Review: Spooky Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 1, 2013
This was definitely better than Penmort Castle but I still don't like the hocus pocus stuff interrupting the beautiful romances that KA has been giving us. While we don't have the turbo-charged banshee totally jumping the shark the way we did in the first book, we still have a bit of a screamer for a spook and there's really no need for it. I know that's the whole point of this series but KA really does give us good enough stories and issues that all the ghost mumbo jumbo really does seem a bit superfluous.Anyway, this time we have three young children orphaned when their parents were killed in a car crash and are left in the care of Julia & Douglas, their paternal aunt and maternal uncle, in their parents' will. Julia is an American divorcee and has given up everything to come to live in Sommersgate House in England and raise her brother's children along with Douglas, heir to the stately pile, and the children's mother's brother. Still with me??This had all the hallmarks of a classic gothic Victorian melodrama - it even felt a little like Jane Eyre with Julia taking on Jane's role, Douglas as Rochester, Mrs Kilpatrick as Mrs Fairfax and even little Ruby as Adele. Of course, Jane is not a governess and Douglas goes to great lengths to make sure that no one sees her as a hired help but very much as part of the family.So Douglas - he's a bit of a cold fish to begin with and his story is actually quite heartbreaking and slowly revealed to us during the novel. We begin to understand his cold demeanour and I loved how he very slowly warmed up towards the children. He decides very early on that he and Julia should get married but Julia fights it all the way. She's been married before and is in no rush to have another go and feels she can marry for nothing less than love. Douglas does love her but it will take him just about the whole novel to realise it.Julia herself is a wonderfully warm character. She's been raised with love and wants nothing less for her nieces and nephew despite their terrible loss. Some of the scenes with Julia and the children were beautiful - there was one particular scene, on Christmas Day, which I felt so deeply, my vision blurred from tears. Beautifully written.While I enjoyed it, there were a few things I felt were totally unnecessary. Monique, Douglas' mother really had a starring role as a Monster-in-Law and she drags up Julia's ex husband who appeared for a fairly extraneous scene that really didn't contribute to the overall plot. Douglas has some kind of sneaky beaky MI6 role and had disappeared for 2 years in the past and returned scarred and this is never explained. But, these were minor gripes, and I mostly enjoyed the romance and tension between Julia and Douglas.I did wonder why the heroines are always American and not English when this series is set exclusively in England but have decided that this could be something to do with the fact that KA herself is an American living in England and she's sharing those experiences through her heroines.So, a good 4 star contemporary romance, with a brief ghostly interlude.