Shake Out the Ghosts by Al Hess (Paperback)

From the author of World Running Down and Key Lime Sky comes Shake Out the Ghosts, a beautifully funny, heart-wrenching contemporary queer romance with a magical twist.

Nine months ago, a brutal assault in his studio apartment left eccentric portrait artist Micah Wildsmith with facial scars and PTSD. He’s struggled to leave the apartment ever since, and panics if anyone else so much as steps inside while he’s there. Then his fragile sanctuary is disrupted by signs of a haunting. He puts the 80s synthpop down to inconsiderate neighbours and the shadows down to paranoia, until saccharine platitudes start appearing on his bathroom mirror, and he learns the previous resident, Cosmo, has died. When Cosmo’s form materialises before him, Micah is struck by the spectre’s beauty, and finds he no longer wants him to leave.

Meanwhile, dramatic sculpture artist Cosmo Koslov, unconventional and very much alive, is mourning the shambles of his life: a serial-cheating boyfriend, a promotion forever out of reach, and now, apparently, a haunted apartment of his own. When a bespectacled man with a scarred eye socket appears, then evaporates, his first instinct is simply to move out. But when their paths cross by chance, tentative sparks fly, even as the phantoms of their pasts still linger.

Please note this touches on trauma and assault. Perfect for readers who love a tender queer romance, a magical and mysterious twist, and a funny, heartfelt story of two people healing their way towards each other.