A Certain Slant of Light, by Laura Whitcomb

WOW! This book was amazing! It had me transfixed to each page I couldn't put it down or stop thinking about it. I even dreamed about it! It was so well written and it had so much depth and feeling. It was a remarkable plot that was so interesting and heartfelt. I just can't say enough good things about it!

This book is mainly a ghostly love story but with plenty of messages about life, death, heaven, hell, religion, drugs, violence, abuse, sex and adultery all intertwined together with a passion for books and poetry.

The main character is the ghost of a young woman who died over 130 years ago. Death made her forget all her memories except her name and how old she was when she died and that she was female. She haunts a modern day English school teacher named Mr. Brown. She refers to herself as that of the light (a ghost) and Mr. Brown as one that is quick (still alive).

In the classroom one day is when it happens: (amazingly written)

"Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you're dead... I felt someone watching me. Not even my beloved Mr. Brown could see me with his eyes. I had been dead so long, hovering at the side of my hosts, seeing and hearing the world but never being heard by anyone and never, in all these long years, never being seen by human eyes. I held stone still while the room folded in around me like a closing hand. When I looked up, it was not in fear but in wonder. My vision telescoped so that there was only a small hole in the darkness to see through. And that's where I found it, the face that was turned up to me. "Like a child playing at hide and seek, I did not move, in case I had been mistaken about being spotted. And childishly I felt both the desire to stay hidden and a thrill of anticipation about being caught. For this face, turned squarely to me, had eyes set directly on mine."

Billy Blake, a human who overdosed on drugs and passed on, and at that moment that Billy left his body James of the light stepped into his empty shell. Now James no longer of the light can still see ghosts in his new teenage boy body. He discovers Helen and they find a kinship that turns into a love so deep that James convinces Helen to get her own body to inhabit so that they can be together.

He helps her find the body of a girl who goes to the same school as him. The young girl, Jenny, fled her body because her parents were religiously conservative and controlling to an extreme. Suddenly Helen is a teenager and not at all familiar with the life she's taken over and supposedly been living for the last 15 years. Billy (James) and Jenny (Helen) quickly become lovers and soul mates. They share a love so deep and meaningful.

Many obstacles to overcome and twists in the story to keep you reading to the very last page.The ending had me in tears. I was a weeping mess. This one gets a high score for being unforgettable!

READ CHAPTER 1 of A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT CLICK HERE!