Levi Black is at a crossroads. After suffering a loss and breaking up a long-term relationship, he’s looking for a change. When he receives the news he’s inherited a house in York, he seizes the opportunity to begin a new chapter in his life.

However, when he gets there, he finds a house that has never kept its occupants for very long. Either through death or disinclination, no one stays there, and after a few days of living in the place, Levi can understand why. Strange noises can be heard at all hours of the day and night, and disturbing and scary things begin to happen to him. He never believed in ghosts before, but when events take a sinister turn, he knows he must look for help. He finds it in the unlikely form of the blue-haired leader of a ghost tour.

Blue Billings is edgy, beautiful, and lost. Utterly lost. He conceals so many secrets that some days it’s a miracle he remembers his own name. He knows that he should ignore Levi because he threatens the tenuous grip Blue has on survival. But there’s something about the kind-eyed man that draws Blue to him. Something that demands he stay and fight for him when he would normally run in the opposite direction.

As the two men investigate the shocking truth behind Levi’s house, they also discover a deep connection that defies the short length of time they’ve known each other. But when events escalate and his life is on the line, Levi has to wonder if it was wise to trust the Mysterious and Amazing Blue Billings.

How was it?

This is my fourth Lily Morton book, she might not be at the level where I’d read anything just because her name’s on it but she hasn’t disappointed so far. 

This book is unusual for a paranormal story because it very much feels grounded in reality. By this I mean the paranormal aspects of the plot still like the odd man out, not that it doesn’t blend in, it’s more like an unusual occurrence than the norm. Even by the end of the story, that feeling stays true. We spent so much time in Levi’s day-to-day, this Londoner who recently inherited a fixer-upper in York, that even the ghosts when they appeared seemed like shifts of the wind or a trick of the light. My doubts about ghosts’ existence remained throughout as if I expected without expecting a scooby-doo-like explanation at the end, which is an apt description for some of the tone.
The spooky light-hearted fun moments felt like a scooby doo episode but mixed in, are these serious horror elements. 
It never gets too over the top with horror, there are actually helpful ghosts in this story 😂, imagine the kind of comeback a Sinic would say when told about a haunted house.
Like Levi, Blue is quite level-headed despite what he had to go through in life, he’s not too angsty but just wary enough, and their relationship builds accordingly. We spend enough time with them that when the stream comes it’s worth it and makes sense given Blue’s history and Levi’s personality.

The Mysterious and Amazing Blue Billings is by the end an episode of the series slowly embracing more of the paranormal with real character growth and a great HFN close.

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