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A Man Called Ove meets The Good Place in Under the Whispering Door, a delightful queer love story from TJ Klune, author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The House in the Cerulean Sea.
Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.
When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.
And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he's definitely dead.
But even in death he's not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.
Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.
What are you reading this week? (7/24/2025)
I have three books going: Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain by Rebecca Solnit Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
-Mark_H
To what audience would you recommend The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris? Is there another book or author you feel addresses related themes or who writes in a similar style?
I recently read Under the Whispering Door (shortly after reading this book) and I saw the parallels with the tea shop in TJ Klune's book in how nourishing people beyond physical need with food/drink can be as rewarding an experience for the provider as the one receiving the nourishment.
-William_W
"Tenderness, wit, and skillful worldbuilding elevate this delightful tale. Fans of queer fantasy won't want to miss this." ―Publishers Weekly
"The latest by Lambda Literary Award winner Klune is a winning story about grief, loss, and moving on. Readers will cry and be charmed by his wonderful characters." ―Library Journal
"Klune's latest is a sweet tale of grief and second chances, and a ghost story about not giving up on even the most lost of souls." ―Booklist
"A warm hug of a book about a Grinch of a man who dies and a ferryman, who helps the dead in their journey onwards. Under the Whispering Door is a kind book, full of faith in the goodness of people, full of kind people showing how compassion is a strength. It broke my heart with its unflinching understanding that grief never goes away, never empties, only settles into the room of your soul like a strange souvenir. And then it healed me in the next breath." ―Cassandra Khaw, author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth
This information about Under the Whispering Door was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tj Klune is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Extraordinaries, and more. Being queer himself, Klune believes it's important―now more than ever―to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories.
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