Give Up the Ghost

By: Jenn Burke

Narrated by: Greg Boudreaux

Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

The bigger they are, the harder they maul.  

Immortal not-ghost Wes Cooper and his vampire partner, Hudson Rojas, have it all - rewarding private investigation work, great friends, and, most important, a love that's endured. But ever since Wes sent a demon screaming back to the beyond, his abilities have grown overpowering and overwhelming. He's hiding the fact that he's losing control the best he can, but it's hard to keep anything a secret for long when your partner's a former cop...and especially when your partner's a former cop who wants to move in together.  

When all hell literally breaks loose in Toronto and super-strength ghosts are unleashed on Wes and his friends, he and Hudson are thrown into a case unlike any they've seen before. To save the city, Wes needs to harness his new power...and find some answers. But when he gets them, the solution to fix it all could mean losing everything.  

Contains mature themes.

©2019 Jennifer R. L. Burke (P)2019 Tantor

Wes is not as nice as his friends seem to think.

One of the things I like about the series so far is the growing community, but what I don’t like is that when stressed, Wes thinks entirely and only about Hudson or missing Hudson, seemingly forgetting his bff, his sort-of-son, etc. He’s all Hudson, all the time, which diminishes my ability to believe in how much he loves his found family. At one point, he tells Evan to keep a secret for him, from Hudson & everyone. That’s bad enough. But the way he did it was telling Evan that We’s love is conditional, the exact thing he promised it wasn’t in book one. His tendency to make everything his “fault” is something that centers his experience at the heart of other people’s problems. Wes spends this entire book being whiny and selfish and vengeful in turn, yet people seem to think he’s wonderful. I almost DNF’d at the end of chapter 9. Lexi’s injury drives his vengeance rather than being about her, and he never fully makes amends for scaring Evan’s boyfriend. He starts to unravel this toxic behavior towards the end, but most of the pain in this book would have been avoided by Wes working *with* his found family rather than trying to keep them at arm’s length. There would still have been plenty to do for plot but they could have been doing it together, which as a reader, I always find more satisfying than characters going it alone for selfish reasons like wanting to be seen as nicer than they are.

My quibble from the first book is bloomed into “well, that’s certainly a choice”. Wes is a part-time ghost who lives mostly as a human, but has been around since the Great Depression. He’s been a gay man the whole time, and the 1980s is one of the cycles of his life when he had friends. Yet the AIDS epidemic isn’t mentioned, ever. He would have seen *hundreds* of acquaintances die. But whenever his unhappiness about seeing people die comes up, he only ever refers to his first love Michael, and Michael’s sister’s family. A gay man who went clubbing for *most of the 80’s* would think about how many gay men had died. Acceptance of same sex marriage came DIRECTLY as a result of AIDS activism. Without the epidemic and groups like Act Up, it’s unlikely gay marriage would exist now. The author could elide thinking too much about the trauma by skating by it in his thoughts with a “still can’t think too much about it” so the cheerier tone of the book doesn’t wallow. But to entirely skip over the impact of HIV & AIDS on gay men who were at their primes in the height of crisis is less plausible than vampires or hellhounds. It’s too glaringly ignored for it not to be a choice and it’s a bad choice for having chosen to use these characters.

Steam: med. There’s on page M/M details a few times but rarely dwells there long. The vampire biting seemed more intense.

Narration: Likely the reason I didn’t quit. I happen to enjoy the narrator’s twink voice, which is the POV voice. It’s bubbly. There were a few sections of static in the copy I downloaded, though, hence the 4 stars.

Give up the Ghost.

Another fun story full of ghosts, vampires and witches.
Also imps, revenants, mad scientists and mayhem.
This was a good story, Wes and Hudson are still finding their way in the relationship, with a few ups and downs. The mystery was a fun paranormal twister.
All the "found family" makes the story even more complete.
Greg Boudreaux is a terrific narrator.

Dysfunctional ghostbuster family - glorious!

Once again, a solid paranormal procedural with humor, heart, and an original MM couple. This was a self contained book without a cliffhanger, although you should start with book 1 before listening to this.

I liked this book better than the first because there’s more interaction with Wes and Hudson’s oddball collection of friends: Evan the baby vampire, Iskander of the now scratchy voice, and witches Leslie and her mom. I also like that the author writes real people, who have flaws and do stupid irrational things. I love the effortless way she builds in diversity of personalities and issues, from Iskander’s conflicts between his sexuality and some of his Muslim family, to Evan’s mental health issues as a lifelong feature rather than a mere plot device or condition to be cured.

I do feel a bit cheated on the villain side of things; like book 1, we don’t really get a whole lot of villain-hero interaction, making the reveals and action scenes less meaningful. This is not a huge deal, however, considering the phenomenal rest of the book.

Unwanted Gifts...

So, I get that Wes didn't ask for the "gift" that he received but I just wanted to slap some sense into the immortal-not ghost for "neglecting" telling all of the people around him. I just wanted to smack the silly out of him. Not telling his best friend. That said, I loved how the author's presentation of this story went at a steady pace and allowed for the exploration of all characters. I was hooked in the first book and this one just tightens the grip on my imagination. Looking forward to where we go next in the series...

#FromTheBeyond

Just as great as the first one.......
With ghost, imps, and he'll hounds running amok around the city, our favorite Not Ghost and Vampire combo struggle to figure out why all these rips between the real world and their other are opening.

Almost a three star

Most of the story is a cute caper, a solid urban fantasy with ok sex scenes and a really cliché liar reveal plot. The last 10 percent of the story went deep though and I was quite moved.

Wes's immaturity killed the story

I finally gave up. Wes's actions/reactions were caused by problems of his own making, then he whined about it like a little kid who didn't get his way. I stopped before the halfway point and am returning this title. No more Jenn Burke for me.

It's Okay

If you assume that Wes's emotional maturity and capacity for wisdom died with him when he was in his early twenties, then his profoundly ridiculous actions make sense even if they are still stupid.

Once you accept/tolerate Wes's bouts of selfishness, the story is fine. The narrator does a good job, even though some of the voices for the gruffer men, like Hudson, sounded similar to each other.

Lovely!

Really enjoying this series and all their adventures. I hope it keeps going! From ghost to godling to vampires: it's got a little of everything.

Another great adventure

Twists and turns and all kinds of craziness, I do have to say I really wanted to throttle Wes for keeping such a big secret from his family, but like any good family they worked it out and In the end it was his family that saved him because they believe in him.

Love it!

I found this author yesterday and I'm already finished with two out of three books. Thanks to the perfect combination of Jenn Burke and the amazing narrator Greg Boudreaux I get sucked in and I absolutely love every second of it. Can't wait to see what book three brings!

Great series

Really enjoyable well written story with likeable characters. Narrated by one of the best in the field.