Realms of an Open Mind

It’s Halloween, and life is grim for twenty-three-year-old Dimitri Petrov. It’s the one-year anniversary of his parents’ deaths, he’s stuck on page one thousand of his Rasputin zombie novel, and he makes his living writing obituaries.

But things turn from bleak to terrifying when Dimitri gets a last-minute assignment to cover a séance at the reputedly haunted Aspinwall Mansion.

There, Dimitri meets Lisa, a punk-rock drummer he falls hard for. But just as he’s about to ask her out, he unwittingly unleashes malevolent forces, throwing him into a deadly mystery. When Dimitri wakes up, he is in the morgue—icy cold and haunted by a cryptic warning given by a tantalizing female spirit.

As town residents begin to turn up gruesomely murdered, Dimitri must play detective in his own story and unravel the connections among his family, the Aspinwall Mansion, the female spirit, and the secrets held in a pair of crumbling antiquarian books. If he doesn’t, it’s quite possible Lisa will be the next victim.

***

After months of being in a book slump, I was perusing through my Kindle recommendations praying that I would find something that would snap me out of it. I don't know what it is lately, but every book I've picked up has completely failed to hold my attention or suck me into its world in that characteristically bookish way that made me fall in love with reading in the first place.

Poe has definitely pulled me out of my reading slump. J. Lincoln Fenn has an amazingly witty writing style, giving Dimitri a voice of pure sarcasm and self deprecation. While I would normally find a guy who puts himself down annoying, Dimitri is hilarious about it and always maintains a little hope that maybe he'll come out on top. He rarely takes anything seriously, even when it comes to Lisa, and in a story that could be completely macabre, his vivid personality brings unexpected comedy to the table.

Fenn has a knack for character development. Even when it came down to the most insignificant appearances, I could always connect and visualize any character that was introduced. From personalities and quirks down to each person's physical description, you knew who you were seeing, and as a character-driven reader, this was huge. 

The mystery itself that ties in with the ghost story takes turn after wild turn, but not in that cheesy and eye-rolling way that can occur when it comes to the fantastical. Fenn ties it all together, making us believe the unbelievable with incredible world building and vivid glimpses into the past. 

Poe is a spooky mystery of a ghost tale. Demons, possession, hauntings, murder, and hidden pasts. 

Get it. Read it. Love it.

Cheers!