



Under the Whispering Door
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4.3 • 35 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own sparsely-attended funeral, Wallace is outraged. But he begins to suspect she's right, and he is in fact dead. Then when Hugo, owner of a most peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace reluctantly accepts the truth.
Yet even in death, he refuses to abandon his life - even though Wallace spent all of it working, correcting colleagues and hectoring employees. He'd had no time for frivolities like fun and friends.
But as Wallace drinks tea with Hugo and talks to his customers, he wonders if he was missing something. The feeling grows as he shares jokes with the resident ghost, manifests embarrassing footwear and notices the stars. So when he's given one week to pass through the door to the other side, Wallace sets about living a lifetime in just seven days.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A dead man reconsiders his life in this charming fantasy from Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea). At 40, white bisexual Wallace Price is a ruthless lawyer with no empathy for those around him. When he dies suddenly, prickly reaper Mei arrives to escort his ghost to Charon's Crossing, a tea shop run by Hugo Freeman. Hugo, a Black gay 30-year-old, serves as a ferryman, guiding souls to whatever comes next. Hugo tells the angry, disbelieving Wallace that he can stay at Charon's Crossing until he's ready. But Wallace will never be ready, and after trying to run away and discovering that he'll become an inhuman Husk if he does, Wallace settles into life in the bustling cafe, learning to manipulate objects from Hugo's ghostly grandfather, Nelson, and slowly becoming a better person as attraction blooms between him and Hugo. But when Mei reaps Alan Flynn, the victim of a murder, his rageful spirit upends the cozy, found family dynamic at Charon's Crossing. The frightening Manager arrives to deal with Alan—and gives Wallace just one more week on Earth, setting off a scramble to find a loophole. Tenderness, wit, and skillful worldbuilding elevate this delightful tale. Fans of queer fantasy won't want to miss this.
Customer Reviews
Ugly cry
This book absolutely destroyed me. I haven’t cried like that for a while. It wasn’t that it was necessarily super sad, but it was really just the small moments that get you. Please read this book. It’s an adorable journey that I wish never had to end.
Hope and Tears and Smiles.
As happens every time I read a book that’s deeply emotional I struggle to find the words that explain... the book, how I feel, how it has affected me... everything. And TJ’s books will do it time and time again.
We meet Wallace who is a very unpleasant man. His work is everything to him, as is the efficiency of his employees. If they make a mistake, they’re gone. No excuses. No matter the circumstance, they’re gone.
And then Wallace’s life is turned upside-down. And Wallace truly begins to learn the beauty that is life in the face of death.
For those of us who have had to let go of a loved one and are not in the first flush of youth (nor in the second, if there is such a thing), this book, the words TJ uses, the life he breathes into Wallace, Hugo, Mei, Nelson and Apollo as he tells their story, all meld into a wonderful Hope.
And I see Humanity at its best.
TJ Klune is a gifted and a generous writer.
5 stars