The Afterlife of Mal Caldera

The recently deceased Mal Caldera narrates her post-mortem journey of grief and reconnection in Perez’s uneven debut paranormal romantic fantasy. Mal, a drummer for the hit band Goodbye Courage who battled despair and alcoholism in life, repeatedly rejects the hard-partying lifestyle favored by most ghosts she meets, refusing to join either their bands or their all-night dance parties. Instead, she asks Ren Takahashi, a human medium who can see and communicate with ghosts, to contact Cris, Mal’s struggling sister, with reassurance that Mal did not kill herself (though, because she does not actually remember her own death, she can’t say this for sure). When Ren fails, an aimless Mal juggles her time between checking in on Cris and exploring her developing relationship with Ren, though her fellow ghosts warn her that her choice to focus on the living means risking “going geist” and trapping herself enterally in existential pain. The tone is quirky and often humorous and can’t always gracefully accommodate the heavy themes of alcohol abuse, mental illness, death, and suicide. Still, both Mal’s emotional journey of self-acceptance and the romance between her and Ren charm. Readers in the mood for offbeat fantasy should check this out. (June)