Ghost, Interrupted

by Sonia Singh

There's Scott Wilder: The founder of the firm, Scott has a head for business and a passion for the paranormal. His motto is: Ghosts don't kill people. Running away from ghosts, tripping and breaking your neck in the process, kills people.

There's Anjali Kumar: A reluctant psychic, Anjali can communicate with the dead but can't beat the house in Vegas. Her typical Indian parents believe in reincarnation and karmic debt, but a telepathic daughter is something they prefer to deny.

Last, but not least, is Coulter Marshall: A telekinetic cowboy from Tennessee, Coulter can move objects with his mind and the ladies with his good looks. He has the face of an angel and the charisma of the devil.

Find out what happens when three people from very different backgrounds band together to help San Francisco solve its supernatural problems.

Who says there's no such thing as ghosts. . . ?

Genres: Fiction, Paranormal, Chick Lit, Fantasy, Romance, Ghosts, Paranormal Mystery

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 2, 2007

About the author

Sonia Singh is a first generation Indo-American, born and raised in Orange County, CA. Unlike Maya, the heroine of her debut novel, Godess for Hire, Sonia loves India and travels there once a year.

Reviews

[Chris Burd · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book, but I didn't. The characters were great, the writing style was fun to read and the concept was intriguing. But the plot just wasn't there. If you were to ask me what the "plot" was, I would be hard pressed to tell you.

Things happened too easily. Things happened unexpectedly. Not unexpectedly as in "mysteriously" or "of supernatural origin", but unexpectedly as in...the character and plot development didn't lead you there.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really drab read. I mean, sure, it was cute, but... It certainly didn't hold my attention. It was cliche out the kazoo. Characters who were witty took their wittiness and beat it into the ground. I don't know. It just was not a good, enjoyable read. -_-;

[Tami · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book doesn't have much to recommend it. The premise was interesting but the author skated the surface the whole time. There was little characterization, the Paranormal details were minimal and weak, and the plot was thin. The only saving grace was that the book was short.

[Megalion · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this in adult fiction but it reads as Young Adult. It lacks the detail and fleshing out that was expected but I find common among a lot of YA or preteen reading.

Taken in this perspective, it was entertaining. A funny cast of characters & clients. A light enjoyable read.

[Culture-Vulture · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 2.5⭐

What I liked most: The tiny story at the end from the author's real life. It was short, but engaging. Maybe the author should write a book about her life? I think it would make for an interesting read, especially if she focused on the different experiences in her real life (like the one at the end of the book).

What I liked least: The whole Hans thing made NO sense. That epilogue just muddied everything up inside my head, and not in a good way: Is Hans the bad guy?! Is he an entity, hence not human? Is he an angel?!!! I just didn't get it. (If anyone else did, please explain it to me. Thanks.)


The story has some funny bits I really enjoyed. I didn't care much for the romance, but that might be because I can't stand romance anymore.

It's a good read for a mindless afternoon...not so good during a pandemic, when the last thing you want to think about is supernatural stuff. (Goddamn covid-19/Wuhan-virus has scared me poop-less!) I started the novel before the virus was deemed a serious threat. I wouldn't have picked this to read had I known what the next few days were going to bring! 😧

[Kristal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had some problems with its narrative flow and it never really seemed to have any direction. The characters' objectives were not clear and there was virtually no conflict. Everyone just drifted through various scenarios that had no real impact on the story. That said, I did enjoy the attempt at mixing genres, even if it wasn't entirely successful.

[Trish Romanchuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book, but some of it, especially towards the end, really fell flat. The main adventure of the book ended with a bit of a thud, it built up to be awesome and then was cut short. It was a decent and light read, but it felt rushed in important places, and that wrecked it for me.

[Cindi · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was... ok? im not really sure what it was about.

[Cris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light and fun read. I enjoyed the characters who poke fun at themselves.

[Eangrysmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. Was an interesting, short, funny read. Some of the characters reminded me of the Haunting except they were humorous. Could see this being made into a tv movie.

[Lianne Burwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing very deep, but still a lot of fun. Originally published during the height of the chicklit craze

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very 'meh,' it's pretty much a no-brainer book to read when you don't want to think too much, yet don't feel like watching TV. It's the story of a guy who is fascinated with the paranormal, so he leaves his corporate job to become a paranormal investigator. He eventually recruits two psychics- a woman who can communicate with the dead and read minds, and a cliche good ol' boy who has telekinesis- and they all work together as a team.

I'd give a synopsis of the plot, but there really isn't one, except what I just said. They go from job to job clearing out spirits that won't leave the place they're haunting. There's a secondary plot about a competing investigator and her posse of psychics interwoven into the main story, eventually leading to the final "climatic" investigation, but I put that in parenthesis because there really isn't any build-up to that moment and nothing really happens.

That last sentence pretty much sums up the book, nothing ever really happens. They go on case after case, but it's all ho-hum, no surprises, no hitches, nothing. Even the background characters, like one of the psychics sister, seem thrown in with no real role in the overall story. Quite a bit of wasted potential storylines; in fact, I don't know what real purpose the telekinetic guy on the team even served, he never really did anything to help on any of the cases, he just showed up; it was always the girl who did everything.

The okay rating is pretty much all that's left to say.

