Here I Stay

Readers of occult-ish fiction know they can count on Michaels for the very gentlest, most un-bloody sort of ghost stories - but even her fans may find this homey new novel a bit too sedate, chatty, and wistfully muted in its tad of spookery. Soon after Andrea Torgeson and her 19-year-old kid brother Jim inherit a rotting old Maryland house from an ancient aunt, Jim very nearly dies in a car-crash. . . and loses a leg. So, largely in order to get Jim out of his post-amputation depression, Andrea decides they'll convert the house into a country inn - a plan which comes along nicely, with now-lively Jim doing restoration work, lots of local support, and a permanent paying guest in famous, middle-aged columnist Martin Greenspan. But tensions on two levels come - ever so slowly - to the surface. Psychology-wise, there's Andrea's possessive, obsessive love for brother Jim, frequently commented upon by gregarious Martin (soon a virtual family-member, always fondly quarreling with Andrea). Psychic-wise, there's: Aunt Bertha's other legacy, an odd cat named Satan; occasional hints of a presence, birdlike or angelic; bad vibrations for some visitors; plus, above all, Jim's increasing preoccupation with the house's previous occupants, especially two 19th-century women buried in a nearby graveyard. Is Jim, who believes he was meant to die in that crash, being lured back to the Beyond by these terribly restrained ghosts? So it seems. And eventually, after Jim's suicide attempt and an accident (?) for Andrea, the ghosts will apparently triumph, allowing Jim to "run free in the sunlight" evermore. . . while Andrea and Martin find love. Lots of humorous, pleasant innkeeping-detail, with an offbeat romance for Andrea and Martin - but chill-seekers will probably be a little disappointed to find that the occult element here is just a wispy thread through yards of mild domestic doings. (Kirkus Reviews)