May 1, 2023
White's second Royal Street book, a spinoff of her bestselling Tradd Street series, continues the tradition of haunted houses, evil ghosts, and fraught romances. Nola Trenholm has recently moved from Charleston to New Orleans, and her father, author Jack Trenholm, and stepmother, Melanie, whose ability to communicate with the dead has produced many scary moments, are coming to visit soon along with her 12-year-old half siblings, Sarah and JJ. They want to see the historic haunted home Nola has recently purchased. In the meantime, she's living in an apartment with her dog, Mardi, and Jolene McKenna, a Southern belle with many talents. Nola has a complicated relationship with old friend and current contractor Beau Ryan, whose sister Sunny, kidnapped more than 20 years ago, has just found her way back to her family. Beau hates to admit that, like his presumably dead mother, he can communicate with ghosts. He and his girlfriend, Sam, have created a podcast debunking psychics. Beau wants revenge after uncovering the truth about Sunny's kidnapping, which was arranged by the late Antoine Broussard, whose evil deeds live on. Nola, whose new house is haunted by both Beau's grandfather and Broussard's malignant spirit, soon finds herself attracted to three different men: Beau; Michael Hebert, who broke her heart after starting a romance with her to help conceal his Broussard relatives' misdeeds; and her first love, Cooper Ravenel, who's just moved to New Orleans. Both Sunny and Sam beg her to renew her former friendship with Michael in order to infiltrate the Broussard family and get answers to some of their many questions. Nola's sister Sarah, who has psychic abilities, helps them track down clues in what turns out to be a dangerous case that could ruin many lives. An exciting psychic mystery best enjoyed by veterans who've read all the previous entries in both series.
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