NEW BEGINNING by Barbara Elsborg

4* Sad at first, then sweet. Mismatched Mikkel and Teddy somehow work, and it's lovely to see Sparlow again, as well as more of Mikkel’s magical-waterways cottage with attitude 😀 

This book is part of BE's new PNR Sparlow Village setting, but can be read as a standalone, the only connection being that we met Mikkel and his fascinating cottage in The Other Side. 

Teddy reminded me a bit of myself - 'coulda, shoulda, woulda' with a guilty complex over stuff that's not really of our doing. He's probably a bit like quite a few of us, but in his case, add in that he's dead, which he doesn't immediately realise; he's agoraphobic; he's got OCD, and he's stuck in an afterlife place/stage of afterlife called The Drift, that's not Heaven, nor Hell. Enter Mikkel, a demon who's (currently, hopefully for a long time to come) on the good side in the lovely village of Sparlow that not everyone IRL can access, though it's on the map in the Peak District. 

Mikkel’s been tasked with helping Teddy through his guilt and torment and out of The Drift. Teddy's not doing well on his own, so Mikkel takes him to his cottage. Mikkel’s magical cottage, that sounds like something alive from a kind of Willy Wonka or Magic Faraway Tree world, likes Teddy. Sparlow likes Teddy. Mikkel likes Teddy...

Together with Mikkel, Sparlow helps him heal. Which means that Teddy has to leave for the ultimate destiny that awaits him, because The Drift was just an in-between place. Which means that Teddy and Mikkel are at the end of their time together...or are they? 🤞🏼we'll see them in another Sparlow world book.

ARC courtesy of the author for my reading pleasure. 

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