The Olympic Peninsula in Washington - Present Day

The Walsh House needs a good cleaning, and Karma Marx is just the woman for the job. Karma doesn't really clean houses per se, she's an officially licensed TAE, or Transmortis Anomaly Exterminator, which means she rids houses of the spirits who inhabit them while she works off a wergeld penalty placed on her by the Akashic League. Her philandering and sleazy husband, Spider, has promised her a divorce if she cleans just one more house for him. A crooked real estate agent, Spider has plans for the house and wants the Otherworld spirits out as soon as possible.

Karma Marx lives in a world that's different from anything we regular humans know. Her kitchen drawer is home to six Australian House Imps, (little yellow rodent-like creatures that are a cut above a regular everyday household imp); a dada (vegetable spirit) lives in her refrigerator, and her pantry is home to Cardea, a shy Roman goddess of door hinges and thresholds, who has a massive case of agoraphobia and spends her days rearranging and cleaning her domain. One of Karma's best friends is Sergei, a domovoi, or Russian house spirit. Sergie helps her hide the other assorted spirits who inhabit her home while Spider is around. Spider is one-hundred percent human, and hates all things in the spirit world, while Karma is half-poltergeist and half-human. To add to her troubles, she now has the added responsibility of Pixie, an Otherworld foster child.

A terrible migraine and a few pain killing pills causes Karma to oversleep on the day of the Walsh House cleaning, and since Karma can't drive with a woozy head, sixteen-year-old Pixie and Sergei pile into the car with Karma, and after several jerky stops and starts, Pixie finally gets them to the Walsh House. But what starts out as a simple cleaning turns sour when the owner of the house, Adam Dirgesinger, casts a spell that seals Karma, her polter-father, Matthew; Spider and his business partner, Merideth Bane and his wife Savannah; along with Adam's collection of Otherworld spirits inside the house for twelve hours. No one can enter or leave until the seal releases, and what follows is murder and mayhem. Will Karma come out of this alive?

GHOST OF A CHANCE is populated with many quirky and fun characters. Karma has made some mistakes in her life, and, thus, she's paying penance by doing odd jobs for the Otherworld Akashic League, cleaning houses by exterminating spirits from the premises and caring for the occasional foster child. We don’t know much about Karma’s personal life other than her work for the League and her mistake of a marriage to the smarmy Spider. The Otherworld characters are adorable, and half the entertainment is in reading about their antics. This is a fun story balanced by mystery and heinous acts. As we already know, Karma’s husband, Spider, is a detestable person, as is Merideth Bane. Savannah is a wacky, over-age hippy who insists on calling forth all the spirits who reside in the Walsh House, and generally makes a mess of Karma and Adam’s investigation. Pixie has all the usual sullen traits of teenaged angst, but she's really a good kid, even though she tries to morph into gothic mode, and she’s just generally confused with life.

GHOST OF A CHANCE is a conundrum of sorts, and I must say here that I literally threw tantrums about writing this review. I feel that certain threads in the story are quite objectionable. Kate Marsh (Katie McAllister) is a fabulous writer, and the writing mechanics in this story are superb. The characters, one and all, are so alive that they literally jump off the page and smack you. However. I object to certain elements in fictional stories, especially appalling things like the sexual abuse of a child. The character Spider voices brief verbal descriptions of his sexual activities with a fifteen-year-old girl, which becomes a major plot point later in the story. I feel this is a totally inappropriate story element. GHOST OF A CHANCE was an over-the-top story until this plot point was introduced. Yes, it certainly tells us that Spider is scum, but reading a literal description of what he did to this young girl gave me the creeps. Ignoring these unsavory rudiments in the plot, GHOST OF A CHANCE is a fun and fast-paced story, and launches a new mystery series featuring Karma and her lot of unconventional Otherworld characters and spirits. Even though I do not care for some of the unsavory threads in this particular tale, I look forward to reading the next installment of Karma’s story.

Diana Risso