3rd Act Books, $2.99, ISBN 978-1310452932
Paranormal Romance, 2016
Jessica Windsor, bestselling romance author, is unable to write anything and her agent is hounding her. After all, it’s hard to write when she just had a terrible break-up, and we all know that everything a romance author writes is totally true and autobiographical.
Honestly, I don’t know why romance authors keep pushing this myth and then get offended by crazy fans ask them whether it’s true that they are shagging a ghost like the heroine in the story.
Back to Jessica, she goes off to rent a log cabin — a comfy and grand one, of course — in the Pennsylvanian mountains so that she can find her muse in the solitude, birds, and smelly nature. She ditches her son with the grandparents and then, here she comes. Ahem.
Just like how stories of this kind where inspiration comes in the form of a strapping mountain man. Say hello to grouchy-poo Ben Gearing. He is sulking because his marriage broken down and his wife and kid have moved on with her new man. Ben is smarting over the fact that the kid has been adopted by her new man.
Benji was still his son, as far as he knew. He hadn’t protested to giving Jane custody, but he had never signed his son over for adoption. He had also never exercised his visitation rights.
Oh. So, if he hadn’t even bothered to see the boy, why is he so mad again?
Throw in a ghost that only Laura can see, and whose missing fiancée mystery may be linked to Ben, and this is one wild… oh, wait.
Linda Rettstatt’s In the Spirit is actually a story of two lead characters that love to give up.
Jessica immediately gives up on working on the book after she’s all cabin-ed up because she still can’t get over her breakup and she also can’t deal with being horny for Ben.
Ben gives up on his kid because, oh, he is no good for the kid and the kid deserves better, yadda yadda yadda.
Both of them don’t really do anything on their own impetus, and it is the ghost, Andrew that pushes Jessica and even ghostwrites (haw, haw) her book while he tells her to help him investigate his missing fiancée. Because of this, Ben gets to come along for a free ride, and no, that’s not a dirty thing, as this is a pretty clean romance as far as the naughty factor is concerned.
Because the main characters are flat whine-cranking machines, the mystery ends up being far more interesting. The mystery isn’t the most amazing thing ever, and it’s hard for me buy that a two-year mystery can be so easily solved like that, but it makes for a pleasant diversion from the non-happening romance between Whine and Mope.
I do wish this story had been better put together. For example, there is really no need for Andrew to be a ghost. He could have been some town pariah, suspected of murdering his fiancée or something. He even has much better chemistry with the heroine compared to Ben, so he could even be the heroine’s trophy boyfriend. The ghost angle never feels fully integrated into the story, and Ben actually comes off as an unwanted third wheel because Andrew is the far more interesting and even alive main male lead compared to him.
Still, all things considered, I don’t find this a painful read. The conversations flow in a believable manner, even if Jessica is too sanguine about conversing with and even quipping to a ghost, and the narrative is easy to read.
So, while I won’t say this is something I’d recommend people to go out of their way to read, it’s technically proficient enough to meet the bare minimum for a three-oogie score. Faint praise, I know, but hey, the romance here is just as faint so fair’s fair.
