A New Lease on Death Review: Olivia Blacke’s Ghostly New Duo

Read time: 4 minutes

🎧 Listened in audio | 📢 Narrated by Stefanie Kay and Petrea Burchard
⏱ Duration: 9 hours | Genre: Paranormal cozy mystery
🏷️ Publisher: dreamscape media and Minotaur Books

Book Blurb:

Ruby Young’s new Boston apartment comes with the usual downsides. A view of a brick wall, heat that barely works, noisy neighbors, and now a dead body on the sidewalk outside. Oh, and a ghost. Cordelia Graves died in her apartment months ago and never left, bored out of her mind and none too thrilled about her new roommate. When their neighbor Jake Macintyre is shot in what looks like a mugging gone wrong, Cordelia is sure there’s more to it. Trouble is, she’s dead, so she needs Ruby (twenty, perky, incapable of keeping a houseplant alive) to do the legwork: interviewing suspects, digging through library archives, all the things Cordelia can’t touch without frying the equipment. As the two get closer to Jake’s killer, an unlikely friendship starts to form, one neither of them saw coming.

Let’s talk … murder!!!

Olivia Blacke got me hooked with the Record Shop Mystery series and the Jessup sisters. So when I wrapped that series up, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the author. That’s when I stumbled onto Blacke’s paranormal cozy series following a ghost and a teenager.

Before starting this series, I thought Olivia Blacke was wonderfully talented. The writing and world building was spectacular. This series proved how wrong I was. Olivia Blacke is beyond talented. I am obsessed with Cordelia and Ruby. This is one dynamic duo I did not realize I wanted in my life.

Cordelia is dead, and Ruby is the new tenant in Cordelia’s apartment. No one else can see Cordy, but in certain situations she’s able to communicate with Ruby. Together they set out to solve the murder of one of their neighbours. It’s so whimsical you can’t stop reading it, or in my case, listening to it. The narration is brilliant. Stefanie and Petrea tag team between the two characters beautifully, bringing real maturity and personality to both of them.

I started the book unsure what I’d feel and ended it hooked on Cordy’s and Ruby’s lives. I can’t get enough of it. Hop on the train with me, folks, because Goodreads is hosting a giveaway for book 3 (out October 26, 2026).

Would I recommend it?

Without a second thought. This is whimsical, funny, and genuinely hard to pause, audio or otherwise. Cordelia and Ruby are one of my favorite duos in cozy mystery right now, full stop. I didn’t expect a ghost-and-teenager mystery to hit this hard… but here we are. If you loved the Record Shop Mysteries, this one might just top it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

5 Book Recommendations

1. Vinyl Resting Place by Olivia Blacke — If Ruby and Cordelia won you over, start where the author’s charm did: this is book one of her Record Shop Mysteries, following three sisters whose new record-slash-coffee shop opens with a body in the supply closet.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

2. Riley Thorn and the Dead Guy Next Door by Lucy Score — Swap the ghost for reluctant psychic visions and you’ve got the same living-with-a-dead-neighbor energy, plus a grumpy private investigator thrown into the mix.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

3. Don of the Dead by Casey Daniels — Another reluctant sleuth stuck taking orders from the dead. Pepper Martin gets bossed around by a decades-old mob ghost instead of a roommate, but the odd-couple dynamic scratches the same itch.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

4. Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman — Two ghosts this time instead of one, haunting a Jersey Shore guesthouse a single mom is trying to renovate. Same bickering-with-the-dead comfort read vibe.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy

5. Aunt Dimity’s Death by Nancy Atherton — For something gentler and older-school: Lori inherits a Cotswold cottage and a ghostly aunt who insists on sticking around. Less murder-mystery-forward than the others here, more cozy-with-a-ghost comfort.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary

Team Ruby or Team Cordy?

I need to know where everyone stands, because I’ve been going back and forth since chapter one. Ruby’s chaos-agent energy versus Cordy’s stubborn need to see this through even from beyond the grave… honestly I don’t think I can pick. Drop your vote in the comments, and if you’ve already read ahead, no spoilers, but tell me it gets even better.

Book Links

Want to purchase this or any of your favorite books while supporting a local bookstore? Consider purchasing using the sites below. These sites work with independent local bookstore owners to fulfill your book orders. #SupportLocal

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
Follow Olivia Blacke for the latest news and new releases
Check out more books from dreamscape media and Minotaur Books