It’s no secret that I’m a huge Mary Robinette Kowal fan. She’s gracious in person and challenging, inspiring, and funny in print, and she does puppetry and hand sews Regency dresses, so I’d be disposed to follow her around like a puppy even if she never wrote a word of fiction. As it happens, she also writes great fiction, and her Regency fantasy series Glamourist Histories is delightful (you can read my reviews for that series here: Glamour in Glass, Valour and Vanity, Of Noble Family, and then Part I and Part II of my interview with Kowal.)

Now we have a new series from Kowal, which kicks off with Ghost Talkers. There were many things I loved about this book and one big thing that didn’t work for me at all. Because this book involves mystery and conspiracy and therefore also involves twists and revelations, I’m not going to talk much about the plot. But I will tell you about the world and the characters.

Ghost Talkers is a slightly fantastical alternate history of WWI. In this version of events, some people have the ability to talk to ghosts. Many of them work for the British military as members of the Spirit Corp – and almost all of these people are women. Soldiers are trained to report to the women who work together in round the clock séances, so that the soldiers can deliver reports on exactly how they died. This intelligence can alter the course of battles. The soldiers also have the opportunity to deliver a last message to loved ones before going wherever people go after death (the ghosts are usually only present for a very short time).

One of the Spirit Corps mediums is Ginger Stuyvesant, an American living in Britain. Along with Helen, a Black medium from the Caribbean, and Mrs. Richardson, an older woman who is constantly knitting, Ginger struggles to get respect from the military while keeping up with her emotionally and physically exhausting job. Her team is understaffed, unappreciated, and overworked – and that’s before they realize that they may be under attack. Ginger has to work with her team and a persistent ghost to try to find out who is plotting against the Spirit Corps and what they have planned.

There’s one big problem with the story, at least for me, and that is that I never trusted Ginger’s fiancée, Ben. Ben has good qualities – he’s brave, he cares about Ginger, he’s good-looking, and he’s smart. But he also has huge red flags. He’s prone to jealousy. He’s protective to a fault. He has a violent streak. He’s smart, but prone to pomposity. This book is not a romance, and I can’t discuss the relationship between Ginger and Ben in detail without spoiling the entire plot. However, for the story to put us through an emotional wringer, Ben has to seem appealing – and I hated him from the first moment he showed up.

Luckily, the book is packed with other characters that are incredibly compelling. This book finds ways to be inclusive in terms of race, class, age, and gender while remaining historically plausible. It’s also a book that sends not only Ginger but “little old lady” Mrs. Richardson to the front to do some sleuthing. Mrs. Richardson proves to be adept at swapping her knitted mufflers for intel and using knitting needles for self-defense. Ginger is smart and empathetic and snarky, and just generally an enjoyable character to spend a book with. As an American, she has her own problems with the Brits who are happy to have her work for them but who are uninterested in her opinions.

I’m hoping that in sequels we will get more time with Helen, the de facto leader of the Spirit Corps, who struggles within the military for recognition despite her race and her gender, and I’m also hoping we hear more about the Indian drivers who also crave recognition. One theme in the book is that people want to be seen and heard. The ghosts want one more chance to tell their stories. The living don’t necessarily want fame and glory, but they want acknowledgement of their service, their high levels of competence, and their humanity. As historical fantasy, it worked for me on several levels.

As a romance, or more accurately as a book with strong romantic elements, this book was a huge fail for me. Ben made a bad impression on me from the get-go and he just never got back into my good graces. However, as a story with great characters (other than Ben) and wonderful, detailed, creative world-building, that is inclusive, creative, and points out that war is hell in a whole new way while somehow managing not to be a total downer, the book is fantastic. I’m giving it a B- although the Ben problems threaten to pull it to a C+. I also have a suspicion that I’ll like the sequel better than the first book – we’ll have to see!