Ghost of a Promise - Kelly Moran [Phantoms]

Ghost of a Promise - Kelly Moran [Phantoms]
Source: NetGalley
Originally Reviewed: January 8, 2015
Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

This book was provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my god. I miss Ghost Hunters. I mean, the back in the day, real ghost hunting minus all of the drama bulls* Ghost Hunters. I was so excited for this book! The history behind the ghost(s) was… okay, a little hoakey, but it was there, and it was just so awwwe!

I just about cried when I kept reading. The heroine’s motivation… it’s flat. How the sheer number of people “on stage” at a time is handled… awkward at best. The dialogue is trite and the interactions between the heroine and her would-be love interest are overused and unoriginal. Plus, after just finishing another book from the same publisher in the same genre… the internal dialogue is lacking in a big way.

She does have her moments that shine – typically when she’s closing a chapter. Seems like that’s the only place she’s willing to pull out the witty turns-of-phrase that make me grin. I wish I could have seen more of those, though. Say, to help build sexual tension. We were made aware that it was there, but not in the subtle, viscous way that we can feel, but in a “this exactly what I’m thinking I want her to do to me” way.

And oh, gods, do not get me started on what my inner chef was doing. I wanted to pull my hair out. Let’s not even go into what my inner English Teacher was doing.

It had very little in terms of redeeming qualities. One of those would be matchmaking ghosts. Yep, I said it. The ghost was playing matchmaker. Only reason why this piece is getting any stars at all from me.

In Closing…
In my reader’s world over here, sexual tension is supposed to entice the reader – not bore them. Another thing that bores? Rip offs. No kidding. I watched Ghost Hunters religiously back in the day (again, pre-drama) and when it came down to the scenes of the active investigation, I couldn’t read them. I knew everything they were going to do, what was going to happen, and how they would react. Honestly, the whole story read that way. Like I’d read the story before but it’d gotten revised to include some ghost hunting to try and spice things up. Without that, it was bland, lifeless, full of cliches, and boring. I was relieved when it was over.