This story has a nice blending of historical fiction, mystery and the paranormal all set in a tiny village in England after WWI.
It grabbed my attention immediately and kept me turning the pages. It has romance, lost love, lechery, angst and a ghost who apparently also has a mad giant ghost beast wandering the woods with her.
Jo marries quickly to a man that in the end she discovers she doesn't really know at all. When she finds herself indebted to his Aunt as a paid companion with no future at the young age of 26, she fears that perhaps she made a huge mistake that will cost her for the rest of her life.... unless the ghost makes short work of her first.
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LOST AMONG THE LIVING:
NAL Publishers
April 5, 2016
It’s 1921 in England and three years after her husband, Alex, disappeared, shot down over Germany, Jo Manders still mourns his loss. Working as a paid companion to Alex's wealthy, condescending aunt, Dottie Forsyth, Jo travels to the family’s estate in the Sussex countryside. But there is much she never knew about her husband’s origins—and the revelation of a mysterious death in the Forsyths’ past is just the beginning.
All is not well at Wych Elm House. Dottie's husband is distant, and her son was grievously injured in the war. Footsteps follow Jo down empty halls and items in her bedroom are eerily rearranged. The locals say the family is cursed, and that a ghost in the woods has never rested. And when Jo discovers her husband’s darkest secrets, she wonders if she ever really knew him. Isolated in a place of deception and grief, she must find the truth or lose herself forever.
Sure to resonate with fans of historical fiction and gothic romance, LOST AMONG THE LIVING is a haunting page-turner that will have readers on the edge of their seats until the very end.