When a young English professor visits a quaint coastal town to emotionally regroup, she finds that her boardinghouse is haunted and falls for a handsome stranger with a mysterious secret.

Brynn Wilder is feeling fragile after a country-song worthy litany of losses (her mom to cancer, her beloved dog, and her twenty-year relationship). She decides to summer in the tourist town of Wharton on upper Lake Superior, where her friend Kate and Kate’s police chief husband (both characters from Webb’s previous novel, Daughters of the Lake, 2018) now live. Brynn loves the historic and luxe boardinghouse, run by quirky LuAnn and her bartender partner Gary. There, Brynn starts to relax and befriend her fellow boarders. She bonds with Jason and his husband Gil, and Jason’s ex-wife from before he came out, Alice, who suffers with early Alzheimer’s. Brynn also forms an instant, electric connection with the devastatingly handsome Dominic. Covered in vivid tattoos that oddly seem to change from day to day, Dominic is a literal “illustrated man.”

Brynn begins to have eerie dreams about past lives, and about the single locked room at the inn, where the body of an elderly lady was discovered. As the summer passes, Brynn begins to heal, she and Dominic fall in love, and the two do their best to support Gil and Jason and Alice as Alice’s symptoms rapidly progress. As Brynn learns more about herself—and Dominic—she begins to think her connection to him transcends time.

The Haunting of Brynn Wilder is a gentle supernatural romance. There are lots of leisurely meals, picnics, happy hours, and conversations with friends—all in a beautifully captured sense of place. You feel as if you are spending the summer with friends at the edge of the glorious—and eerie—Lake Superior. Suspense takes a backseat in The Haunting of Brynn Wilder. The story shines both as a character study, and in its loving treatment of the difficult emotional issues it raises. The story of Alice, transitioning between worlds, offers a poignant look at the devastating effect of Alzheimer’s on patient and loved ones. The novel makes you reflect that family is deeper than blood: connected instead by love, support, and compassion. Webb ultimately offers readers a positive, affirming vision of what happens to us after death.  

Although the ending (no spoilers) borders on being a little over the top for even my generous suspension of disbelief, it provides satisfying, touching closure. A comfortable, and comforting read.