She keeps staring in his general direction. He is dead, so it makes sense except for one woman. “He was a real bastard.” Everyone is ignoring him no one can see him. There was no gnashing of teeth and wailing to the Heavens. In other words, he is hated by his employees, has no friends, and his contemporaries are either terrified of him or believe him to be a cretin. Any infraction on this is met with cold civility and a pink check. He is crushingly fastidious and again expects this of others. He is smartly dressed and expects the same of those around him. He is cold, calculating, ruthless, and utterly devoid of the ability to empathize. In that vein, Wallace is an immediately identifiable character, not one you can sympathize with, but absolutely one you understand. He is everything a someone who does not practice law expects lawyers to act. A big-time lawyer and partner in a law firm. “But it’s what you do to pull yourself out of it that matters most.” Wallace whispered, “It’s easy to let yourself spiral and fall.”

But until I discover and am witness to real-life stories that are as sweet as these, I will have to go back and read Under the Whispering Door again and again. I hope that somewhere in the vastness of this universe, there are true stories like what you find in these books. Instead, after I get done with his books, and for this review, I will be talking about the newly released Under the Whispering Door I feel good about myself and good about the world. Both Under a Whispering Door and Under the Cerulean Sea tread the line between sentimental and sweet, but Klune is such a skilled writer that I never drift to the wrong side of that line. TJ Klune’s books have become a place where my heart can get a zap like a defibrillator pedal.

Beneath the whispering door