Death at the Door (Ruby and Cordelia Mysteries #2) by Olivia Blacke 
Series: Ruby and Cordelia Mysteries #2
Published by St. Martin's Press on October 21, 2025
Genres: Mystery
Pages: 344
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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I like these characters and look forward to more.
In this series, we have 20-year-old Ruby Young, who moved from Maryland to Boston, MA to get away from her cheating boyfriend. She had taken over the small apartment after Cordelia Grave’s suicide. The apartment came fully furnished and included a ghostly roommate. In the first book, Cordy uses the refrigerator poem magnets to communicate with Ruby. They also found out if Ruby gets drunk, she can actually see and communicate with Cordy, except trying to remember that conversation with a pounding headache the next morning isn’t easy.
In the last story, Ruby and Cordy’s neighbor is killed and they work together to solve the mystery of his death. Along the way, they also determine that there are inconsistencies in Cordy’s “suicide” and Ruby believes someone might have murdered Cordy–but who and why? Cordy was a 40-something woman with a drinking problem, no friends and having an affair with her married boss. Her only living relative is her brother, Ian, who is in prison. There was nobody around to question her death, and it just looked like a lonely woman who gave up on life.
When I picked up this story, I couldn’t wait to see how that would play out. What happened to Cordy? I was kind of disappointed that this story focuses on the death of another character.
It is with Cordy’s help that Ruby landed a decent paying job–actually Cordy’s old job. This does lead to some awkward questions by her co-workers how Ruby landed Cordy’s old job and lives in Cordy’s old apartment but didn’t know Cordelia. And of course, Ruby can’t mention that they live together and Cordy usually follows Ruby to the office. While communication is still difficult between the living and the dead, Ruby and Cordy are starting to work things out to help them communicate.
When Marty, the delivery guy dies in the company’s bathroom, after delivering snacks for a big company meeting, Cordy and Ruby begin looking into his death. Since Marty was also delivery pharmaceuticals along with sandwiches, just like with Cordelia’s death, the cop’s didn’t look past death by overdose for Marty the drug dealer, but when Cordelia manages to learn that Marty died suffocating on a throat filled with pills, Cordy and Ruby are on the case to find Marty’s murderer.
In this story we are introduced to a new neighbor, hot tech-guy Tosh, who moved into the apartment of last story’s dead guy, but no ghost roommate for him. Is Tosh just a hot new love interest for Ruby or is he a plant to get inside information on Ruby’s rival tech company? We also get to meet Cordy’s little brother Ian, who was released from prison but who was never told about Cordelia’s death and Ruby finds him in her apartment waiting for his sister. Cordy is torn between her love for her little brother who she always protected, and protecting Ruby from Ian who is well-known to being a user and a thief. We like Ian but is he hanging around for more nefarious reason then just not knowing what to do with himself post-prison and no big sister around anymore?
While I was disappointed that we didn’t investigate Cordelia’s death directly, we do get a better feeling for her co-workers and the tech company. This leads to more possibilities about Cordelia’s death. I understand that we want to prolong this mystery and keep it simmering in order to prolong the series so I will try to hold off my disappointment into solving Cordy’s mystery. I like the characters here and sadly, even when we solve that mystery of Cordelia’s death, she doesn’t get to return to be more a part of everyone’s lives.
I am looking forward to more Cordy and Ruby solving mysteries.
Favorite Scene:
Cordy is teaching Ruby how to cook real food so she takes her grocery shopping.
I could tell by the absence of that weird skin-tingly sensation I sometimes got when Cordelia was around that she hadn’t followed me to the plant aisle, because the feeling returned as I approached the cans and jars of tomatoes. I hoped that Cordelia was too busy choosing from the wide selection of low-salt, no-salt, and extra-salt options to realize I’d slipped away for a minute. Unfortunately, she’d also been too distracted to notice that we were no longer the only ones in the aisle.
When two jars of tomato sauce levitated off the shelf seemingly all by themselves, the unsuspecting shopper standing near my cart shrieked. Cordelia dropped the jars. Glass shattered. Tomato sauce splashed everywhere, transforming the aisle into a crimson crime scene that smelled like basil and garlic.
I could barely hold back my laughter as the other shopper, her face ashen, and her breaths shallow, turned to me. “Did you…Did they…You saw that, right?”
“Saw what?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face. Knowing Cordelia, she’d selected the most expensive tomato sauce in the entire store, but I snatched two jars at random off the shelf and tossed them into the cart. I hurried off, the squeaky wheel of my cart chirping louder and faster I walked.
At the end of the aisle, I nearly barreled into a store employee who’d been alerted by the woman’s shriek, the sound of breaking glass, or both. “Someone made a mess down there,” I told him, pointing over my shoulder. My face was as red as the splattered tomato sauce as I hastily rounded the corner down the next aisle.
“Cordelia,” I said under my breath, as a giggle escaped. “You should leave the shopping to me.”
I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t hear her. But I had that someone-standing-over-my-shoulder feeling I got when she was around.
“What’s next on the list?” I asked aloud, knowing Cordelia couldn’t answer me.
I pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket and consulted the ingredients. I was the only person in the store with a hand-written grocery list in this, the twenty-first century, instead of keeping one on my phone. That would be Cordelia’s doing.
There was something about a ghost in the vicinity that made electronics go wonky. Since she was almost always nearby, I’d adapted by relying on my phone less and less. Sure, it meant occasionally getting on the wrong bus or missing a call from home, but part of me was relieved to not be tethered to a screen like I had been before I moved to Boston.
I stopped in front of a wall of eggs, feeling a little dizzy at the selection. Organic? Heirloom? Local? Free-range? I grabbed a cardboard carton at random and put it in the basket.
The eggs levitated out of the cart and settled back on the refrigerated shelf. A different dozen floated into the front basket of my cart, next to the Monstera plant. “Showoff,” I told her.
From what I could tell, Cordelia was making up the rules as she went along. Sometimes, when she picked something up, I could see it moving on its own–like some special-effects trick, but in real life. Other times, things just appeared like magic out of nowhere. Sometimes she would walk through a solid wall; other times she would open and close the door like anyone else. There were entire days when she wouldn’t leave me alone, and others when she wasn’t around at all. It was almost like living with a cat, random glasses getting knocked off the counter and all.
I glanced at the price sticker. “I can’t afford these,” I argued. “They’re three times as expensive as the ones I picked!” I could comfortably afford groceries for the first time since I’d moved out of my family house in Baltimore, but even with a steady paycheck, I didn’t throw money around.
In response, my cart started rolling away from the display of eggs.
“Fine,” I said, knowing that arguing with a ghost was fruitless. “But you’re chipping in on the grocery bills this month.”
