Under the Whispering Door: A cosy fantasy about how to embrace life - and the afterlife - with found family.

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Whispering Door” lacks a complex plot; it’s Wallace’s journey from life to death, with comparative journeys going on around him. He also helps to rescue Cameron, who was a “Husk” (a ghost who had lost his humanity), which were previously thought to be hopeless cases. Mei thinks Nancy must have minor spiritual powers since Nancy managed to track Lea’s ghost down at the tea house. Where this book falters a bit, and what almost caused me to drop my rating lower, is the long, long middle of the story.

I know I’ve been working seventy hours a week, but is it too much to ask for my husband to perform his matrimonial duties? If you’re reading this book in hopes of the wholesome content that was The House in the Cerulean Sea, then boy are you in for a shock. But as Wallace starts accepting his death, he starts seeing his life for what it was, where he went wrong. Wallace was Linus, Hugo was Arthur and they have their band of merry and adorable side characters living in a remote house.

For the first part of the book, I kept hearing the narrator's voices for Linus and Arthur, which annoyed me! For example, most of the book takes place in a tea house that is a mish-mosh of architectural styles that appears to be structurally unsound, and there’s not really a practical explanation for why it’s like that, apart to add to the “zany” atmosphere of the book. The characters in this book were fabulous and the storyline for the book was interesting but for me the book was too long and drawn out.

Those coming to the story expecting something similar to his last adult novel, The House in the Cerulean Sea, will find something different here. Nearly everything about the novel is predictable – the plot, the characters, the humor – and while reading it, I could never quite shake a sense of been there, done that. Only this time around, rather than themes of self-love and acceptance of others, Klune tackles a much heavier subject – death. It was a treat to read, and I think this is another story that will convert new readers to TJ and queer romance into huge fans. When Wallace awakes, he learns that Cameron is fine now, and that Mei managed to wrangle him (Wallace) from floating away by using Apollo’s dog leash.Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the ARC, in exchange for an honest review!