This is the first Charles de Lint that I've read. I really didn't know where to start with him because I know he has a long-running series, and even though I think the books can be read out of order I don't like to do that. The Mystery of Grace is a stand alone book and I absolutely loved the book. 
 Grace is a mechanic with a love of classic Ford car and rockabilly music. The book opens a couple of weeks after her grandfather has passed away and Grace has not been taking it well. She's been shutting herself up in her apartment and not seeing her friends. It's on one of these evenings when she is by herself that she decides to go to a small local grocery store to pick up some cigarettes. What ends up walking into the store is an attempted robbery with Grace as the casualty. 
 She wakes up three days later in her bed in her apartment thinking she's had a terrible dream, but in fact Grace had died. Here starts a beautiful story about what may await us on the other side and learning how to have faith in what you don't understand. 
 I liked that de Lint gave us his story yet didn't preach about anything. He still left enough of the possiblity of the beyond to our own thoughts and imaginations. 
 I also liked the sense of hope that I felt reading this book. I won't lie it was sad. Reading about Grace losing her life before it should have been time, then Grace finding someone who she really cared for only too late, was heartbreaking. But, and I don't want to give anything away, after certain events cause Grace to really look at the (after)life she's living and dedcide that she does have faith in what is to come, I felt that she was right in her trust in that which she didn't know or understand. 
 I wish the story could have continued on, but I understand why it ended the way it did, because we really don't know. It's something for each of us to find / figure out on our own. I liked that the story was written this way, but like I said it left be with this great sense of hope on Grace's part. This is a book that I can see myself going back to read in the future.