WHEN GHOSTS TALK

SHE WILL LISTEN

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children – leaving them husks, empty of joy and strength. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will rock her world.

Ropa will dice with death as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. And although underground Edinburgh hides a wealth of dark secrets, she also discovers an occult library, a magical mentor and some unexpected allies.

Yet as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?

Ropa is a ghostalker, sort of a messenger service between the living and the dead for a price. But Nicola keeps showing up asking for Ropa to find her missing son, Ollie. She knows he is not dead since he is not on her plane of existence but she also can’t pay Ropa.  When Ropa relents and goes to see the child who disappeared with Ollie she finds him strangely changed. As she learns even more children have gone missing and a few have returned similarly changed, including one she knows, she ends up investigating.

The world building here is fantastic. Ropa lives in a world at once familiar to us with cell phones and familiar TV shows, and yet distinctly different where ghosts and magic are taken for granted. It is a world where the Edinburgh landscape is filled with the familiar and yet totally alien with flooded areas and public transit lines in ruins. There was some unspecified catastrophe, most likely climate change that has changed the world in many ways - no public transit, travel by foot or horse carts or a few electric vehicles, only a few privileged people can afford vehicles that run on gas.  The standard greeting is “God Save the King”, with a sort of feeling that to not say that, or respond “Long may he reign” could be viewed as treason - there are hints of a Scots rebellion against the crown but again, like the catastrophe that changed society, it is hinted at but not described. 

The characters are diverse, Ropa being Scots-born but true in many ways to her Zimbabwean heritage while her friend Priya is in a wheelchair but it does not stop her from being a significant part of the action.  With Ropa being fourteen years of age this could easily be viewed as a YA book with adult overtones as Ropa faces some pretty adult responsibilities. I look forward to the next in the series, Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments. Highly recommended. ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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