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[Shattered Echoes] by B.A. Shapiro
4★'s
After the tragic death of her husband of less than two years, Lindsey sells her house in the suburbs and moves into a renovated townhouse in the city, only to discover that an earlier tenant-over one hundred years earlier-apparently still lives on the premises. Lindsey wants to start over, but she is haunted by her past, by unfathomable guilt-and perhaps by a ghost.Shattered Echoes is a psychological thriller about murder, madness, and the supernatural in Boston's historic Back Bay.Lindsay doesn't believe in ghost in spite of everything in new apartment moving...her books constantly being rearranged... things like her forks disappearing... the dog in the apartment one floor below cowering in the corner and her entire apartment being saturated in the smell of lavender. The real estate agent uncovers some some old journals written in the 1840's by the wife of builder of the house. The story slowly unveils a life of domination by a drunken husband and the heartbreak of losing three small children. What transpired in past has come full circle in the present and Lindsay finds that her life is no longer her own. I got a little frustrated with Lindsay and her hard hardheadedness...but maybe she had good reason for resisting that are not revealed until the very end. It's not a real scary ghost story...if anything it's rather sad. Anyone that likes history, a little of the paranormal with their murder mystery will like this book.
