Uncommonly Tidy Poltergeists

Uncommonly Tidy Poltergeists (2017) Angel Martinez

Between writing up posts on some of my favorite books and just needing something light and happy to read, I decided I needed to re-read Uncommonly Tidy Poltergeists.

This is such an adorable story AND it’s an Ace romance, which is even more lovely.

Taro has something to tell his family, but is nervous about how they’ll take it. Perhaps with good reason.

“I drove … down to Dover a few weeks ago.”

“To the farmer’s market?” Ben said around a mouthful of pie. “Long way to go for strawberries.” L

uka gave Ben an odd look. “He didn’t say anything about produce.”

“Well, no, but why else go all the way—” Ben tried to defend his conclusion-jumping, but Mom interrupted him.

“It was to go to some specialist down there, wasn’t it?” Her tone was hard, but there was undisguised horror in her eyes. “Taro, are you sick? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Holy shit,” Ben whispered. “That idiot Craig infected you? Should we even have the kids around you? Little germ carriers. That could be bad if your immune system isn’t working right.”
…
“You could all stop making wild guesses and let Taro tell you,” Papi said without taking his attention from his pie or raising his voice. “Just a suggestion.”

That just delights me. I have been an instigator in MANY family discussions like that, because, well, of course I have.

It’s an adorable ghost story, with (as I said) lovely main characters, including an adorkable ghost hunter.

There was a thunder rumble overhead as a wheeled chair rolled across the floor, followed by the unholy trample of Jack rushing down the stairs in such a way that Taro wasn’t sure if he was running or falling.

“You did calculations for a toy cannon?”

“Well, yes. It’s easy enough to figure out the dimensions of the ball from the size of the barrel and from there the weight of a proper cannonball that size. You have to get the speed down, of course, from the initial velocities along the x- and y-axes and calculation of the maximum height…”

Jack pulled a pen from his pocket and began scribbling equations on his cocktail napkin with lots of v’s and t’s and sines and cosines thrown in. Taro understood the basics, but he was amazed that anyone could keep all that in his head.

The whole napkin was covered with scribbles by the time Jack sat back with a crooked grin. “See? Easily done.”

And amidst all that, she does a lovely wonderful job of explaining Ace.

But mostly it’s just a sweet and adorable story.

Publisher: Mischief Corner Books
Rating: 8.5/10

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