Paper Ghosts by Sarah Addison Allen

 

My thoughts

I enjoyed this book very much. To me it was just the thing for this time of year. Maybe even more so if it was October, but right now it's what I needed. 

This is a story told in three parts. In two timelines. A kind of before and after story. One is Willamena's story, 1976, and the other is her granddaughter, Bailey, present day. It's a story of a small town with lots of, in my opinion, snooty people. Not all, but a lot. Especially the kids where Bailey went to high school. 

This has a love story going on too. A marriage of convenience also. There are some ghostly things going on but not in a scary way. 

I absolutely loved Willamena Wester. Her grandmother, Alice Wester, was not on my list of favorite characters at all. I understand that she thought she was protecting Willamena but she went too far. Enough already. Let that girl enjoy her life. Go to college. Marry who she loves.

Bailey was Willamena's granddaughter. Willamena encouraged her to leave. Go do something with your life. Go to college. Fall in love. She was the opposite of Alice. 

Bailey's dad called her home. Alice was not well and they needed to make amends. 

This story was so sweet. It had it's tense moments and there was an almost assault. But overall it was a very pleasant read. I read it pretty quickly and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

I also listened to the audio. Narrated by Marin Ireland. She did a good narration. Brought out the voices and kept me enthralled with the story.

Thank you St Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio for the arc.

4.75 stars. 

About

Part ghost story, part love story and steeped in magical realism, Paper Ghosts will transport you to a place where old secrets echo through the years and love finds a way of bringing us home.

Every family has its secrets... The Wester women live inside theirs.

For decades, the women of Wester House have unsettled and fascinated their small, timeless North Carolina town. Their home is full of whispers, old griefs, and uncanny knowing. But when Willamena Wester reaches out to the granddaughter she once pushed away, long-buried truths begin to stir.

1976:
Restless young Willamena falls for a stranded musician who brings freedom and the promise of another life to her carefully controlled world. Their brief, incandescent love story promises to escape the pull of the Wester legacy until Willamena makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever.

Present Day:
Returning home is the last thing Bailey Wester wants. Yet as she reconnects with Willamena, the grandmother she feared, Bailey begins to understand the love, heartbreak, and impossible choices that shaped the women in her family and realizes the past may not have been trying to haunt them after all.

A luminous novel filled with Sarah Addison Allen’s stunning prose and signature blend of romance, Southern charm, and wonder, Paper Ghosts reminds us that in order to have the future we really want, sometimes we need to live with the past, and not let go of it.