I thought I went into this book with my expectations appropriately tempered. I had seen lots of people complaining that this book didn't have enough ghosts, that it was more of a romance than they expected. Well, that's fine, I thought, I love reading romance!

The problem is, this is not a very compelling romance.

The biggest problem here is there is very little conflict in the book. I actually quite enjoy romances where most of the conflict is external. Give me two (or more) characters who would dearly like to smooch but they gotta save the family business or the kidnapped sister or the world first. Let me watch their relationship only get deeper as it's them against the world, and they gain more appreciation for each other's skills and grace under pressure. I eat that up.

But the external conflict here is not very compelling either. Our titular Edgar is subject to an actually not very unusual at all haunting. He can randomly see ghosts. They're scary! That sucks. But he appears to have taken exactly 0 steps to try to deal with this problem and instead spends all his time anxious about them, as well as being anxious about everything else. Boy needs therapy.

Jamie's rich parents don't respect their gender identity or their career. Their sister is getting married during the busy season for haunted houses, and the family expects Jamie to help with wedding prep and present as femme on the special day. That also sucks. But it's a really mundane conflict for a book about ghosts.

I try to avoid spoilers but I will say that both of these conflicts end up being dealt with through really minimal effort.

About halfway through the book I was asking how there could be so much book left, because the characters were already together and barely invested in their own conflicts.

This is also one of those books where the main characters have literally never done a wrong thing in their life. They regularly do things that could be a major overstep, especially in such a new relationship, but it's OK because it turns out to be exactly what their partner needed or wanted!

There's so many other things I could say about this book, but honestly, I am so far behind on my reviews and there are better books to talk about.

I fear this review will be a similar fever dream as the book. Honestly, this book was a very mixed bag.

I enjoyed that it was very easy to get into. The setting is clear and I quickly had an overview of the different characters and the general plot.

However, I've also realized that the Fever Dream Subgenre might not be for me - at least in most cases. Once the book picked up pace I was quite confused about what exactly was going on a lot of the times. I am a big lover of high fantasy which usually goes along with somewhat logical or well-explained magic systems. This was definitely not the case here - which I think it was also not the author's intention. The book runs more on vibes and atmosphere, which is also a way of storytelling, but one which I don't necessarily prefer. In the end, many things weren't fully resolved or stayed vague which for me was a bit frustrating.

I also had some problems having real compassion for the MCs. Sure, they all have quite interesting backgrounds and storylines, but I failed to connect to them on a deeper level, which also made the book less enjoyable for me.

In the end it was an ok read with a thought-through plot, but not really my cup of tea. I wanna note, though, that the themes of power and allegiance that are explored are quite interesting, plus we've basically an all-women cast, so if you think you'd enjoy this genre more than me I would definitely tell you to try the book out!

P.S.: I also had a hiatus for like a month and switched to audio at 80%- i think that would've been the better format for me so I'm probably a bit biased. I can definitely recommend the narration!