[Parallax]

Fun, fluffy, funny. I wish there was more of Anjali. The plot is an episodic series of the team encountering various ghosts, with some perfunctory tension as they sometimes face off against a rival ghost hunter team. The resolutions were too easy, and I think Singh needs to work on her plotting. Scott and Coulter come off as a little flat to me, but Anjali was a delight. Some of my favorite parts were Anjali facing off against the therapist in the beginning, and how she told her family about deciding to become a ghost hunter.

I think I'm reacting to Anjali so much because I found it so off-putting by how familiar she came across. I feel like I've run across women like her, with her observations, her sense of humor, and her references. I love Anjali's humor. It's a good off-putting to find a character like her in a speculative fiction work (scifi/fantasy/horror). In comparison, Scott and Coulter come across as character types in a story, and more obviously fictional.

[Liska · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was cute, I guess. It's painfully self-aware and overdescribed, and what I'm sure the author intended to be witty banter falls as flat as the characters' inner thoughts. A similar point is to be made with the book's structure in general. Sentence structure is often shaky and regularly lacks pronouns in a failed attempt to mimic natural dialogue, followed by words chosen from a thesaurus rather than the story's context.

The second half is slightly better plot-wise, but the portrayal of women is cliché and rather pathetic (namely, Anjali's self-deprecatory "I'm fine"s and Vivica's power-mogul heartlessness are two obvious polar opposites that just serve to perpetuate go-to archetypes in chicklit)

In all, it's a decent book to pass time at the beach, but pick something more substantial when you're not in danger of a sunburn. Maybe her other books have been better? If I come across one, I'll definitely have to pick it up and see.

[Dimity · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw this humorous paranormal chick-litesque novel on some sort of “paranormal chick lit” list and since that seems to be my favorite time consumer this summer I requested it through interlibrary loan. It only took me a couple hours to finish and I thought it was entertaining enough. It has some weird parts where Singh contradicts details or the story seems to jump around but I didn’t go into this book expecting a masterpiece. I enjoyed the paranormal stuff and the romance was livable even if rather lacking in details. The characters aren’t fleshed out very well …basically it’s like watching one episode of a typical tv hour long drama show. If it took longer to read, I’d probably realize its problems more but it was a light breezy read for the summer.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This cute ghost novel involves one rich boy who tries his hand at stock broking but is bored, one former computer programmer who tries to deny her psychic ability, and one cowboy who uses his telepathic powers to throw people against brick walls. It works in a cute, fluffy way. The three work for The Cold Spot, a paranormal investigation firm in California. They are called out to investigate hauntings, and the three of them use their knowledge to send the ghosts/entities to the next level. Of course, there are some love interests thrown in the book to keep things interesting.

[DMD · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know why I keep picking up books like these. I don't normally bother to review the chick lit books I read but I hate how South Asian American fiction is so popular that books like these come out so I had to write something. The main character reminded me of the Dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding where she related everything to India. Why can't it be like Aziz Ansari's character on Parks and Recreation? He's Indian American but it's not shoved in your face.

[Tanya · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my...this book started off poorly and didn't get any better. I managed to make it to page 50 (which, in my opinion, was about 20 pages too far) before I just gave up. I can't give it a proper review because I didn't read enough, but it started out reading like a YA book, then the female protagonist turned out to be a full 8 years older than I had imagined her to be from the story, and it all started going downhill from there.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave it a chance and I just couldn't be bothered to care about what happened in the book. It seemed to be lacking something (apart from the lack of actual plot) and some characters didn't really seem to need to be in the book at all. The main characters were ok in some ways and just had the misfortune of being in limbo with the bland plot line.

I keep hoping to come across a good haunted house story that's longer than 20 pages but keep ending up not finding one.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but then I like watching Ghost Hunters too. It was interesting and it kept me reading (I didn't need a break because I was bored or bothered by it), but it was also very light. I was never in any doubt that the heroes would win in the end. I also had the strange sense that I had read it before, but maybe I have.

[Miriam · Rating 2 out of 5]

People like me with overactive imaginations should probably not read books like this. It kept me up way too long fearing every sound that went bump in the night. That being said, I still liked the book. The only reason I didn't give it 3 stars was because of some crudeness and swearing. Other than that it was a fun, easy read.

[Don]

A businessman with an interest in the paranormal... A psychic Indian-American woman… A telekinetic cowboy from Tennessee... Three young adults with extraordinary abilities who become the staff of the Cold Spot, a ghost-hunting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area... Without spoiling the ending, their final encounter from the novel doesn’t involve a ghost, but something far worse.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast (I literally read it in like two hours), cute, fun read, with amusing characters and situations. However, I almost feel like the book would've been even more amzing if the characters were fleshed out a bit more and if the plot didn't actually move so quickly. Definitely more back story, on all points. Still a fun, light read, however.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. It was harmless. Just a series of things happening. I feel like there was supposed to be some kind of conflict, but it really didn't come through. But it was fun, and the romance wasn't stuffed down our throats.

Oh, and when they compared one of the characters to David Hyde Pierce I went Awwww.

[Donald Armfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was scanning the library shelves & remembered I read this book.

My library has a little comment sheet in back of book and I rated it a C. Which means an OK book, I do remember the dialouge was what kept me reading. Its a good book 2 read for Ghost Hunting fans.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

quick read, light and fluffy.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and set in the Bay Area and Wine Country.

[Amy Ravenel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny...funny, funny, funny book. A cute look at a paranormal investigator and two psychics who hunt ghosts. Definite must read.

[Bcoghill Coghill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love Sonia Singh's little books.

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I also read Bollywood Confidential. This one was fun too and kept me in suspense. I like a good ghost story.