Evenfall

Written by Liz Michalski

Goodreads Synopsis: In life, Frank could've had any woman he wanted.

In death, he'll try to win back the one that mattered...

Frank Wildermuth always regretted a mistake he made as a teenager: choosing Clara Murphy over her sister Gert. And like a true Murphy woman, Gert got on with her life, never admitting to heartbreak. Not even now, decades later, with Frank dead-dead, that is, but not quite gone. Now, Frank's niece, Andie Murphy, is back in town to settle his estate, and she sees that things have changed in Hartman, Connecticut. Aunt Gert still drives her crazy, but Cort, the wide-eyed farmboy she used to babysit, is all grown up-with a whole new definition for the word "sleepover." Even freakier are the whispers. Either Andie's losing her mind, or something she can't see is calling out to her-something that insists on putting right the past.

My Confession: I loved this book. Really, truly loved it. I hadn't heard about this book in advance, it wasn't recommended to me, and I didn't discover it on Goodreads first. This was a beautiful, spontaneous find during a trip to Borders. I walked up and down the isles, and this book caught my eye. The cover is reminiscent of a classic watercolor painting, and something about it was whimsical and inviting. The back cover, which promised a plotline filled with love lost and a ghost who would stop at nothing to keep the past from repeating itself instantly grabbed me. Bonus points for naming the main character Andrea--even if it was shorted to the offensive "Andie" for the majority of the book. The writing was gorgeous and breathtakingly visual. The attention to detail was painstaking and meticulous. As a writer myself, I know how important the little details are, and Evenfall just nails them. The setting, a rural farm town in Connecticut, was very realistic, the atmosphere of a slow (almost sleepy) lifestyle captured perfectly. The characters were extremely real, from the reluctant, unsure Andrea to the handsome, incredibly sexy Colt, and the time-hardened, regretful Gert. But, that brings me to...

The ghost element: Almost nonexistent. Frank, Andie's uncle and Gert's brother-in-law, appears and narrates parts of the story from beyond the grave. It becomes known that Frank, as a young boy, was madly in love with Gert but married her sister instead. After Gert returns home from serving in the war as a nurse to care for Andie, her reckless brother's newborn child, Frank and Gert are forced to live everyday with their mistake. Now, as a ghost, Frank sees Andie going down the same road, and he wants to keep the past from repeating itself. However, as neat and interesting as this sounds, it doesn't quite play out that way. Frank's narrations act more as a window to the past, instead of connecting that past to the present. His presence is felt during different parts in the book, but feels nowhere near as important as it could have been. The "whispers" that Andie's supposed to hear never really happen. She never recognizes the "humming" she hears as a supernatural presence, let alone her uncle Frank. This particular aspect of the plot had so much promise, and it fell a little short. 

A few other loose ends are left by the end of the book. Now, I'm usually all for an open-ended ending; I've grown to dislike novels that wrap everything up into neat, unrealistic little packages. However, I felt that I was left with a few questions at the end (which I won't reveal for spoiler purposes) that could have been cleared up in a subtle way. Everybody doesn't have to live happily ever after, but abrupt endings (endings at all, especially in a good book) are hard to accept. 

Recommendation: Read this book. Just read it. It's beautifully crafted, and the fact that this is the author's first book is truly impressive. It's a wonderful story about love, regardless of and apart from the supernatural element. 

Rating: 4/5

320 pages, published by Berkley Publishing Group (Feb. 1, 2011)