2.5 Stars rounded down because it had so much potential that was never reached.
I am so not with the crowd on this one!

There are some very good descriptions and it's an interesting period in history. In fact, it was an amazing period of history. Paranoia over Germans and foreigners during WWI, while the real killer, Spanish Flu, rips its way through the young and healthy population of a small American town. That should have been brilliant!


The narrative, however, is weak, the "romance" pathetic (and troublesome, very very troublesome initial sexual contact, not true to 1918 or the character). I saw the twist coming but that was not a problem. Actually, I liked the twist, I was hoping it would pick up a bit from there with some good speculative fiction. Again huge disappointment. The simple problem is the novel failed to allow me to Suspend my Disbelief. Avoiding spoilers (the fact there are Ghosts is in the blurb), there are physical realities about what Ghosts can and can’t do.

To add to the novel's problems I was listening to it on audio and the simple truth is that the narrator (Emily) should not be allowed anywhere near a book containing European accents. I eventually decided she was trying to imitate Arnold Schwarzenegger when she was doing the German accent. Arnold is Austrian and not German and doesn’t even have a typical Austrian accent. There is no inflection in how German's pronounce vowels. However, not all of the accent was the narrator's fault, some of it was the dialogue as written. One sentence of Irish Brogue had me saying words I should not be saying outloud on the bus. :)

Overall, not recommended for Europeans and definitely not on audio.