Review: Gothic Romance!!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 14, 2013
Wow!! That's how I have to begin this review. Michelle Cornwell-Jordan amazed me with this novelette titled Tourmentin (A Gothic Love Story). It is an adult romance (Gothic romance that is) with a hint of Voodoo. The setting is in New Orleans (a place I love) in a hotel called the Hotel le Coup de Foudre. The reader discovers that le coup de foudre means love at first sight and was named this because Serafine and Emile fell in love at first sight and the hotel was their home in the early 1800s. This book absolutely pulls the reader in immediately not letting them go for one second. It is wonderfully suspenseful. At the very beginning the reader knows that something is aloof when a young writer named Melissa checks into the Hotel le Coup de Foudre and discovers that the man supposedly haunting the hotel (Emile) has the same last name as her, Despre. She is immediately drawn to a portrait of Emile in the lobby. Melissa's resistance to the truth of who she really is doesn't last long giving way to the love story that unfolds. Melissa and Emile's love is one that transcends both time and space. I will also mention that there is a witch who can't even come between these two lovers. And the revelation of the witch at the end is shocking and unexpected which really was a great twist. This book is superbly written. I would have to liken this book to a story I would expect from Anne Rice (but with no vampires). Hats off to you Michelle. Wonderfully written!