Status Updates From The Immortal City (The Sacr...

Ghosts tended to form ecosystems of souls as they settled into local haunting patterns. Some streets were nothing but effusive hives of vibrant ghosts, joining around their own ethereal brand of needs. A very haunted area of the city might be like a town unto itself, concerned with the ghostly politics of singing or object possession or storytelling instead of flesh-and-blood concerns like food and shelter.

I should have been like a village doctor, mending the ailing and improving their lives. Instead I felt like a mechanic. Patching up parts for them to senselessly get battered again, or dissipate into an insensate fog of joint amnesia. With all our yesterdays flowing away, we gradually lost the ability to feel each other mattering.

The trouble with being a ghost is that you start your afterlife with a curse—with a chain. But you can purify a curse. Most of the ghosts that control the gates are chained to it, but I think that’s only because they aren’t ready to let go of their curses. The pieces of life that still weigh on them. But once those chains are broken? No one is more free. A liberated ghost can go anywhere.

I'm having a bit of trouble with this one. Not sure what it is yet so I'll keep reading.

I had problems with the author's previous (debut) novel (too much going on that was poorly explained, language that was so flowery that it obscured the action), but there was a good story there so I decided to give her another try. While this is billed as the second in a series, it - so far - bears no relation to book one.