"great amateur sleuth"

Following a difficult divorce family counselor Elizabeth Conner returns home to San Pico California. She begins her new practice working with youth. Client Raul enters a nearby drug rehabilitation program at the Harcourt Farm, but asks Elizabeth and instructor Zack Harcourt to see if his sister, Maria Santiago is okay as she suffers nightmares and fears for her unborn, but her spouse Miguel assumes is runaway hormones. Zack especially promises to help Maria.

Elizabeth immediately sees the antipathy shared by Zack and his brother Carson, who runs the family farm, towards one another. Whereas Carson is all charm, Zack is dark and aloof perhaps because of his time in prison for the DUI vehicular accident that crippled their dad. Still he is empathic towards her concerns that something is wrong with the house that Maria resides in as if the place is haunted by a sad spirit. As Zack and Maria work together to solve the mystery of the ghostly girl visitor, they fall in love, but the ghostly investigation leads back to Zack's DUI and the disappearance of a nomadic loner Jake Benson four years ago.

Based loosely on the reported story of a young female ghost haunting the home of a Hispanic couple in San Joaquin Valley, SCENT OF ROSES is a terrific paranormal romantic suspense thriller. The lead pairing make the tale extremely entertaining as the investigation by Zack and Elizabeth take them into the realm of the supernatural on the one hand and into the lethal natural past on the other hand. The lead couple each is flawed from their recent history; she from her divorce and he from the DUI that crippled his dad. Filled with twists that will surprise and delight fans, Kat Martin provides a great amateur sleuth tale.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 18, 2006

Summary

Elizabeth doesn't believe in ghosts.
But this time she has no choice.

Family counselor Elizabeth Conner isn't sure what to think when Maria Santiago comes to her for help. Pregnant and terrified, Maria claims to be visited each night by the ghost of a little girl, warning her to flee. Her husband, Miguel, a migrant worker at Harcourt Farms, dismisses her fears as hormonal changes, but Elizabeth agrees to help by contacting Miguel's employers who own the cottage where the young couple lives.

Elizabeth immediately picks up on the deep enmity between the two Harcourt brothers: Carson, the handsome scion running the estate for his incapacitated father, and Zack, the rebellious black sheep. While Carson is more interested in Elizabeth than in her concerns, Zack grudgingly agrees to help her look into the history of the house.

But even as unexpected desire draws them together, Elizabeth and Zack feel something dark and disturbing at the house, a cloying scent and lingering chill of pure evil. Elizabeth knows something terrible has happened here before, something that has its roots in murder . . .