Change

Nessa James lives alone near the ocean in Mattauk, the Long Island beach town where she raised her family. Her husband is dead. Her twin daughters have left for college, and in the quiet of her late forties she starts hearing voices. They belong to the dead, an inherited gift from her grandmother that comes with its own obligations.

Two more women are already changing beside her. Harriett Osborne, once an advertising director, has watched her marriage and career collapse. Her garden has grown into a tangle of poisonous and medicinal plants she can now command. Jo Levison channels her menopausal rage and hot flashes into fire she did not have a month before.

Nessa follows one of the voices to a remote beach and the three women find a decomposing body instead: a teenage girl the police have written off as a drug-addicted sex worker. Nessa insists there is another ghost on that sand. The trail leads toward more victims and the wealthy men of Mattauk's most exclusive enclave.

The Change runs supernatural power and crime investigation through the same plot, with satire about ageism and sexism sitting close underneath. Mordant humor cuts against the suspense, and the pace stays brisk even as the case widens.