A FESTIVAL OF GHOSTS

Alexander takes readers back to a contemporary world where ghostly haunts are part of daily life and librarians are specialists in appeasing the restless dead in this sequel to A Properly Unhaunted Place (2017).

Rosa Díaz reteams with pal Jasper Chevalier to tackle the appeasement needs of the local public school in a town still coming to grips with its newly haunted status. When students mysteriously begin to lose their voices, Rosa is determined to discover the root cause, though a needling feeling that her deceased father may be haunting her causes some ambivalence to and distraction from her quest. Meanwhile, Jasper tries to turn his new appeasement skills on the Renaissance Festival grounds, where ghosts of the distant past battle shadows of the present in a phantom turf war. While the first book in the series grappled with the consequences of grief avoidance, this addition turns outward, to the pain of remembering societal stories. Though not all history is pleasant, it all demands, quite forcefully, to be memorialized in some way in the town of Ingot. If mirrors are liminal spaces, perhaps this through-the-looking-glass world endeavors to shine its mirror on our contemporary struggles to honor and grieve the gray-hued past. Rosa is Latina, and Jasper is mixed-race (black/white).

Loose ends and question marks will leave followers of the world eager for a third installment; readers new to the series should start with Book 1.