Review: Unlikable heroine
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 28, 2014
Thea is not a great beauty, but she has a sharp mind and can remember everything she reads.  Her father is asked to come to Locke Abbey to sort out murders that on the surface appear to be supernatural in nature.  Normally Thea's mother would accompany her husband but she had been injured in an accident.Our hero, Cole, is the heir to the estate.  His father has been suffering with bouts of illness and now seems to be in his last weeks of life.  Cole's mother had died a few years ago and his father had remarried.  The stepmother is a flirtatious and shallow woman.  She has borne two little girls whom Cole is very fond of, though he questions whether they are his father's children.There is a house full of guests when the murders occur, but it doesn't take the reader long to put the clues together.  That wasn't a disappointment as far as I was concerned as I read romances for -- well romance.  The lack of it was a disappointment for me.There was an attraction between the main characters but it came off as tepid at best.  He was respectful to the point of boring.  She was book smart but came off as abrasive in social situations.  Her intellect got in the way of my liking her, and I found it difficult to see what attracted the hero.  Thea character was written as a strong, intelligent woman who believed in science, but she wasn't above jumping to conclusions.The writing was a bit stiff and the conversations stilted.I would have enjoyed seeing more heat between the two main characters.  It certainly wouldn't have hurt the story.