This is an excellent mystery featuring the ghost of a woman who died in her apartment and the apartment’s new tenant, a much younger woman who is now trying to solve the mystery of a second dead tenant: the recently murdered neighbor across the hall. It’s funny, and I would recommend it if you like murder mysteries like the TV shows Psych or Only Murders in the Building.

This was a cute enough story for spooky season. I thought the premise was interesting and unique, with a human and a ghost teaming up to solve their neighbor's murder. I struggled a bit while reading because the pacing felt off at times. There were sections of the book that felt super slow and disjointed. I wasn't totally in love with the ending. Overall, it was a pleasant enough read. I wouldn't buy the book for myself though.

This was a cute read and the first part of a series, but it was also a little difficult to get through because it is predictable and so it got a little boring in some parts. The story centers around a ghost who wants to solve her murder and so she pesters the current tenant of her apartment into helping her.

Cordelia died a few months ago, but she hasn't left behind the tiny apartment she loved so much (she didn't leave it much when she was alive — why start now?). New tenant Ruby was grateful to get a fully furnished apartment, though she hasn't been able to keep the plants alive. When the guy across the hall turns up dead, ghostly Cordelia and Gen Z Ruby team up to solve his murder.

This was a surprisingly fun and funny mystery novel. The author clearly spelled out the rules of ghost/human interactions, which made the whole thing easier to believe and created some fun hurdles. I also appreciated that both Cordelia and Ruby brought their own skills and talents to the investigation. I loved it, and I'll happily read more in this series when it comes.

An interesting take on a cozy mystery, this was a great read for October. And I am intrigued to see where the series goes from here.

I didn’t know I needed a Gen Z/elder millenial ghost crime investigating duo in my life but apparently I did! Ruby and Cordelia had such a fun dynamic and I enjoyed watching them bumble through a murder investigation. The communication problems inherent in a ghost story felt interesting and were dealt with in a fresh way and I thought the mystery was compelling. I wish some more loose ends had been tied up, but it’s definitely well set up for a sequel!

Cordelia Graves died in her apartment a few month ago and she's still there - as a ghost. Her new "roommate" Ruby is living in her old space with all her old things and Cordelia is trying to figure out how to be a ghost in her former life. When their neighbor also ends up dead, Ruby and Cordelia seem to think it wasn't an accident. They take it upon themselves to solve the murder, but communicating between a human and ghost makes it quite challenging to work together.

I was not expecting to laugh out loud so much during a book about death! I really loved Ruby and Cordelia's relationship and how it evolved over time. I will say that I have never read a book like this, in a delightful way. It was funny with a side of mystery and reflection on life.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of A New Lease on Death.

This is the first book in a new series that features Ruby, a young woman, and Cordelia, a 40 something woman who is a ghost and used to live in Ruby's apartment. I enjoyed it as it was a decent mystery about the death of a neighbour and had nice humor and quirky characters. The ending sets us up for the next book, which I look forward to reading. My only beef is that Ruby being young, cannot read cursive or Cordelia's handwriting, but why can't Cordelia just print? Of course this problem does set up many of the communication problems in the book. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital advance reading copy. 4/5 stars!

A New Lease On Death is the first book in Olivia Blacke's Supernatural Mysteries series, and it was so, so, SO good!

Five stars go to Ruby, Cordelia, and their fun, breathers versus ghostly antics! And speaking of ghosts, this one gets all the Ghost vibes, but in a non-romantic way! I loved how this unusual duo worked so well together to overcome their obstacles!

The themes run strong throughout the book, but not in a brow-beating way. This was extremely refreshing, as the book already has an obvious dark undercurrent!

This two narrator audiobook is fantastic; entertaining and full of life, while being somber and dark when needed. It's one of my very favourites of the year!

The cliffhanger ending snuck up and hooked me, and I can't wait to see where this series goes from here!

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and Minotaur Books for the complimentary copy to read and review.

This book was a fun and easy read. Kept the reader engaged. Characters were funny but there was still a good mystery aspect going on.

This was an interesting read! Kind of gave me Only Murders in the Building vibes but with ghosts. I had the same thought that Cordelia might have been murdered! I can’t wait to see what happens in the next one!

3.25 stars rounded down

I love a cozy mystery! The beginning of A New Lease on Death started so strong but the story fizzled a bit towards the end because I was expecting some major questions to be answered only for me to find out that this will be a series! As such, the ending felt a little rushed. But I loved the characters and their chemistry. And I will obviously have to read the next in the series to get answers to the cliffhanger!

