It’s inevitable that we’ll all die with unfinished business. It can be as trivial as dropping dead in the middle of a meal to as significant as mending an estranged relationship. We fear the more significant issues following us into the afterlife, especially if our death is sudden and unexpected. Author Jenny Sunstedt explores two extreme cases of unfinished business haunting the dead in her novel, Passing Through. Below is my review of this supernatural mystery along with an interview with Sundstedt about her book.
Passing Through book summary
In life, Dana Parker was a nurse. In death, she works as a counselor helping those stuck in limbo to cross over while she stays behind. Her latest patient is Dominic Micelli, an unruly patient who is frustrated with his current predicament. Prior to his untimely death, he had been searching for his missing wife, and he asks Dana to finish what he started.
Dana uses her ability to return to the living, inhabiting different looks and personalities, to hire a private investigator to help her interview Dominic’s in-laws, search for clues, and uncover the conspiracy that surrounds his wife’s disappearance. In doing so, she unwittingly begins to ponder the circumstances surrounding her own mysterious death and pulls double duty trying to solve two mysteries in one in order to bring them both peace. In the meantime, she begins to fall for both Dominic and the private investigator, Sean.
The story
Passing Through is a mixture of genres ranging from paranormal to mystery to romance. Sundstedt intricately blends these genres into a tightly-packed story and page-turning plot.
The story presents the limbo state in which Dana Parker resides as a close resemblance of life. Dana and her co-workers work, eat, sleep, and even breathe in this afterlife clinic.
They go through the motions of their current existence, waiting for the day when they suddenly cross over into the next phase of the afterlife. They all accept that they are there because of unanswered questions and realizations that they have not yet had. But instead of trying to come to terms with those questions, they instead focus on answering them for the patients who pass through.
Not too many people have Dana’s ability to return to the land of the living, and no one does it as well as Dana. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and concentration for the dead to maintain an earthly body. And Dana tends to initially treat it like a chore.
But the longer she resides in the body of her alter ego, Natalie, the more she begins to enjoy life back on Earth. And it makes her curious as to what the people in her past life have been up to since her death, a pursuit that’s off limits as an afterlife counselor.
The characters
Passing Through is full of a diverse group of characters, from the angry turned egocentric turned redemptive Dominic to the still living, do-gooder, protective Sean Callahan to Dana’s loyal boss and best friend, Peg. Prior to Dominic’s arrival, Dana was solely focused on her work. His story helps to bring her out of simply going through the motions and teaches her to enjoy the simple things again and to realize the importance of what was taken from her and what she deserves to know surrounding the circumstances of her own death.
Her ignorance was never bliss, but it was comfortable. When she is knocked out of that comfort zone, she relearns to appreciate the little things and to put significance on the big things, such as her right to know how her life ended at 34 and who is responsible.
The mysteries
The main mystery surrounding Dominic’s wife’s disappearance takes up a large focus of the book. It’s a mystery that keeps you guessing as well as keeps you doubting Dominic’s innocence, guided by the common knowledge that spouses are often the reasons behind a married person’s disappearance. It also brings Dominic’s past behavior to light and helps him to see that his lack of attention to his marriage and his egocentric tendencies came back to bite him, innocent or not.
Dana and Sean make a great team of two strangers with a common goal of solving the Micelli mystery. Between Sean’s contacts and Dana’s counselor-training, they are able to get information out of the involved parties that wasn’t previously extracted. The investigation is more about getting people to open up rather than sneakily exposing the truth, tying it into the story’s themes of regret and redemption. The truth is messy and sometimes heartbreaking, but it’s also the only way to find healing and resolution.
My recommendation
I recommend Passing Through to both mystery and romance lovers with a side of paranormal elements. Despite a significant chunk of the story taking place in the afterlife, it’s an otherwise grounded story with a satisfying, poignant ending that ties up two loose ends and leaves the reader with a moral about the balance between prioritizing yourself and prioritizing others in order to leave this life with minimal regrets and some form of satisfaction.
My rating
An interview with Jenny Sunstedt
How did you come up with the idea for Passing Through? Did you start with the supernatural elements or the mystery elements?
I started with the mystery. I had seen a Dateline show about a woman who went missing after presumed foul play, and I began to wonder: if someone was accused of a crime and wanted to clear his or her name (or not), how late is too late? What if somehow they could do it after death? That’s when the supernatural element started to take shape.
