Apparition by Gail Gallant

Apparition:
The last time seventeen-year-old Amelia Mackenzie saw her best friend Matthew alive, he broke her heart. When he is found the next day in an abandoned barn at the edge of town, an apparent suicide, Amelia's whole world comes crashing down.

And then she sees him again. Because Amelia has a secret that even Matthew didn't know: sometimes, she sees ghosts.

When a local history columnist named Morris Dyson contacts Amelia after the funeral and tells her that he thinks the barn Matthew died in is haunted, and that Matthew wasn't its first victim, an unlikely partnership is born. With Amelia's gift for seeing ghosts, Morris's radical theories on the supernatural, and a bit of help from Morris's sexy but skeptical son, Kip, a mystery unfolds. One by one, the barn's other ghostly residents are revealed: all innocent, love-struck young men who've died horrific deaths, seemingly by their own hands.

Life and death couldn't get more complicated as Amelia is torn between her devotion to the ghostly Matthew and her growing attraction to Kip, who may not believe in ghosts but can't help believing in Amelia. When she's confronted with a rivalry between the living and the dead, which side of the great divide will Amelia choose?

Apparition by Gail Gallant was a great debut for this author and one of those books that are hard to put down, the story was a little slow to begin with but the pace picks up about halfway through the book. There were definite times of spine-tingling creepiness, mystery and plenty of romantic tension to keep me turning pages. While the atmosphere plays a bigger role in the book rather than the actual scariness, Gail’s story felt completely real kept me fully engaged with honest characters and natural flow of the story. The most refreshing aspect about this book was the evolving relationships; there was none of that girl-meets-boy-and-falls-instantly-in-love-with-boy. Apparition ended with all of my questions answered and plot lined tied up nicely, but even so, I’m looking forward to continuing Amelia’s journey in Absolution.

Amelia is in love with her best friend Matthew, but is too shy to say anything, but when he is killed in a terrible tragedy it’s too late. All her life Amelia has been seeing ghosts, but after the death of her mother there is no one left who can understand her. That is until she meets an old friend of her mother’s, Morris and his son Kip. Caught between her lingering feelings for Matthew and her new confusing ones for Kip, Amelia still puts solving the mystery behind all the unexplained deaths first. While they investigate the mysterious barn where Matthew and others have died Kip and Amelia grow closer and the danger increases. And the only way to stop more people from dying is to unravel the history behind the ghost haunting the barn.