A big thank you to NetGalley, Olivia Blacke, and Minotaur Books for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

When Ruby impulsively moves to Boston, she's glad to get a fully furnished apartment for a decent rate. She does not even mind that the previous inhabitant committed suicide - though those views may change when she realizes that Cordelia is still hanging around, and keenly interested in the murder of a neighbor.

Say 'an unlikely crime-solving duo' in application to a cozy mystery, and I will be there in a flash. Also, roommates of all stripes can be tricky, so I was curious how it would be to have the added twist of one of those roommates being deceased. 

The relationship between Cordelia and Ruby is definitely the highlight of the book. The two women are quite different in pretty much all ways - their ages, their personalities, their outlooks on life - and the author does a great job in correspondingly making their narrative voices distinct. I really enjoyed seeing the two of them grow closer and figure out ways to communicate better. Seeing Cordelia take back some of the power she never had in her life is also very satisfying.

However, the actual mystery fell a little flat for me. We get such a big clue right at the start of the book that the characters miss that I felt like I spent a lot of time waiting around for them to catch up. Cordelia and Ruby's investigation is pretty haphazard too, and so things seem to just meander until almost the very end. The mystery itself was never terribly gripping. If it weren't for the paranormal aspect of the plot, I might have lost interest completely.

Two unlikely individuals form a partnership in A New Lease On Death. The first chapter opens with Cordelia Graves, and it's disorienting. She's outside of her apartment, and the conversation between Cordelia and her neighbor Jake makes no sense, until it does. If you've read the blurb, you know why!

In Cordelia's old apartment lives Ruby Young, who's inherited some of Cordelia's furnishings and belongings. Ruby's chapters begin with her wanting to believe in ghosts so...she gets her wish? She's convinced her apartment is haunted. What's going on?

Ruby and Cordelia alternate telling the story, and together they utilize their combined resources to figure out what happened to Jake. Ruby's young, broke, a bit naive. Cordelia's older, not quite dowdy, but Ruby definitely won't be wearing any of her old clothes. Their getting to know each other, and communicate with each other, form the foundation of the story. It's cute. Ruby Young and Cordelia Graves. Wink wink.

There's a whodunit, there are quirky characters, there's a library, there are twists. There are also some serious themes, and it ends with a ginormous cliff hanger (this is #1 of Blacke's Supernatural Series). Stay tuned for the latest adventures with Cordelia and Ruby!

My thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the digital ARC.

This book wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. With a character that was a ghost, I expected it to be more entertaining, however, I found it really…not. I think for a cozy mystery... it was more literary fiction. The twists were so minor, I’m hesitant to call them twists at all. There was some humor in this book though, which was needed to keep me engaged. I kept reading to figure out what happened to Cordelia, but then was let down with the ending. There were so many questions I felt that the author should have answered more of them because it was just disappointing. I also felt that this book was repetitive to the point that I was annoyed at times. I understand reminding the reader of certain points, but the next page is not necessary and the whole “electronics are off limits” things, I could go without ever reading that again because it was used so much I think I’ve read it enough for every ghost book in my future. I know it seems like I hated this book, but I didn’t. I am just annoyed; I think the book would have been better with a few tweaks (looking at you electronics).

A cozy who dunit mystery with a girl playing detective with her ghost friend? Um, yes please!

First, the plot was so fun, who doesn’t love a good murder mystery? The story was so fast paced it was a wild ride questioning every single person you met throughout the book. Everyone was suspicious and I loved that I couldn’t guess the killer right away. You get a dual POV in this book between the living and the dead which makes it so much better. Who doesn’t want to see inside the mind of a ghost?

The characters were great. I loved Ruby. She’s witty and funny and a pure soul trying to find her way in the world. That girl wore her heart on her sleeve and saw the good in everyone. Cordelia however was my favorite. I felt so bad for her character when things started coming to light about her past. I thought she was kind of gloomy but had her moments when it came to Ruby and I loved that she had a friend. Together they were such a quirky duo and total opposites but they worked so well together for this story I absolutely loved them.

The story overall was a super fun read. I had no idea who the killer was going to be, and when everything came full circle, it all made perfect sense. I love when there is that cliffhanger at the end that gives you that “omg” feeling and this book had that as well which makes me super excited for book two.

I loved this book. Fast paced, cozy mystery, loveable characters, you’ll have a good time with this one.

Thank you so much for the earc from St.Martin's Press/Minotaur Books and NetGalley.

