Under the Whispering Door
A cosy fantasy about how to embrace life - and the afterlife - with found family
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- 8,99 €
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- 8,99 €
Publisher Description
Witty, haunting and kind, Under the Whispering Door is a gift for troubled times. TJ Klune brings us a warm hug of a story about a man who spent his life at the office – and his afterlife building a home.
From the author of joyous New York Times bestseller The House in the Cerulean Sea.
Welcome to Charon’s Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh and the dead are just passing through.
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.
Fans of A Man Called Ove and The Good Place will fall for this queer love story by TJ Klune.
Praise for TJ Klune:
'I loved it. It is like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket. Simply perfect' – V. E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
'A modern fairy tale about learning your true nature and what you love and will protect. It's a beautiful book' – Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse series
'A whimsical, warm-hearted fantasy' – Guardian
'Fans of queer fantasy won't want to miss this' – Publishers Weekly
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.
