Review: A rare case when a story may have benefited from LESS romance
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 16, 2012
"Why did spirits have to be so vague?"  And why do they only communicate with "vague, you-try-and-figure-out-what-I'm-saying crap."  My thoughts exactly.  I'm glad that Ashley, a mystery writer and the heroine of "Secrets", expressed this frustration when the ghostly Sara reached out to her.  But this would have been a much shorter book if Sara had given up all of her secrets in the first chapter.Sara, who has been deceased for a year, "contacts" Ashley and expresses an urgent need for Ashley to convey some information to Nathaniel, Ashley's widower husband.  Ashley has never met Nathaniel, and she doesn't know exactly what Sara needs, but her first priority is to convince Nathaniel that she's not crazy.  When Ashley shows up at Nathaniel's house, proclaiming to have been sent by Sara, he's still in grief.  He resents the intrusion, and he's more than a tad disbelieving of Ashley's story.  She eventually convinces him, and when she does, it's a very touching moment.  Their initial attraction speeds up at this point.  I found this change in their relationship abrupt and not very believable, and Nathaniel's grief over Sara seemed to go out the window very quickly.  When they were still getting to know each other, and after having only shared a couple of kisses, Nathaniel learns that Ashley has a stalker.  Nathaniel thinks, "God, if something had happened to her, [I] wouldn't survive it."  That seemed to come out of left field.  I wish the author would have prolonged the intense romance; it would have been a nicer treat to see them come together at the end.The mysterious, unknown stalker is obsessed with Ashley. "He arches his brows wickedly" and "smiles ruthlessly."  Pretty much everything but cackle wildly and twirl his mustache evilly.  When the villain is revealed at the end, I was surprised.  The surprise was possible because the villain's stated methodology and the timing of when he started stalking Ashley didn't really add up.The book started off strong, but I felt like it went downhill as soon as Ashley and Nathaniel became romantically involved so abruptly.  The ghost theme didn't have much to do with the story, other than to serve as unique way to get the two main characters together.  It did come into play at the very end of the book, but it was in a way that was too sappy for me.There are irksome typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors throughout.  Some if it is sloppiness, but in other cases, it's a lack of knowledge of basic grammar.  I was able to get past it because the story was decent, but they are plentiful enough that some readers may get too frustrated to continue.  I hope someone will edit this book, because it risks turning off too many readers in its current state.