A New Lease on Death follows Cordelia Graves, a newly dead ghost still living in her apartment, and Ruby Young, Cordelia's new "roommate". When they're across the hall neighbor turns up dead in an apparent mugging the unlikely pair work together to figure out who did it. The reader gets to follow along as Cordelia figures out how to be a ghost, Ruby figures out how to live on her own, and they figure out together how to communicate.

Overall this was a cozy murder mystery with a fun twist on a mystery solving duo what with the whole ghost thing. It was an easy a quick ready, but a lot of the plot ended up being set up for book two (a completely unrelated mystery) so the ending fell a little flat for me and seemed kind of rushed. I would still probably be interested in the next book to see where it goes as a series, TBD.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced e-copy of this book.

When Ruby Young impulsively decides to flee Baltimore for Boston, finding a cheap furnished apartment in practically no time at all feels like an answered prayer. While she does her due diligence – learning that the previous owner died unexpectedly from an overdose, hence the availability and affordability – the last thing she expects is for there to be an actual ghost living in the apartment with her. But because Ruby is a resilient twenty year-old, she takes a practical approach to having an invisible roommate, despite feeling bad about not being able to keep the former tenant’s many houseplants alive:

QUOTE
If there really was a ghost in this apartment, she probably hated me.

I hadn’t told anyone that my apartment was haunted. People already thought I was a flake. Whatever. Personally, I preferred “eccentric” but apparently, I wasn’t old enough or rich enough to be called eccentric. For now, I was just weird. It’s okay for weird people to believe in ghosts, but if they tell people there’s a ghost living with them, then they’re not weird. They’re not eccentric. They’re crazy. And not the socks-on-hands, aren’t-they-fun-at-parties kind of crazy, but the seriously-we’re-worried-about-you-Ruby crazy.
END QUOTE

Thing is, Ruby genuinely isn’t imagining things. Forty-something Cordelia Graves woke up one day to realize that she was dead, and has been trying to figure out what to do about it ever since. When she finds the murdered body of her across-the-hall neighbor, Jake MacIntyre, she’s hopeful that she can help him figure out this afterlife together. She doesn’t quite succeed.

Guilt-stricken, she decides to focus her energies on helping out the only other person who seems to care that she still exists, even if it’s only in ghost form. Communicating isn’t easy, though. There’s no handbook for the recently deceased, so Cordelia has to make it up as she goes along. Things get more urgent when Cordelia starts to worry that Ruby is getting perhaps a little too interested in Jake’s murder:

QUOTE
How could I warn Ruby that she might be in danger, too? Since she was the only person in the whole world that even realized I still existed, she was by default the closest thing I had to a friend. And as her friend, I had to protect her. I’d failed Jake miserably, but I wasn’t going to fail Ruby. I needed to scare her away before anything bad happened to her, but how? She actually thought that having her very own ghost was cool, which meant I had to put a lid on my friendly Casper routine and get down to business.

[I] thought a few books flying off some shelves would send the message to back off, but instead, she thought it was funny. Seriously, what was wrong with this girl?
END QUOTE

As the two women learn how to reach each other, they become not just friends but allies. Someone definitely killed Jake. Could that someone have been responsible for Cordelia’s death, too? She doesn’t remember what happened to her on the day that she died, or why anyone would want to harm her. But she does know that she would never have committed suicide.

Ruby, being a true crime aficionado, is more than game to investigate both deaths. As Cordelia guides her through Boston, the unlikely pair – so different in temperament and outlook yet united in their pursuit of justice – will do their best to ensure that justice is served while looking out for each other in the process.

A New Lease On Death was such a fun twist on the paranormal detective story! I loved Cordelia and Ruby’s friendship, and appreciated how Olivia Blacke let it develop naturally despite their sharply contrasting personalities. Each main character had her own distinct voice, upping the believability factor and making the reading experience that much more entertaining.

I also enjoyed how the main mystery was neatly wrapped up in this novel, even as the overarching plot involving what really happened to Cordelia left a terrific cliffhanger off of which to launch the next book in the series. Ms Blacke’s storytelling skills have definitely grown more sophisticated with each book she writes. This is definitely my favorite of her novels so far, and I can’t wait to read what happens next!

3.5 stars rounded up. This was a cute book. I loved Cordie's character, and really enjoyed seeing her whole process of learning how to be a ghost. I liked Ruby slightly less- she was ok though. The ending felt a little rushed/not as put together as the rest of the book to me, but overall I enjoyed it.

Rounded down from 3.5 stars! This was such a unique novel that I haven't seen done before. I absolutely loved the dynamic between Ruby and Cordelia.

It did feel a little slow at times, or like not much was happening, but I did enjoy the mystery of it all.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.