Scent of Roses

Scent Of Roses by Kat Martin


My review
rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was a good book. Some of the wording became redundant: fingernail of a moon; sickening sweet, bad element, etc. but it wasn't extreme. The author did an excellent job with making the ghostly appearances eerie; I got the chills once or twice and had to sleep with the kids' night light for a few nights. The author also does well with sex scenes (almost too well).

I think if the author had stuck with one plot, this would have been a 4-star book for me. I found the two plots overwhelming. Okay, so not only do we have the guy and the girl falling in love and tracking down a ghost, but the guy has to deal with his asinine brother, his sick father and his own demons from his past. Hello, Information Overload. The book would have been stand-alone as a ghost story.

There was an interesting twist thrown in in the last two pages. According to the Author's Note, this is based on actual events. Curious to know more, I spent 1-1/2 hours on the internet and turned up nothing relating to this story. Curious if this really is based on actual events or if that was just a sales gimmick.

Pub. Date: July 2006

Synopsis: Elizabeth doesn't believe in ghosts. But this time she has no choice. Family counselor Elizabeth Conner isn't sure what to think when Maria Santiago comes to her for help. Pregnant and terrified, Maria claims to be visited each night by the ghost of a little girl, warning her to flee. Her husband, Miguel, a migrant worker at Harcourt Farms in the San Joaquin Valley, dismisses her fears as hormonal changes. Sympathetic to the young woman, Elizabeth agrees to help by contacting Miguel's employers, who own the cottage where the young couple lives.

Elizabeth immediately picks up on the deep enmity between the two Harcourt brothers: Carson, the handsome scion running the estate for his incapacitated father, and Zack, the rebellious black sheep. While Carson is more interested in Elizabeth than in her concerns, Zack grudgingly agrees to help her look into the history of the house.

But even as unexpected desire draws them together, Elizabeth and Zack feel something dark and disturbing at the house. And when the cloying scent and lingering chill of pure evil surround her, Elizabeth knows something terrible has happened here before, something that has its roots in murder.