Twenties Girl

Lara Lington's life isn't going as planned--and that's before she starts talking to ghosts! Rosalyn Landor brings life to Lara and to her late great-aunt Sadie, a drama queen if there ever was one. She's a whirlwind who plots to recover a necklace that was stolen from her and constantly badgers her great-niece. Sadie was 105 when she died, but her ghost takes the form of her 23-year-old self. Landor successfully differentiates between the two 20-something women, portraying Lara as straightforward and modern, and Sadie as posh and refined. Further, Sadie speaks in the cadence of her youth in the 1920s. Landor sparkles as the unpredictable Sadie in this fun-filled story of family secrets, love, and learning to move on. E.N. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

June 15, 2009
Think Topper
, that impossibly sophisticated and goofy 1937 ghost tale of blithe spirits bugging the only living soul who can hear them. Kinsella creates an equally vexing and endearing shade, Sadie, a wild-at-heart flapper with unfinished earthly business who badgers 27-year-old great-niece Lara into doing her bidding. Predictable mayhem and the most delicious and delightful romp a ghost and girl-at-loose-ends could ever have in 21st century London ensue. Sadie discovers just how loved she really is, and Lara channels her inner '20s girl to discover the difference between wanting to be in love and finding love. Kinsella, a master of comic pacing and feminine wit (see: the wildly successful Shopaholic series), casts a bigger net with this piece of fun and fluff, weaving family dynamics and an old-fashioned mystery into the familiar chick lit romance. And there's a sweet nod to old folks (“All that white hair and wrinkled skin is just cladding.... They were all young, with love affairs and friends and parties and an endless life ahead of them”). It's a breath of crackling fresh air that may well keep readers warm right through winter.