Title The Voice Upstairs Series --- Author Laura E. Weymouth Cover Art --- Publisher McElderry - 2023 First Printing McElderry - 2023 Category Young Adult Warnings None Main Characters Wilhelmina Price, Ed Summerfield Main Elements Ghosts

In 1920s England, a working-class girl who can see spirits works with a lord’s son to solve mysterious deaths at the local manor home in this eerie historical mystery perfect for fans of The Haunting of Bly Manor and Downton Abbey.

Wilhelmina Price has a dubious reputation in the village of Thrush’s Green. Ever since her mother’s untimely death, she has been able to see a person’s spirit leaving their body days or hours before they die. Wil has never been able to prevent these deaths, so her unusual skill has made her an outsider to most except her lifelong friend, Edison, the youngest son of Lord Summerfield. But when a maid at the Summerfield’s estate dies in the same mysterious way as Wil’s own mother, Wil takes on a housemaid’s position to investigate whether these women might, in fact, have been murdered.

There is nothing Ed Summerfield values more than his friendship with Wil, which is why he’s desperate to disguise how hopelessly in love with her he’s become—and his belief that he may be haunted by the ghost of his older brother, Peter. Because if Wil, with her supernatural powers, can’t see the same evidence of hauntings that Ed does, he worries he may actually be losing his mind.

Together, Wil and Ed must dig deeper into the Summerfields’ hoard of secrets, though the truth won’t give itself up without a fight that could prove deadly to the both of them, as they face cunning adversaries among the living and the dead.

This book was free on the Simon Teen site and I'm glad to have had a chance to read it. There is the ghostly aspect of if of course, but for me it was the mystery. Murder after murder and disappearances, who was behind it. At the midway point I thought we were getting somewhere, that things would be clarified (and then wondered how there could be that many more pages left), but no, it just got even more complex. And if you thought it would be easy to solve a murder when you had access to the ghosts of the victims, think again, ghosts...aren't really all there, they are an emotion, a thought, but little else, you can't interrogate them and get meaningful answers. At most you might get a song or a word.

And given how messed up the Summerfields are, its challenging to point the finger at any one of them...or maybe it wasn't even one of them, much as they could be blamed for many things, maybe it was a loyal servant?

The atmosphere is spooky, especially the nursery, but overall the book isn't scary. Which is perfect, I wanted a Halloween read but ghosts can keep me up at night, make me afraid to go to the bathroom in the dark (Sixth Sense, I'm looking at you for that one). This had a nice balance.

There was one twist that was blatantly obvious at one point, with the romance blooming between the two protagonists, and then a secret about the past of one of them is revealed, making their being a couple impossible...well, I pretty much knew what would happen next. I maybe didn't know how it would sort itself out, but I knew it just had to. It was that kind of book.

On the whole, I enjoyed it. Not gonna break any of my top 10 lists but it was a pleasant enough read for some dark and cool October nights. Over the past few years Simon Teen has exposed me to some really good Halloween reads, its definitely worth checking it out, especially in October, if you are a fan of young adult novels. They have new ones up every month, along with a big batch of excerpts to tempt you to read more.