Lucely (pronounced Lu-sell-i, at least by the audio book narrator) Luna may be living alone with her father (her mother left them when Lucely was little) but due to an unusual family legacy, she’s able to see the presence of all the family’s departed members. Her father, who once had the gift, can only see them as fireflies but accepts that they’re there and cooks massive meals to provide for all the extended members who keep Lucely company. The family spirits are all tied to the large tree in the family’s backyard, so when a member of the bank comes and announces that if Lucely’s dad can’t cover his mortgage payments any longer, the family will be evicted, it doesn’t just mean potential homelessness for Luna and her dad, but they’ll be separated from the family spirits forever.
Lucely really needs to figure out a way for her father’s failing ghost tour business to get more customers and she and her best friend Syd are trying to wrack their brains. Halloween is coming up, and something sinister is brewing in the little town of St. Augustine, where they live. Lucely’s grandmother delivers a very ominous warning to her granddaughter and then seems to fade away, her firefly lazy and lethargic. Lucely and Syd rummage through the secret collection of Syd’s very alive and formidable grandmother, Babette (rumoured to be an actual witch). They find a spell that they hope will make Lucely’s grandmother come back, but it turns out to be something a lot more sinister, and soon the girls are forced to come clean to Babette and enlist her help, and that of her cat Chunk, to reverse the spell and send the malevolent ghosts back where they came from – otherwise the town will be overrun on Halloween.
Full review on my blog.