New Fantasy Books: Between Seasons

Title: Between Season
Author: Aida Brassington
Release: October 30, 2011
Pages: 244
Genre: Urban Fantasy

This is a ghost story like nothing I have ever read before. It begins within a few paragraphs of the first page with Patrick’s death. We watch him watch it, and we almost immediately feel how likable and absolutely ordinary this kid was. And really, that simple ingredient is the key to the whole story. Because this is not some scary ghost story of things that go bump in the night, though I guess to an outsider that is exactly what Patrick is. But to the reader he is a real honest-to-goodness 19 year old kid who has the bad misfortune to die by accident at that young an age.

But the real story, of course, is what happens after. Because that is what we witness as time unfolds in fits and starts and we watch Patrick watch the world go by. Here it becomes an almost bitter sweet tale as we see him go through discoveries about what it means to be a ghost, to have your life end and everyone else’s goes on. It goes on without you. There is sadness in this one scene, where his parents leave because his mother can’t stand to be in the house where he died any longer. So they pack up the house and move out, leaving him behind. And he is heart-broken, as is the reader as you watch him collapse in the pain of being left behind.

Did I mention that Between Season is no ordinary ghost story? So what happens when after all that waiting and longing to belong, someone moves into “your house” that is just goofy and maybe by some definitions “broken” enough for you to fall in love with her? How do you ever reach out to someone, when you are dead? Because just to make this a bit more tragic, and yet lovely, this ghost story is a tender love story too. I am not going to go into details. So much of what happens to Patrick, our 19 year old ghost with the tender heart and Sara who needed to love again should be discovered slowly and savored. But trust me, this is one that will do the same to you as it did to me. I closed the book at the end going, “Oh wow!” and sat and savored the wonderful feeling it gave me. Enjoy.