Where is the line between imagination and reality? Can you be swallowed by a memory? Are the memories that you hold, yours or do they belong to someone else? Is it possible for a healer to kill?

Mortal Ghost is a magnificently descriptive novel which poses all of the above questions and more. At the heart of the novel is a modern day teen-age love story, full of hesitancy, misunderstandings, and tenderness. One might call it typical, except the love story is only one layer of a many-layered book. Meet Jesse. A sixteen year old runaway, who is living on the street and earns money doing odd jobs, like washing windows or mowing lawns, in order to buy food. Jesse is far from your typical teen-ager. In addition to being extremely well read, especially since he has been in and out of foster care from the age of 9 and on the street otherwise, Jesse has the power to heal wounded animals and is a fire-starter. Jesse lost his entire family in a fire at the age of 9 and carries around the guilt of not being able to save his mother and younger sister from the fire.

Meet Sarah. A self-assured, independent, ballet dancer, with a fiery temper who brings Jesse home to meet her family. Her mother, Meg, a psychiatrist who works with troubled teens and "sees" things that haven't happened yet or she hasn't been told. And her father, Finn, an international photographer, who uses that as a cover for another profession which his family knows nothing about. Against Jesse's inclinations, he ends up staying with the Andersen family and is learning to trust someone other than himself. The Andersen's see Jesse as their opportunity to redeem themselves for where they failed their own son, Peter, who left home and was not heard from until he died in suspicious circumstances.

The very core of the story revolves around Jesse – who is he and how did he come to have these powers? No one seems to know, least of all Jesse himself. He is shaken to his foundation when Finn reveals that all of his family died in the fire, including Jesse Wright. Now Jesse is struggling with the question of who he is and how he has memories of everything that has happened in addition to the other strange occurrences that continue to plague him. Through Finn, he spends some time with something that is known as the prototype, a computer which has baffled the scientists working with it by creating things on its own. The connection with the prototype haunts Jesse as it invades his thoughts, taunts him and tries to manipulate his actions.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Mortal Ghost and L. Lee Lowe's love of words and the craft of writing comes shining through the descriptions that are beautiful to the point of poetic. Her use of symbolism seeks to underscore the underlying theme of life and death. Mortal Ghost has more twists and turns than an old-fashioned mountain road. This book contains a love story, enemies, rape, dysfunctional families, glances at the drug culture, as well as paranormal abilities and a computer trying to gain control. If you are someone who likes all of the questions answered and all of the story lines tied up in a nice bow by the end of the book, then Mortal Ghost is not for you. However, if you are willing to open your mind to the possibilities where the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred, where a boy exists, but has died, where objects appear and disappear, and where at the end you have more questions than answers, then Mortal Ghost is well worth reading.

Read the full review at www.lulubookreview.wordpress.com!