John W. Campbell Award-winning writer Seanan McGuire (Every Heart a Doorway) has written a thrilling and thought-provoking ghost story about a woman who dies before her time and must deal with unfinished business.
In 2015 Manhattan, Jenna works as a suicide prevention counselor and shares her apartment with terminally ill cats adopted from a local shelter. She drowned in Mill Hollow during a 1972 storm, as she ran away from her grieving family after her sister Patty's suicide, for which she blames herself. For each suicide Jenna prevents, equal time is deducted from the debt she owes for dying early. She receives disturbing news, however, that New York ghosts are disappearing, mirror-bound by a witch with mysterious motives. Jenna teams up with the corn witch Brenda to search for the missing ghosts, but all paths lead back to Mill Hollow, forcing Jenna to confront the very demons that kept her away.
The story has a lot in common with Showtime's Dead Like Me: the dead who coexist among the living in purgatory until they cross over, the touch that bleeds (or gifts) away a life, and dealing with the aftermath of unexpected death. McGuire's mythology digs deeper to explore the issues behind life, death and loss in a way that is natural, believable and life affirming. And Jenna is admirable in her desire to do right. In the end, "Everything that lives can die, and everything that dies can leave a ghost behind." --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant