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If death offered you one last curtain call, would you step into the spotlight?

Lydia Caldwell, a Gen Alpha theatre kid, has rules: no romance, no friends, no impossible dreams. Head down. Focus on acting.

Then she dies onstage.

When her spirit is pulled through the portal of the theatre’s ghost light, Lydia lands in the Bowery Theatre of 1849 New York City, disguised as a living human. To move on, she must complete the ghost light’s task: perform one final time. Now, following the rules matters more than ever.

If only it were that easy.

At the Bowery, Lydia meets Copeland Doyle, a musician with a lopsided smile that honestly should be illegal, and Ida Rose Blair, an adventure-seeking socialite promoting women’s rights in a world determined to cage her. Soon, Lydia is breaking every rule: falling for Copeland, encouraging Ida Rose’s aspirations, and dodging a hostile ghost in a city bristling with xenophobia, nativism, and rival gangs.

As New York hurtles toward violence, Lydia must choose between the destiny waiting for her in the afterlife and the fragile, beautiful connections—and the unexpected romance—that make her yearn to stay.

After losing her beloved grandpa Charlie to cancer, fourteen-year-old Alden Proctor moves from New York City to Michigan when her mother takes a job to save the Pantages Theatre, an old Vaudeville house fated to be demolished. Few people recall the theatre’s prior existence. Well, few living people at least. But that’s all about to change. Overweight, self-conscious, and sick of being bullied by haters in Manhattan, Alden hopes Michigan will be a new beginning for her. But, shortly after her arrival, a neighborhood boy named Raccoon makes fun of her weight. Alden finds solace and a home in the theatre after befriending Walter, the old caretaker, and Julie, a tap-dancing theatre kid. But the Pantages has a secret, and Alden unknowingly stumbles upon it. Someone, or something, doesn’t want the theatre to reopen. Alden becomes a target, and she could be in danger. But Alden refuses to give up her newfound home. She’s going to fight against that someone—whether they are of this world or the next.

Theatre Ghost is loosely based on the State Theatre, an old vaudeville house in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The State is known to have a few ghosts of its own!

Photo credit: Mark Cassino