The haunting of Brynn Wilder

In this touching paranormal romantic thriller, college professor Brynn Wilder, who has suffered her mother's death and other misfortunes while on sabbatical, readily accepts the invitation of her friend Kate Granger, the protagonist of Webb's Daughters of the Lake, to join Kate in Wharton, a tourist town on the shore of Lake Superior, for the summer. In Wharton, she stays at a historic boardinghouse that's rumored to be haunted. Brynn's nights are wracked with strange, lucid dreams, in which a ghost, an old woman in a nightdress, beckons her to visit a room where a woman's dead body lies. Meanwhile, she meets the handsome Dominic James. Wary of starting a relationship, and leery after hearing the local gossip about two women who have died and were supposedly last seen with Dominic, Brynn is nonetheless drawn to him. She's soon having more vivid dreams, not only of the old woman but of her and Dominic in another place and time. The action builds to a satisfying and uplifting ending, in which the ghost's surprising identity is revealed. Webb consistently entertains. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean Naggar Literary. (Oct.)

A woman takes the summer to heal in a small Minnesota town and discovers friendship, phantoms, and love. Brynn Wilder has had a rough year. She broke up with her long-term partner, her beloved dog died, and she took a sabbatical from her job at the university to care for her dying mother. When a friend invites her to spend the summer in a small town on the shores of Lake Superior, it's just what she needs. She finds herself sharing the small boardinghouse with a sociable older gay couple, a handsome and mysterious tattooed man, and something that might be the ghost of a woman who died in the house over the winter. Between the convivial small town, the chance at romance, and the unsettling presence that seems to be interested in her, Brynn's going to have a summer to remember. Setting her new novel in the same town as Daughters of the Lake (2018), Webb has concocted another tale of mystery, and, since Brynn is friends with Kate, the heroine of the earlier novel, there are plenty of familiar faces. The town of Wharton leaps off the page, full of kooky but kind townies who all befriend Brynn. Though the tone can be odd, slipping among a heartwarming tale of a woman finding herself, a whirlwind romance with hints of danger, and a haunting ghost story, all the characters are so likable and the mystery genuinely mystifying enough that the book somehow remains endearing and greatly readable. An uneven but heartfelt tale that is both warm and poignant. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.