Book Review: The Mystery of Grace

Charles de Lint's 2009 novel The Mystery of Grace starts with what appears to be a short story; a young man goes to a party, finds an amazing woman, they immediately connect, and then after one night together she simply disappears; not just out of his life, but out of his apartment's washroom, which has no windows and only one door.   Soon after he finds a story of the girl's untimely death, two weeks before the party even happened.

One of the things I like best about de Lint's writing however, is how instead of simply concluding this as a somewhat creepy short story, he works to figure out what might happen next.

One of the things I love about de Lint's writing is that he does it in a way I wasn't expecting, as instead of finding out what happens next to the young man, we follow the recently deceased woman, Altagracia "Grace" Quintero.  

Grace awakens after her death to find herself in a small neighborhood, one with even greater secrets than she imagined, and that is as far as I'll go with a plot summary.

The novel is a lot of fun, self contained (sorry Newford fans), and takes a pretty interesting look at the hereafter.

Well worth the read.