Paper Ghosts by Sarah Addison Allen

Cozy. Atmospheric. Magical. Mysterious. Multigenerational. 

This one checked a lot of boxes for me and thoroughly enjoyed it!  I love a redemptive story.  I couldn’t get enough of these family secrets and if all these themes weren’t enough, it’s a love story too!

Elevator Pitch: For decades, the women of Wester House have unsettled and fascinated their small, timeless North Carolina town. Their home is full of whispers, old griefs, and uncanny knowing. But when Willamena Wester reaches out to the granddaughter she once pushed away, long-buried truths begin to stir…

Told in a dual timeline: 

1976: Restless young Willamena falls for a stranded musician who brings freedom and the promise of another life to her carefully controlled world. Their brief, incandescent love story promises to escape the pull of the Wester legacy until Willamena makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever.

Present day: Returning home is the last thing Bailey Wester wants. Yet as she reconnects with Willamena, the grandmother she feared, Bailey begins to understand the love, heartbreak, and impossible choices that shaped the women in her family and realizes the past may not have been trying to haunt them after all. A luminous novel filled with Sarah Addison Allen’s stunning prose and signature blend of romance, Southern charm, and wonder, Paper Ghosts reminds us that in order to have the future we really want, sometimes we need to live with the past, and not let go of it.

{Thank you to @stmartinspress and @macmillan.audio for my gifted copies!  The audiobook is expertly narrated by Marin Ireland.  Love her!}