What: A Ghostly Challenge
When: 1 September – 31 October 2008
Who: Callista (SMS Book Reviews)
I actually finished this challenge back in September.
The requirement was, on one hand, simple — and on the other hand, really hard. Two books, easy enough. Two books with a ghost theme? A little tricky if your plans were to stick with what was already in your TBR pile. I have a nice backlog of Silhouette Nocturnes and paranormal/urban fantasy, but not nearly enough with a talk-to-the-dead/ghost theme — vampires, though dead, really don’t count.
Of the two books I did complete, I liked Stephanie Doyle’s Possessed the best. The heroines in both Possessed and Haunted, can see or hear the dead, but I thought Cassie for Possessed was the stronger, more capable character. She accepted her gift and knew how to handle it better.
RED books are listed on multiple challenges.
- Haunted (Lisa Childs) {10 Sep 08} (REVIEW)
- Dead to Me (Anton Strout) (DNF)
- Possessed (Stephanie Doyle) {22 Sep 08} (REVIEW)
Possessed
Author: Stephanie Doyle
Copyright: 2006 (Harlequin); pgs. 292
Series: Silhouette Bombshell #118
Sensuality: Warm
Who: Cassandra Allen and Malcolm McDonough
Where: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cassandra Allen is a medium. She can communicate with the dead. She has learned to control her gift so that the dead don’t overwhelm her with their attempts to contact loved ones. However, her quiet, simple life is also very lonely. Cassandra doesn’t like large crowds and strives to avoid being touched — regardless if it’s a friendly pat on the shoulder or an intimate caress. She has no social life and her efforts to shield herself have an adverse effect on her ability to keep a job. Eventually her reserved, standoffish and strange behavior gives her coworkers and boss the creeps, and she is fired. And if that doesn’t seal her fate, the appearance of a gun-toting and disturbed man showing up at the coffeehouse demanding to speak to her, will certainly do the trick. To offset her precarious employment situation, Cassandra does consultant work for the local police.
Detective Doug Brody, who lost his beloved wife, is Cassandra’s one friend. He believes in her abilities and her track record with helping him crack a case is good enough to ensure that the department doesn’t baulk too much when she’s called in. Her gift allows her to determine if a suspect is guilty or innocent. Doug asks for her help on a new case. A young woman, Lauren, was brutally murdered not far from where Cassandra currently lives. The police have the woman’s brother in for questioning. The problem is that Malcolm McDonough has connections and any misstep with him could bring the mayor’s office down on their heads. McDonough has been at the station for hours, without calling his lawyer, and the detective can’t get a good read on him: his icy behavior could either be his way of dealing with the tragedy or he’s a sociopath.
Malcolm is rude and insulting to Cassandra, but that doesn’t stop her from clearing him of suspicion. Within minutes of meeting him, Cassandra knows that Malcolm is innocent. Lauren is worried that her brother won’t be able to cope with her death, that he’ll isolate himself more now that he’s all alone. Lauren was the last of his family and she doesn’t want him to be lonely and unhappy. Malcolm doesn’t react well to learning how Cassandra knows what she does. He’s so angry and hurt, he briefly suspects her of having something to do with the murder.
Not only does Cassandra have to deal with Malcolm, something frightening is happening. She is being attacked, mentally, by a monster. Since contact with the dead always manifest itself on her body in some way — bloody nose, black eye — the monster’s presence is leaving her beaten and weak. She doesn’t know who the monster is trying to contact, since the first attack happened when she was alone in her apartment. The second attack takes place on a busy street, with many people about. Malcolm saves her from being hit by a car and sees first hand what she goes through. He’s still skeptical, but that doesn’t stop him from being concerned for her welfare.
Even more frightening than the monster is the possibility that Malcolm is getting too close; that there might be a connection between them that has nothing to do with Lauren. She’s so afraid of what might happen between them, that she doesn’t even realize that Lauren only contacts her when it’s absolutely necessary. Lauren’s wants her brother to be happy. Malcolm is coping with Lauren’s death, for not being able to protect or save her, by trying to help Cassandra. Regardless of the antagonism that crops up between them, they make each other happy.
