Under the Whispering Door

 By: T J Klune

Location: FOC KLU

Genre: Fantsy, Fiction, LGBGT

“The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share tea, you become family.”

A Man Called Ove meets The Good Place in Under the Whispering Door, a delightful queer love story from TJ Klune, author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The House in the Cerulean Sea.

Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.

And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home

Review by Jessica

“its life, wallace. even when youre dead, its still life. you exist. youre real. youre strong and brave and im so happy to know you.”

just call me the the grinch because i swear my heart grew a size with every chapter. this is honestly one of the most wholesome books i have read in a very long time.

it reminded me a lot of ‘a monster calls,’ as this is also a whimsical story that so gently and lovingly explores grief and how to cope with loss. but in the same vein as ‘the midnight library’ and ‘the five people you meet in heaven,’ this also insightfully shows what it means to live a good life, who to live it for, and how it is never too late to make it mean something.

It’s the same wonderful, cozy, hilarious, kind, caring, gentle goodness we fell in love with when we read Cerulean. Only this time around, rather than themes of self-love and acceptance of others, Klune tackles a much heavier subject – death.

But he lightens it up, shines it up, just as he did in Cerulean. He adds love, laughter, and tears to it. And as we follow newly-dead Wallace Price on his path to the hereafter, as we watch him learn to live, our insides melt to marshmallow mush.