true was a bit lazy. Furthermore, I would rather have not had it explained. Along with maybe a whole garbage bag disappearing. There has to be rules to this, right? If you can cover it with your ghostly hands it disappears, if you can’t wrap your whole body around an object it’s going to be visible. It’s just the way it is. I have read, watched, and listened to ghost stories, I’m a paranormal expert, 😛 Just kidding. I have no idea. But that’s just what I found annoying.
Overall, I enjoyed reading it. I liked the story line. I loved Cordelia’s character and look forward to reading the next one in this series.
Thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions are mine.
Title & Author: A New Lease on Death by Olivia Blacke
Published by: Minotaur Books
Pub Date: Oct 29 2024
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Pages: 336
Date Read: 2024/05/07
Rating:★★★☆☆