Bark at the Ghouls

Jacy is a writer who isn’t writing. She spends her time tending bar, drinking too much and hanging out with guys who are bad for her well-being instead. Jacy is a bit of a mess.

One night she meets a handsome older fellow who, as it turns out, is a famous author. He’s also very much dead and wants her to ghostwrite his next novel. If she succeeds, she could be famous too.

WTF is going on here? Far more than it first seems. I hesitate to say much at all here because I fear I’ll give away too much of the plot. I’ll just say that it’s much more than a ghost story and though it is nicely sarcastic, at its core this is not at all light-hearted. It’s actually quite dark and in the end it all makes sense.

Though Jacy was a mess and haunted in more ways than one, she was a character I enjoyed reading about, sharp edges and all. She’s dealing with a huge burden by not dealing and sabotaging her life but I understood her choices and wanted her to find happiness and stability.

Her love interest was perfect. The man even brings her a cat on their first date because:

“You’re a writer, so… Don’t all writers have cats sitting in their laps while they’re working on their novels?”

That man is what you call a keeper. Note: This is NOT a romance though there is a romantic element.

And some of the descriptions just made me smile.

“His head was like a new penny, and I wanted to rub his bright scalp for luck.”

This book is hard to classify but I think if you enjoy character studies featuring complicated characters you’ll enjoy this story. I sure did.