Grave Phantoms by Jenn Bennett
05/14/2015
I loved Bitter Spirits and Grim Shadows, but I have been impatiently waiting for Bo and Astrid's story since Bennett introduced them in the first book.
Grave Phantoms is Paranomal suspense romance set at the end of the Roaring 20s. The mood is heavy with a looming sense of uncertainty and change. Astrid and Bo's flirty friendship has been interrupted as they have been apart for half a year with Astrid away at college. Heavy winter rains and flooding threaten Magnusson warehouses, distracting Bo & Winter and spoiling Astrid's homecoming plans. Then a long-missing yacht full of occult artifacts and amnesiac survivors crashes into the Magnusson docks. When Astrid accidentally touches one of the artifacts she blackouts and starts seeing visions. Bo and Astrid must race to figure out the provenance and purpose of the artifact to insure Astrid's safety.
The big occultist plot in the novel involving pirates, pre-Columbian magical artifacts and eternal life, is interesting but I hardly paid attention to it. It did give Astrid and Bo excuses to be out together investigating and meeting interesting people, and it did get quite scary at points, but the real stakes of the story are firmly on whether Bo and Astrid can figure out a way to love & live together in a way neither is diminished.
Bo Yeung is Winter Magnusson's right-hand man. He has risen from foiled pick-pocket and errand boy to second in command in the Magnusson bootlegging operation because of his intelligence, initiative and loyalty. Winter has welcomed Bo into his home and treats him like family.
Astrid Magnusson is Winter's little sister. She has come of age in the flapper era, reveling in being young, blonde, rich and daring. But adulthood has Astrid pushing boundaries more than ever as she tries to figure who she is, other than a bootlegger's sister. A semester away at college has clarified what she wants but not how to get it. She is scared that her attempts at making Bo notice and think of her as woman have pushed him away.
Bo is hurt and confused by Astrid but still undeniably in love with her. Bennett did a great job teasing out some of the pressures Bo is under as Chinese American man in early 20th century San Francisco. He is much more sensitive to the pitfalls of a relationship between them as he crosses as between Chinatown & the Magnusson's Pacific Heights neighborhood routinely, and living in both worlds has made him sensitive to the problems they would face.
The social censure and the practical realities of their inter-racial romance always loom in the background. Where would they live, how would they support themselves if Winter disapproves are all issues that Bo has spent a great deal of time thinking about. In the past being out and about with Astrid has been easy, because he was just her driver or bodyguard, but it is completely different for them to be out together as a romantic couple. The way they have to acknowledge power dynamics & negotiate how they can be together in public without Astrid unintentionally emasculating Bo was very powerful. For Astrid it means not smoothing things over, or covering them up even if that is easier. She needs to accept that it will sometimes be ugly and uncomfortable and that saving them from rudeness by lying will hurt more in the end. Astrid is used to having Bo in her world, but she needs to see him in his before she can really start imagining how they can make space for themselves in the world together.
I fascinated and surprised by how central Astrid & Bo's sexual histories would be to the romance. They both had to grown and accept that they had sexual pasts with other people. They want to be jealous, and I appreciated how painful it is for them both to face up to the fact that they had both pursued other sexual partners & relationships while becoming emotionally attached to each other. Learning to live with that an accepting that is part of becoming adults, and I loved the resolution to that romantic conflict. I loved the Epilogue and the new lives the Magnusson-Yeung clan have created for themselves.
I received a review copy from the publisher, Penguin Group: Berkley via NetGalley