Book Review Genre: Horror Romance

Disclaimer: Reading is all about exploring new worlds, but this Book Review does not shy away from spoiling specific scenes as this is more of my free-flowing thoughts about a book.

The Analysis:

This book feels different from the others I have read by this author. It reminds me more of Darcy Coates for some reason. It’s first person, the prose is lighter and less detailed, and yet a lot is happening in the story. And unlike the others, this feels less literary in describing the 1920s setting. In a nutshell, I preferred the writing of the previous books, but enjoyed the storyline and pacing of this one more. But, let’s book review it. First, follow me on Goodreads.

Here’s The Blurb:

1920s England. Sarah Piper’s lonely, threadbare existence changes when her temporary agency sends her to assist an obsessed ghost hunter. Alistair Gellis—rich, handsome, and scarred by World War I—has been summoned to investigate the spirit of the nineteen-year-old maid Maddy Clare, who is said to haunt the barn where she committed suicide.

Maddy hated men in life, and she will not speak to them in death. But Sarah is unprepared to confront an angry ghost—real or imagined—on her own. She’s even less prepared for the arrival of Alistair’s associate, rough, unsettling Matthew Ryder, also a veteran of the trenches, whose scars go deeper than Sarah can reach.

Soon, Sarah is caught up in a desperate struggle. For Maddy’s ghost is no hoax—she’s real, she’s angry, and she has powers that defy all reason. Now, Sarah and Matthew must discover who Maddy was, where she came from, and what is driving her desire for vengeance—before she destroys them all….

Cover Critique:

I read an ebook with the old cover. It was in the same style as some of the older novels I read. In comparison, it was certainly one of the weaker ones. So, the upgrade to this newer cover makes sense. I can’t really pinpoint why, but I’m not in love with the newer cover either. Perhaps because its a little more generic and doesn’t give me the creepy feeling that their is something in that barn that I should be worried about it.

Now The Story:

Book Info:
Pages: 335
Author: Simone St. James
Available: Amazon

The Setup: The heroine is a Temp recommended for a secretary job that’s more than a little unconventional. But she takes it out of a sense of adventure and no better options. She ends up working for ghost hunters and this ghost prefers females.

The Heroine: I can’t say I particularly like the heroine. She has this distinct us against them mentality when it comes to men in the beginning. A sentiment that would probably be natural considering the time frame. Yet this felt forced and unnatural like it was based on paranoia and nothing of real substance. She was also terribly scared. Again perfectly normal, but the others in her crew do this kind of a thing for a living, and yet she seemed determined to prevent them from doing it out of fear. It was giving, move out of the way and let the experts handle this. I took a point off because at times she made the book unbearable. Would you just chill and let them handle it, entered my head far too often lol.

The Story: We eventually get to the haunted house/barn and the owner has stipulations. The Ghost Hunter can’t publish any of his findings unless he rids them of the ghost. The heroine thought this was reasonable. I didn’t. Especially since the hunter never classifies himself as a ghost hunter but more as a reporter/historian. He certainly doesn’t claim to have some sort of special knowledge about exorcisms and the like. And the owners are positively ridiculous in their belief that simply asking the ghost to leave is all that’s needed. From a reader’s standpoint, this is quite amusing.

He’s also revealed to be more than a pretty face with his nose in a book. As the case continues, he gets stars in his eyes. It’s clear that he doesn’t plan to turn away for any reason. A sort of manic obsession takes hold. It’s during this that the heroine kind of loses the stars in her eyes and we’re introduced to the real object of her affection.

It’s after the heroine’s first encounter with the ghost, we meet the male secretary that she temporarily replaced. A burly man that one would normally not suspect to take such a job. He gets his boss alone and attempts to talk some sense into the man. The heroine is coming off as vulnerable and sensitive and he worries about her mentality. I thought that man was really astute. Of course, the heroine took this assessment as character assassination. However, her own actions with the ghost confirmed it when she failed to look at the ghost, depriving me of a look at just what it was supposed to be.

The haunting itself is certainly interesting enough. There’s a bit of a mystery as we get to the bottom of what happened to Maddie Claire when she was alive in addition to the haunting. The woman killed herself in the barn and thus this is where her energy is concentrated primarily. But we also get scenes of her being destructive in the main house and calling forth crows to be a scary nuisance. It’s all quite interesting. This certainly is the first book where the investigators don’t stay in the house or the barn while the investigation is going on, but retreat to neutral ground of an Inn. This breaks up the story nicely and allows us to see the character’s personality outside the job.

I think for the majority of the story, I saw Maddy as nothing more than a nuisance. However, somewhere in the third act when the owners sat down with the hunters to brainstorm what happened to her when she was alive I felt the first pains of sympathy. Every option was worse than the next. I walked away with the feeling that human Maddy deserved better. It pained me to read her turmoil. Ghost Maddy was still responsible for putting ghost hunter #1 in a mental coma and thus was owed nothing.

The Romance: The chemistry between our couple goes beyond simple bad first impressions. One of which is her accidentally seeing his scarred body and having an aversive reaction. It’s through him that I end up liking her more. Her reactions to him are clumsy, awkward, and innocent in their wholesomeness. It certainly gives one the impression that they are made for each other. Two mismatched boxcars looking for love.

Favorite Moment Of The Story: “Maddy get out.” The owner burst into the barn with an oil lamp and set it on fire. In my mind, the woman was just fed up. I sympathized. Maddy don’t pay no bills, but the chick is running everything over a tragedy that followed her into the afterlife. It made me pity her. But from the owner’s standpoint, the lady had nothing to do with it. Yet, Maddy’s not keeping her rapists up at night, she’s putting the woman that tried to help thru hell. Sucks it didn’t work but only released Maddy’s spirit to roam about town. [If this is made into a movie, the owner has to be black. Just to give this line the level of sass it deserves to match what’s in my head lol.]

The Ending: I’m not sure where I stand on it. It was certainly eventful, but our ghost hunters were powerless to stop it. The Ghost kinda just fulfilled her destiny and then faded off into the sunset. They didn’t even follow up with the owner of the house beyond filling her in initially to what happened. A six-month checkup or something would have been nice. Of course, the reason behind the ghost’s suicide was intriguing from an emotional standpoint. But it was a blip in the ending as it wrapped up. I liked the ending overall, but I suppose I wanted more.

Leave your book review for one of my books. Check out what I offer in the Shop.

Book Review At A Glance:

Recommendation:  4 out of 5

Book Cover Appeal:

🍓🍓🍓

Story & Narration:

🍓🍓🍓🍓

Romance:

🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓

Character/(s) Personality:

🍓🍓🍓