This is your first novel. What was the hardest part of writing a novel? The most fun?
It was a really long process for me, and the hardest part was letting it go once I got to the end. I can revise forever. That’s my writing comfort zone, all the little tweaks that don’t necessarily improve anything. I could pick up the book right now and still see things I want to change. The most fun is when the story takes on a life of its own and veers off in an unexpected direction. Sometimes that doesn’t work out, but when it does, it’s pretty exciting.
What are your favorite fictional versions of the afterlife?
There are so many to choose from because the afterlife is a subject of endless debate for us mortal humans. I have a love/hate relationship with ghost stories and the like. They fascinate me, but I don’t like to be too scared ha ha. If I saw any of the Paranormal Activity movies, I wouldn’t sleep again for ten years. So, I usually stay away from the more horrific elements of afterlife.
I love A Christmas Carol this time of year, and Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw is a spooky classic. (Interesting trivia: James made around 500 edits after the story was published. My kind of writer!)
I recently read The Book of Accidents, by Chuck Wendig, which is a great novel with some interesting afterlife/otherworldly elements. The Judas Files series by C.G. Harris is a witty, gritty urban fantasy set in Hell. The TV show The Good Place is a lot of fun.
Dana’s co-workers all died in different ways. How did you come up with the cause of death for each in relation to their personalities?
I love that you asked this. With some of the characters, the cause of death was a part of who they were from the beginning. As character development proceeded with the others, certain demises seemed to fit their personalities, if that makes sense. And I didn’t want too much repetition, just to keep things interesting.
The dead still eat, sleep, and even breathe in the afterlife. Why did you decide to have death look so similar to life?
I really wanted the characters to feel that they weren’t experiencing “true” death and wouldn’t be able to until they resolved whatever issues prevented them from moving on. They do have special abilities the living don’t have, but they also have many of the very ordinary characteristics we all share, including the desire to hold on to things that should be left behind.
Who would you most want to have Dana’s ability to inhabit a living body in order to visit you?
My dad died when I was 8, and I’d love to be able to talk to him as an adult. I’m honestly not sure what I believe as far as afterlife goes, but it would be fascinating to hear what he’s been up to all these years.
Regret is a powerful theme running through the story. What do you think is the best way to overcome regret so that it doesn’t follow you in death?
Well, I think being honest with self and others is a good start but is also sometimes easier said than done. And recognizing the cost of carrying intense emotions around for years and years is helpful. Anger, fear, regret, guilt—all the things that drive people to the afterlife place in the book—are so charged with energy. It can be spiritually exhausting.
Characters tend to open up to Dana and spill all of their secrets. Is this a superpower of hers, or is it just because they are looking for an excuse to talk to someone who won’t judge or tell their secrets to the people closest to them?
A little of both. I feel like the people Dana encounters know they can trust her and can perhaps sense that she has heard and experienced a lot. But she’s also just a good listener.
Other than Dana, do you have a favorite character?
Dominic. He’s brash and self-centered, but underneath, he’s a caring and decent person who wants to help.
The final scene takes place in a cemetery. How do you feel about cemeteries? How, in any way, did that relationship factor into this final scene, or did it simply seem like a rational place to end the story?
I love cemeteries. I have on occasion dragged my family through them when we’re on vacation 😊 There’s so much history in a cemetery, so many stories. They are places where the living go to make their peace with the dead, and that seemed very necessary for Sean and Dana. And cemeteries are also so symbolic of endings, of course.
Author links
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www.Jensunwriter.com (blog)
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I love the supernatural elements of the book and how it bridges the gap between life and death!
It’s definitely thought-provoking territory! Thank you for your comment!
This amazing book engaged my mind and heart and I couldn’t put it down. The plot is so unique and fascinating, I’ve never read anything like it. The author’s writing grips your attention and her character development has you chuckling, cheering, gasping, and sighing. I promise you’ve never read anything like this great book
Thank you, Leann!
Passing Through is a fantastic book that brilliantly weaves together themes of death, redemption and love. Jenny is an incredibly talented writer and I enjoyed reading this interview and gaining some insight into her thought process for the book.
Thank you, Kerrie!