I read this as an unabridged audiobook which is usually an advantage for me but I may have been better off reading the paperback version because I wasn’t thrilled with the male narrator who reads the bulk of the book. His voice kept putting me off and kept me at a distance from the story or maybe I should face the fact that the romance just wasn’t that great. I guess the combination of the two didn't help.The prologue details some nasty business featuring rape, murder and madness that went down in the 1800’s. Just when it had my full attention it leaps forward to 2002 and loses me a bit.
Declan Fitzgerald is 31 and a successful attorney but his heart isn’t in it and he decides to trek across country and purchase a Louisiana mansion with the intent of fixing it up even though he’s no carpenter. Yes folks, this is the mansion where the nasty stuff happened. It is soon revealed that Declan had basically left a fiancee at the altar a few months earlier and the thought occurs to me that he’s running away from life which doesn’t exactly win me over. Almost immediately he starts seeing visions and hearing a baby crying and this intrigues instead of frightens him because, as we're told over and over again, he feels like he is finally exactly where he belongs.
His love interest is local bar owner Angelina (call me Lina because I’m no Angel) whose grandmother lives near Declan’s property. Lina is independent but soon swoons when Declan is near and begins to help him unravel the secrets of the mansion. She’s gorgeous and a good business woman but she was just a bit too distant for me for a large portion of the book. The reasons why were revealed way too late because at that point I had nearly tuned her out.
I found the ghostly aspects of this story much more compelling than the modern day romance. It was all rather by the numbers and “meh” without much emotional connection and the love scenes were a snore. The flashbacks to the past were much more interesting to me and I found myself wishing on more than one occasion that the entire book was set in the past. As the story continues events are revealed to tie in the current day couple to past but it all seemed a little off to me. Not my favorite by Robert’s but not the worst book I’ve ever read either.
