Fourteen year old Ropa lives with her Gran and younger sister, Izwi. She’s got green dreadlocks, black lipstick and a sizeable chip on her shoulder. She’s also a ghostalker.
Me personally, I find the whole haunting business a bit pathetic.
But a girl’s got to pay the bills, so Ropa delivers messages from ghosts to their loved ones. Things have gotten a bit complicated recently because a particular ghost refuses to play by the terms and conditions. Their son is missing and they can’t move on until they know he’s okay. The problem is, this ghost doesn’t have any money and Ropa isn’t in the business of handing out charity.
I had trouble connecting with Ropa when I first met her. She is both book and street smart, but her book smarts can appear at odds with the slang and crass language she uses at times. Life hasn’t been easy for Ropa and as a result she’s built a fairly impenetrable wall around her. She softens when she’s around her family and you get to see another side of her when she’s with her friends but in the beginning she came across as someone I didn’t think I’d be able to get to know.
‘Meh. Tough world, get with the program.’
This book has ghosts, magic and a mysterious library, which is a pretty happy trifecta in my eyes. I met plenty of ghosts and got a taste of the magic that exists in Ropa’s Edinburgh but the reality of this book diverged from my expectations at times.
I had hoped to spend a great deal more time in the library. Hopefully it will be given more page time as the series progresses. The mystery was more prominent than I’d expected but I got sucked into it quite quickly. Although my expectations didn’t entirely line up with reality, I ended up really enjoying this read (once I got used to Ropa’s abrasiveness).
There are some characters I took to immediately and others that I don’t feel I know well enough to be able to form a strong opinion about yet. I loved Gran and look forward to getting to know her more as the series progresses. She’s someone who brings warmth and wisdom.
‘It’s in the most trying times, when we ourselves have nothing, that we mustn’t forget there are higher virtues like compassion, kindness and solidarity. Doing something when it is hard, because it is the right thing to do, matters more than doing it when it’s easy.’
However, I didn’t get much of a sense of Izwi’s personality. I’m fairly certain Jomo will begin to feel like more than a means to an end in future books but so far he hasn’t made a huge impression on me. Making up for him was Priya, who’s fearless and fantastic. I can’t wait to hang out with her again.
Ropa’s world is quite dark and there’s hints about the “catastrophe” that shook things up, but I anticipate there is a lot more information to come. I wondered if pop culture no longer exists here as many of the references aren’t current, even now.
The mystery of this book is solved but there’s a lot more this world has to offer. I’m hoping future books will allow me to spend more time in the library, teach me more of its magic, introduce me to many more ghosts and give me a lot more Gran and Priya time.
Quote of the book:
‘I’m just getting to like you; don’t die stupidly on me now.’
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, for the opportunity to read this book.
Once Upon a Blurb
When ghosts talk, she will listen …
Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and she now speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to the living. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children – leaving them husks, empty of joy and life. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honour bound to investigate. But what she learns will change her world.
She’ll dice with death (not part of her life plan …) as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. For Edinburgh hides a wealth of secrets. And in the process, she discovers an occult library and some unexpected allies. Yet as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?
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