Cobwebs, Corsets and Coming Out

Widowed, newly retired and back in Liverpool after thirty years away, Maggie Mulholland wanted a quiet flat and a fresh start. She didn't expect a roommate who died in 1889.

Maggie bought the ground-floor flat at Ashworth House on a whim, a grand Victorian villa across the road from Sefton Park. She's come home with a broken heart, an empty diary and her late husband's handwritten list of "Things We'll Do When We Retire". Not one item on it is ticked.

Florrie Ashworth has haunted the hall for 137 years. She's twenty-three, clever, a terrible snob about swans, and she can't get past the front steps. Nobody has ever looked her in the eye. Then Maggie walks in with her mother's face.

Then they find Florrie's old jet hatpin in a trunk in the cellar. When Maggie pins it to her coat, Florrie can follow her out of the house for the first time since 1889. From there it's the ferry, chips in a gale, karaoke at a gay bar, and an unexpected drag queen. Florrie sees the modern city for the first time, rainbow flags and all. And she finally says out loud the thing she was never allowed to say in her lifetime: she loved a woman. But Florrie has carried a terrible secret about the night she died. With a ghost-hunting livestream booked for Halloween, she and Maggie are running out of time to put it right.

Funny, tender and full of heart, this is a story about grief and found family, about learning to say "now" instead of "later", and about a love letter that waited a century to be read. Perfect for readers who love: friendly ghosts, odd-couple friendships, found family, second chances and a cosy Halloween read with a sapphic heart.

Content note: bereavement, a historical death during a robbery (not graphic), a burglary, and historical homophobia and internalised shame. The ending is bittersweet and hopeful.