Shade - a review

Shade (Book #1)
Jeri Smith-Ready
320 pages


It's phasmophobia! Wait. Phasmophobia is the fear of ghosts. It's spectrophilia! Spectrophilia is the real life explanation for someone who is sexually aroused by ghosts.* The word is not found in Shade, but the topic is.

Shade is about a world where anyone born after a certain point in time (known as the shift) can see ghosts. There are various rules that govern these ghosts: ghosts can't see other ghosts, ghosts don't like the color red, ghosts hate obsidian so bathrooms are made of it. Make sense so far?

Aura (whose name can't be pronounced without awkwardly moving your jaw--try it) is upset over the death of her boyfriend Logan, who comes back as a ghost. Enter the mysterious Scottish guy Zachary. Love triangle alert! Aura can't decide between the two.

Here's where the face palming begins. Aura can't decide between an intangible ghost and a Scottish dude who may--or may not be--someone vastly important in the entire plot of the druid/ghost/shift/paranormal/governmental theme of the book. Heck, Aura's mother is missing, she doesn't know who her dad is, AND SHE'S THE FIRST PERSON BORN AFTER THE SHIFT HAPPENS. So yeah, she figures she's not important either. Even after several revelations she's walking around saying "I'm not really that important."

Shut up, Aura. You're an idiot.

Aura's spectrophilia is so strong that she's willing to do things with Logan as a ghost that she was never willing to do in real life. The face palming gets even better because ghosts can't lie! More face palming: tell your ghost boyfriend everything! EVEN MORE FACE PALMING: get into full coitus spectrophilia!** Seems like a great idea to me because no one is going to ask "HEY! ARE YOU TWO BANGING?"

Alright. I'm out.

There are several good things about Shade. There's a cleverness here that I haven't seen since Dead Like Me. That kooky show where grim reapers have day jobs and can talk to the dead. There's the idea that an entire government agency was started in response to a threat that's not really that threatening (because you know, that never happens). There's this whole mysterious world of druids and magic that has yet to be explored.

I certainly hope it gets explored. I can't handle love triangles most of the time, throw a ghost into the mix and it seems to make it worse for me. I'll read book two. If my druids and magic don't show up by then I'll pull a Seinfeld, throw my hands up, and shout "Alright. I'm out."

*I'm serious. This is really a thing.
**Coitus spectrophilia is a term I have created. I would rather use "ghost banging" but it didn't seem appropriate.