Review: Disappointment
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 28, 2012
Natalie Nicole Bates' novel Antique Charming is the story of funeral director Lizzie Morton who believes she is seeing a phantom when the funeral home's long lost director/undertaker Adam Nichols returns to the parlor.  Befuddled by this new development, Lizzie tries to track down the real estate agent who sold her the funeral home, but is told the individual never worked at the real estate office.  What is a girl to do when she revolves her life around something that isn't true?Bates' writing is intelligent, although the plot development lacks stimulation.  The story has many flaws such as who is the real estate agent Caroline Harper, is Lizzie living in the present and Nichols has time traveled to be with her, or has Lizzie gone back in time to 1896 to be with Adam?  These questions run through the readers minds but are never resolved.  At one point, Bates has Lizzie contemplating to kill Adam, but then out of no where falls in love with Adam and they admit to belonging together in the closing scene.Antique Charming elevates readers senses at first, but then deflates them through the subsequent chapters making it a novella that lacks the potential to entice readers to be enamored of the story.