Review: Predictable Fare for Ghost Lovers
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 2, 2013
Overall, I enjoyed this book but it wasn't all that original.  The writing was good, which is something I've come to treasure in today's market, when anyone can publish their poorly written slop without much difficulty and even best selling authors from major publishing houses are suffering a lack of editing.  For that reason alone, I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes paranormal/Gothic romance.If you're not looking for characters with depth or a plot with surprising twists, you'll probably enjoy this book.There were two things that I didn't like.  (SPOILER ALERT!)  First, the way the love scenes were written gave me the impression that this author isn't really comfortable writing about sex.  When the hero and heroine made love for the first time, the tone suddenly became weirdly formal, with lines like "It seemed imperative that their bodies meet without hindrance..." which sort of killed the mood for me.  There were also so many flagrant metaphors ("He stirred her...like waves of a storm"; "They poised on the edge of a volcano...") that I totally missed the ghostly elements during that scene because I thought it was just more metaphor.  It was only at the end of the scene, when the characters started talking about what had just happened, that I even understood what the author was trying to portray.Second, I'm a retired professional musician who also has a degree in psychology, and unfortunately, this author tried to portray both a musician character and a character who suffers mental problems without doing enough research into either area.  Most people who lack my background might not notice, but for me, these flaws were glaring.  I'm not certain how this author came up with her information, but it was both inaccurate and outdated.  I realize it's nerdy to expect writers to do a little basic research before they start typing, but this kind of sloppiness tends to ruin books for me.  I can handle a bit of poetic license, but this went beyond that, straight into the realm of lazy disregard for plausibility.One other complaint: most ebooks allow the reader to jump between chapters.  This one didn't, making it very difficult to move through the book if I wanted to go back and check something I'd read before--something I often do while reading a book which involves some sort of mystery.  This really annoyed me, more than the occasion errors in the formatting did.If you're not too picky and don't expect too much, you'll probably enjoy this book.  It's not a bad way to kill an afternoon if you have nothing better to do.