Billie's Ghost
By Chad Hautmann
VanMeter Publishing - October 2002
ISBN: 0967366771 - Trade Paperback
Fiction

Reviewed by Jen Oliver, MyShelf.com
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"Billie's Ghost" is an interesting tale of how a man, Casey Cooper, overcomes the loss of his wife through his love of jazz. Casey has become so distraught about his loss that he ends up sleeping all day and staying up at night listening to the jazz greats. One night, he is visited by Eleanora, an up and coming jazz singer who asks to move in and then stays out for days on end. Through this relationship, he realizes what he needs to do with his life and what his wife would have wanted from him.

For a debut book, "Billie's Ghost" shows a lot of potential. Hautmann makes the book easy for the reader to get swept into the story and feeling for Casey. He is able to intrigue the reader when introducing the mysterious Eleanora. He develops the characterization of these two main characters with simplicity and mystery. He is able to show how far some will go when they lose the person of their dreams and try to recover through their common interests, such as jazz.

"Billie's Ghost" contains all of what most people want in a story: humor, character depth, grief, mystery, intrigue, and happiness. It's a quick read that leaves the reader an option as to who Eleanora is.

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