I enjoyed this book very much. I thought Malcolm’s reactions to Cassandra were very realistic. Over time, as he witnessed what was happening to her, his skepticism is slowly chipped away. Both are independent, stubborn people who force each other to admit that they are closed off and lonely. I liked the fact that the monster wasn’t a real one (something supernatural like a demon, for example). Because the man who died was such a horrible person in life, that is how he is perceived. It added a layer of mystery to what was happening, since Cassandra couldn’t understand it or cope with it.
Teaser Tuesdays entry.
Started: 15 September 2008
Finished: 22 September 2008
Rating:
Liked A Lot
terms
Haunted
Author: Lisa Childs
Copyright: 2006 (Harlequin); pgs. 296
Series: Silhouette Nocturne #6; Witch Hunt #1
Sensuality: Warm
Who: Ariel Cooper (witch) and David Koster
Where: Michigan
Ariel Cooper is descended for a long line of witches, each who had a different “gift”. Ariel’s gift is that she can see the dead. When she and her sisters — Elena, the eldest and Irina, the youngest — were children, they were taken from their mother. Before that event, Myra Cooper told them the family legend and gave each of her daughters one of the family charms to help protect them. Ariel and her sisters were separated and she hasn’t see them since.
Life has been rough for Ariel. Bounced around from foster family to foster family, and thought to be crazy, Ariel has found it hard to get close to people. Even so, she’s managed to go to college and become an elementary school teacher. She’s been dating the brilliant and wealthy David Koster for six months, having met when one of her student writing assignments led to him visiting her classroom. Though she’s had her heart broken before, Ariel can’t help but fall for this kind and generous man. In the time that they’ve been dating, she’s manage to keep her secret from him, afraid that she’ll lose him.
But all that changes when the ghost of one of her students appears suddenly in her classroom. Ariel had long suspected that the little girl was being abused, but without proof, she could only do so much. She sends the police, already knowing it’s too late to save the child. The incident leaves her wracked with guilt. For not being able to help the little girl, for keeping secrets from David and for pushing him away when he was trying to comfort her, and for putting his best friend, police officer Ty McIntyre, in danger.
The incident has also made David realize that he’s afraid to lose Ariel. He loves her, at that frightens her. Shunned once before by a former boyfriend, Ariel struggles with telling him the truth. She keeps putting it off, and instead focuses on finding out what happened to her sisters. The reason for the urgency is that an old enemy of the witches is out for revenge, and several members of Ariel’s extended maternal family end up dead, including her own mother. The mysterious killer is after the sisters and their charms.
Since this is the first book in a trilogy, the main story threads — the sisters reuniting and confronting their enemy — are not resolved in this book. The primary focus is on Ariel’s struggle with being rejected all her life. She was never adopted and her name was never changed, nor did she leave the community she grew up in. If any of her family had really wanted her, they could have found her easily enough. She is stunned to learn that a least one of her sisters lives nearby.
This was a quick read, once I had several hours on uninterrupted reading time. It wasn’t a scary story or very suspenseful. Since romance books like this must have a happy ending, the author’s attempt to make us believe the hero was actually the bad guy wasn’t very effective. I never once thought David was the culprit.
Started: 6 September 2008
Finished: 10 September 2008
Teaser Tuesdays post
Rating:
Enjoyed it!
international
Teaser Tuesdays asks you to:
Grab your current read.
Let the book fall open to a random page.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!
The teaser:
Once, she thought it was his big brown eyes that were irresistible, but now she knew it was his voice. Half man’s, half boy’s, his voice compelled every woman in earshot to want to either save him or cook for him.
– from page 19, Possessed (Stephanie Doyle)
Why I picked this book: I’m reading this Silhouette Bombshell as part of the Ghostly Challenge. The main character, Cassandra Allen, is a medium and can talk to the dead. She occasionally helps the police on cases.
Teaser Tuesdays asks you to:
Grab your current read.
Let the book fall open to a random page.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!
The teaser:
As soon as the old woman had given him the book, he had read it all. He knew every secret now, the other things his ancestor had admitted only in the pages of his private journal.
– from page 95, Haunted (Lisa Childs)
Why I picked this book: I’m reading this Silhouette Nocturne as part of the Ghostly Challenge. The main character, Ariel Cooper, is a witch who can see the souls of the newly departed.
