Postscript (Kedgetown 1) by Anne Barwell

[Ulysses]

Postscript (Kedgetown 1)
By Anne Barwell
Lacedragon Publishing, 2023
Four stars

Mason Chynoweth has inherited his great-grand-uncle’s house in Kedgetown, and he immediately feels it welcoming him. His psychic ability is his darkest secret, and this isolated small town appeals to him for its potential as a hiding place. Otherwise, he’s puzzled that Lewis Newman, his great-grandmother’s brother, would have even known who he was, much less named him his heir. Lewis had come to Kedgetown in the years before World War II, and while he was presumed to be dead, nobody could quite say when.

Annalise Whitaker, apparently a former occupant of the house, runs the B&B where Mason is staying until he can occupy the house – which Annalise keeps referring to as “the shop,” and also as “he.” She soon introduces Mason to her nephew, Elijah Whitaker, a burly auburn-haired man back in town for a few weeks on holiday.

Annalise shares her home with her longtime companion, Rilla. As it happens, Rilla’s been dead for 40 years, which doesn’t seem to impede their cozy relationship at all. Elijah can see Rilla, but Mason cannot.

Mason doesn’t yet understand that there’s a reason he’s in Kedgetown, and a reason Elijah has unwittingly chosen this moment to pay a long visit to his aunt. Kedgetown is a haven for psychics and supernaturals, and has long been more than tolerant of same-sex relationships. In the course of this first book in a promised series the author will take the reader back in time to the years before and after the second world war, introducing another set of characters – some of whom will show up in the present with Mason and Elijah. It may be a little hard to track at moments, but it explains why this town feels so “right” to Mason.

The house/shop destined to be Mason’s home is called “Postscript,” and its history is one of love and loss and life well-lived. Mason’s awakening to his own history, and what seems to be his magical destiny, is at the center of the narrative, but the past lives of Kedgetown also begin to weave themselves into Mason and Elijah’s present. It is a gentle story about fitting in and finding happiness in an unexpected place.

If there was any disappointment in this book it’s that I didn’t really learn anything about New Zealand, since Kedgetown is a fictious place (charming though it may be). Who knows what we might learn in the coming episodes of the Kedgetown series?