Miramont's Ghost - Elizabeth Hall

Miramont's Ghost - Elizabeth Hall
Source: Kindle First
Originally Reviewed: January 9, 2015
Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

RIGGERS: rape, incest, pedophilia

Thankfully, I did not have to spend money on this book. I received it through the Kindle First program.

It took far more alcohol than I want to admit to get through that book.

The story had potential, true, but it had potential in the way that Jane Eyre had potential over 150 years ago – except Jane Eyre lived up to it’s potential.

Miramont’s Ghost, essentially, failed.

Let’s start with the most glaring issue. Yeah, it may be a spoiler, but I’d rather “spoil” this than have some unsuspecting reader stumble upon this with no advance warning: the rape. By her cousin. After remembering some kind of pre-molestation behavior from when she was a child.

Fine, I get it. Something had to send her over the edge. Then again, the way she was going, realizing what was being done to her, maybe not. Maybe the rape was as completely, utterly pointless as it seemed. Not even a claim of being historically “accurate” would fly by me right now. The girl’s life was completely and utterly dreary. We get it.

No, really, we do. Absolutely HORRIBLE.

There’s absolutely nothing noteworthy about this book, aside from some glaringly inaccurate statements about things that make me really question how much the author cared about being “accurate” aside from the “history.” Even in the end, all we’re treated to is some ridiculously long and pointless diatribe about how she’s trapped and the ones who perpetuated her misery are gone and escaped, and, wait, oh my god, a revelation! She can let go! She’s free! She’s no longer a ghost!

To Summarize:

Adrienne, our heroine, is clairvoyant (which also has absolutely nothing to do with the story except to possibly be the reason for all her misery). Her grandfather, governess and eventually a man named Gerard are the only people who really care about her. Her aunt is suspicious of her and wants her to stay quiet. Her mother is spineless and her father is an adulterous bastard.

Adrienne looses her grandfather, looses her governess thanks to said adulterous bastard, looses Gerard thanks to scheming bitch of an aunt. Then bitch aunt tells spineless mother that she’s taking Adrienne to the US to live with her and her son, the pedophile priest who can do no wrong in the eyes of his mother.

Bitch aunt tells rest of the family Adrienne drowned on the trip. She’s trapped. She’s brought to Miramont under the guise of bitch aunties maid, and is treated as such. She is given a room in servants quarters. She cleans, tends to the bitch aunt, all while hoping her love Gerard will come save her or plotting an escape.

Of course, her trying to watch pedophile priest/cousin gives him the wrong idea. After bitch aunt increases suffering of Adrienne intentionally, dear cousin takes it upon himself to act on delusions he’s created around his “whore cousin” constantly watching him.

Eventually Adrienne tries to kill herself and succeeds, after which bitch aunt returns to France and pedophile priest has to flee due to his pedophile’s ways leaking to the general public. But not after sealing Adrienne’s body away since the ground was too hard to dig. *snorts*

Then we reach the end, where we receive the aforementioned pointless diatribe to a ridiculously unsatisfying ending. In fact, the whole damn book was one of the least satisfying I’d ever read, and isn’t worth the energy to say anything more about it.

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.