"Noisy lovemaking ghosts spice up a murder mystery"

Eve Abernathy has a problem -- her new home is inhabited by ghosts. On Halloween thirty years ago, Alistair Stamper supposedly murdered his unfaithful wife Viola, then killed himself. As Halloween draws near again, the ghosts begin to appear more frequently and more vividly, re-enacting their last day of life -- including their evening of noisy lovemaking on most of the pieces of furniture in the house. This is rather disconcerting for Eve, but is certainly giving her an education! However, the evening always ends with the horrifying repeat of their deaths, so Eve is determined to help the ghosts 'move on' and end their torment. And having spent much of her life associating with mediums and spiritualists and ghost hunters, due to her father's attempts to contact his beloved late wife, Eve knows just whom to contact for help. Unfortunately, ghost expert Lucien Thorpe may be the best man for the job, but he's also the man who left her standing at the altar two years ago.

Lucien has been able to see and talk to ghosts his whole life. His mother feared him and most people treat him as a freak. He couldn't help but fall in love with Eve, who accepted him and his abilities so calmly and naturally. Unfortunately, his preoccupations with the paranormal often result in forgetting the needs and responsibilities of real life -- leading to things like being so caught up with researching a ghost that he showed up three days late for his own wedding. He insists that he never forgot Eve, he just forgot the date. But Eve decided she wanted a normal life, with a normal husband and family and friends, in a sedate small town. Lucien can't understand how she can suppress her own uniqueness and settle for such boredom. Helping Eve deal with the ghosts in her house gives him the chance to try to win her back.

Of course, helping the ghosts 'move on' turns out to be far from simple. As Eve investigates the Stampers and the circumstances of their death, it seems more and more likely that the stories remembered from three decades ago may be very wrong, and that a lot of people in town have things to hide. Some of them may even be willing to kill to keep their secrets hidden.

This was a very good and suspenseful mystery, with lots of red herrings; I did not guess the identity of the villain until very near the end. Eve and Lucien's relationship developed plausibly -- there was a lot of humor in her desire to be proper and normal, and his less-than- successful attempts to conform to propriety and proper behavior. And of course, the sex lives of ghosts was wonderful, as was Eve's reaction to what she was seeing and Lucien's embarrassment and efforts to control his own arousal.

The second in the series, SHADES OF WINTER, is due out April 2003.

Reviewed by Raelene Gorlinsky
Courtesy Sensual Romance
Posted January 7, 2003

Summary

Summoning the man who left her at the altar two years ago is definitely a last resort for Eve Abernathy. But paranormal expert Lucien Thorpe is the only person who can rid her house of the uneasy ghosts--noisy, lovemaking ghosts, no less--who haunt it, and her.

Eve may be ahead of her time as a woman who documents otherworldly actvity, but she longs for the kind of life other women take for granted--including a kind, sturdy husband and children to raise. Eve knows absentminded genius Lucien is more comfortable with the dead than the living, and better acquainted with his Specter-o-Meter than the longings of a woman's heart. But with his arrival, Eve can't deny that her feelings for him haunt her as restlessly as the shades who have invaded her home-- especially when Lucien is doing his utmost to woo her all over again.