Five top books featuring an unlikely alliance with a ghost

Courtney Smyth (they/them) is a chronically ill writer of stories, both long and short, from Dublin, currently living in the West of Ireland. They have had a number of short stories published in Paper Lanterns Literary Journal, and appeared in The Last Five Minutes of a Storm anthology. They have been writing about ghosts, demons and murders since they were ten and have no plans to stop.

Smyth's debut adult fantasy murder mystery is The Undetectables.

At Tor.com they tagged five books featuring an unlikely alliance with a ghost, including:

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

Wallace Price cannot be dead. He certainly cannot be dead wearing casual Sunday-in-the-legal-office clothes. He most certainly cannot be dead, because if he was dead, more people would be at his funeral. He’s brought to a highly unusual tea shop run by Hugo, a reaper who wants to help Wallace cross over, even if Wallace is not ready to go. Told from the POV of the ghost in question, the unlikely alliance between ghost and the human(-of-sorts) is an utterly heart-crushing romance, as well as a deep delve into the depths of what makes us human when we’re no longer living. It emotionally destroyed me, and that’s why I’d recommend it wholeheartedly. After all, who doesn’t love a book that has the redemptive essence of A Christmas Carol in a very, very queer, fantastical setting?

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue