Raintree: Haunted
By Linda Winstead Jones
Release Date: June 1, 2007
Ebook Available from WV Reads!
4 stars! - I enjoyed this exciting supernatural mystery more than I expected. At the heart of the story is a good murder tale. The blurb sort of ruined some of the suspense and surprises itself, but Jones uses a compelling hero who is surprisingly human to keep a reader engrossed to the end.
Paranormal romance is not my favorite genre but when Halloween and Fall start to come around I usually pick up a couple supernatural stories. Gideon, our hero here, has gifts that make him powerful yet humbled. And he feels compelled to use what he can to keep killers off the street. Hope, however, doesn't come off as the lesser half of the couple. She's smart, motivated, and can defend herself. I loved how she proved to be open-minded and yet stubborn enough to stick with being Gideon's partner. She doesn't quite take it all on faith but it doesn't take her long to come around and support him.
I can't give away a lot of the actual romance and the way they fell in love because the more that's given away, the less fun all the surprises are. But the adorable "ghost" Emma was a favorite. I thought the set up with Hope's gypsy-like family in comparison to Gideon's gifted one was such a cute idea. Hope's discomfort at being the practical cop surrounded by her free thinking Mom and sister. I actually think it would set up a great series itself. But the last third or so of the book has so many twists and surprises that I can't say the ending wasn't satisfying. It does feel a bit rushed but given the page count constraints, I can give it a pass. And even if the very last pages were an obvious set up to the final book in the series. I started with Linda Howard's (a frequent partner of Linda Jones) first entry in this series. But Haunted could be read on its own. Not much is given away in the story and the world building and family rivalry details are here as a recap.
(NS)
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