Ask a Bookseller: ‘Under the Whispering Door’ by TJ Klune 

Ask a Bookseller is focusing this season on books of hope and connection. Asked to recommend a book of hope, Beth Rusk of Magers & Quinn Booksellers went straight to the novels of TJ Klune.  

“Under the Whispering Door” is one of her favorites. It’s a cozy fantasy set in a tea shop, which also happens to be a waystation for the dead. When Wallace, a successful lawyer, dies of a heart attack, he tries unsuccessfully to negotiate his way out of what he views as an unpleasant turn of events.

He finds himself at Charon’s Crossing, where its owner Hugo, is tasked with anchoring Wallace to this world until he is ready to go through the Whispering Door to what lies beyond.

Wallace, it turns out, has a lot to learn about how to live, even if he doesn’t get a start until after he’s already died.

What follows is a charming, funny, gentle romance complete with a memorable cast of characters, including Wallace’s punk rock Reaper Mei, who is working her first case; and Hugo’s grandfather and dog — both ghosts, but very full of life. 

“He is one of the best queer science fiction/fantasy writers I've ever read,” said Rusk, who also adds science fiction writer Becky Chambers to that list.  

Klune rose to national attention during the pandemic with his bestselling fantasy novel “House in the Cerulean Sea,” about a health inspector who finds color in his gray, bureaucratic life when he’s assigned to assess an orphanage of particularly powerful magical children.

That novel and its recent sequel “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” also fall under the banner of books that make readers feel hopeful about the world.