Review: Take me back
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2013
A Georgia plantation house which contains a ghost?  Rachael isn't sure what to believe, but the current owners of Weston Plantation encounter trouble as they try to build a hotel.  Apparently Ingrid, wife of a former owner, scrawls unhappy messages in the dust. She died at Weston but was buried at the family's second home at Turtle Tear in Florida, and her spirit remained at Weston. Rachael and her partner Merrick are renovating at Turtle Tear and about to host a wedding party.  Rachel uncovers a trunk of old objects and letters, which leads to her becoming just a little obsessed.TAKE ME BACK is an erotic love story (and we could have done without every bedroom detail of every day) told in present tense. Merrick has unresolved issues in his past, such as whether he fathered a child at the age of twelve, and he is cross with Rachael for not telling him everything. She realises that wanting to find an old recipe for key lime pie is not a wholly convincing excuse for travelling from Florida to Georgia to look through a barn full of junk and kitchen equipment.  The female owner of Weston sees  a message smeared on a window and panics... odd since nothing sinister is happening.  Rachael investigates and thinks that maybe a ghost cannot cross the water to an island to be with her grave. Her relationship is going downhill fast, and she barely notices.This novella by Kelli Maine could appeal to those interested in family trees and histories.  I disliked Rachael's habit of constantly speaking to Merrick in her mind as she tells her story, "I wondered what you would make of it." Combined with the present tense this makes it hard to get into the story and the reader feels someone else is being addressed.  There is an earlier book called 'Taken' and it would help to read that one first to get a good grip on the characters and locations.