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Average rating3.7
Twenty-five year old Ivy Rowan rises from her bed after being struck by the flu, only to discover the world has been torn apart in just a few short days.
But Ivy’s life-long gift—or curse—remains. For she sees the uninvited ones—ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked, unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death. On that October evening in 1918 she sees the spirit of her grandmother, rocking in her mother’s chair. An hour later, she learns her younger brother and father have killed a young German out of retaliation for the death of Ivy’s older brother Billy in the Great War.
Horrified, she leaves home, to discover the flu has caused utter panic and the rules governing society have broken down. Ivy is drawn into this new world of jazz, passion, and freedom, where people live for the day, because they could be stricken by nightfall. But as her ‘uninvited guests’ begin to appear to her more often, she knows her life will be torn apart once more, but Ivy has no inkling of the other-worldly revelations about to unfold.
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A more melancholy and, well, complicated read than [b:In the Shadow of Blackbirds 13112915 In the Shadow of Blackbirds Cat Winters https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348721608s/13112915.jpg 18286614], while still sharing so much with its predecessor as to make the entire story seem eerily familiar. Something about it seems less fully realized than Blackbirds, and I never felt I understood the protagonist anywhere near as well, and yet there's still a lot to love here. It's a slow burn that didn't really grab me until nearly the end, but when it did, it sunk its hooks in deep.