The Haunted Heart: Winter

The Haunted Heart: Winter (2013) Josh Lanyon

This isn’t really supernatural; it’s a ghost story. But I didn’t have a better category for it.

Flynn Ambrose is living in the house he inherited from his uncle on Pitch Pine Lane while he sorts through the antiques and other items collected over a lifetime.

I said, “From the way you were chortling to yourself, I was expecting a mummy case at least. Maybe an iron maiden.”

“There’s probably one in the back. I know there’s a coffin in there somewhere because I helped the old man carry it in.” Kirk’s dark gaze held mockery.

“I…have no response to that.”

“He was on the eccentric side, your uncle.”

He also inherited the downstairs border, a veteran turned playwright.

The problem is that Flynn isn’t well. The sudden death of his lover–who had also been his childhood best friend–sent him into a spiral that put him in the hospital, and even now his parents worry constantly about him.

The nice thing about heavy sweaters was you could wear them a long time without having to wash them, but still. There was a limit. There were a lot of limits, actually. Since grooming was one of those things people watched for, I made sure to clean beneath my fingernails and behind my ears.

There is a LOT of grief in this story.

Flynn’s loss is overwhelming–but for good reasons. He’s a quiet and gentle young man, and he and Alan had been best friends since they were kids, so he had never loved anyone else before.

It’s difficult to read his grief, but it’s also not an unreasonable grief, since he’d never loved and lost before. That’s not to say that grief gets easier with experience; only that you learn it’s survivable.

This was published in 2013, and says book one, but there isn’t a second book available. However, Josh Lanyon’s website says there is a sequel coming in 2019. So we’ll see.

But honestly, I’m okay because the book ended cleanly. No, it’s not a romance HEA, but Flynn is clearly in a better place at the end of the story, and although we don’t know Kirk’s past, his time in Afghanistan and PTSD are something that are comprehensible without details.

Mind you, I’d LIKE more books, but I’m not angry at the lack of a sequel.

I really like Josh Lanyon’s writing, and this was a lovely story. There is boinking, but not much; the story is very much centered on discovering who is haunting the mirror and how Flynn and Kirk can un-haunt it.

Publisher: JustJoshin Publications
Rating: 8/10

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