Review: Evenfall by Liz Michalski

Title: Evenfall
Author: Liz Michalski
Series: -
Genre: Paranormal Romance / Contemporary Fiction
Release Date: February 1, 2011
Publisher: Berkley
Edition: Trade Paperback
Source: Publisher
Blurb:

In life, Frank could've had any woman he wanted.

In death, he'll try to win back the one that mattered...

Frank Wildermuth always regretted a mistake he made as a teenager: choosing Clara Murphy over her sister Gert. And like a true Murphy woman, Gert got on with her life, never admitting to heartbreak. Not even now, decades later, with Frank dead-dead, that is, but not quite gone. Now, Frank's niece, Andie Murphy, is back in town to settle his estate, and she sees that things have changed in Hartman, Connecticut. Aunt Gert still drives her crazy, but Cort, the wide-eyed farmboy she used to babysit, is all grown up-with a whole new definition for the word "sleepover." Even freakier are the whispers. Either Andie's losing her mind, or something she can't see is calling out to her-something that insists on putting right the past.

I enjoyed this book and I really liked that it was told in three points of view, Andie who has come back to Evenfall to help her aunt Gert and decide what to do with her life, Gert who has a main regret from her past that she has never let herself acknowledge, and Frank who regretted choosing Clara over her sister Gert and is now trying to let Gert know how much she has always meant to him, even though he's now dead.

You may be confused because I said that this was two different genres: paranormal romance and contemporary fiction. The truth is I wasn't sure which genre this book was, one point of view is told by a ghost, so clearly that's paranormal, but Andie's point of view, while it involves some incidents done by Frank, doesn't have a touch of paranormal, so I decided to give it two different labels.

I loved reading about Gert and Frank's story and I liked that it wasn't told in flashbacks, instead we get to read part of their memories and we get comments about what they wished they could have changed or done differently. I sympathized with both characters and I wanted so badly for them to have a happy ending, which is hard seeing as how Frank is dead. Their story is one of really heavy regrets, could have beens and how at the end you don't have all the time in the world to make things right.

Their story heavily impacts Andie's, as she's recovering from a break up and trying to figure out what to do with her life when she meets Cort again, a boy she used to babysit who's not a boy anymore. Cort was one of my favourite characters and I loved seeing him and Andie together.

I wish there could have been a more detailed ending, especially concerning Andie, and that the author could have written from Gert's point of view one last time at the end.
All in all this was a great debut novel told in a beautiful way about life, love, regrets and learning that you shouldn't let opportunities pass since you may not get them again.

Memorable Lines:

Frank

I press my firgertips against the windowpane and feel the molecules slide and shift beneath my weight, smooth as ice. I want to shatter the glass, let it fall like knife-sharp rain. I want to run down the stairs and block her path, grip her by the shoulders until she's finally forced to see me. I want to take her in my arms and weep.
But what power I have is featherlight, the merest echo of desire. I can whisper my yearnings through the walls of this house. I can alter the way an image appears. But I can't make Gert stay.

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