Spirit of Seduction
Olivia Quincy
Signet, Jul 5 2011, $7.99
ISBN: 9780451233332
When she was a child, Zoe Bell spent two weeks each summer in the shadows of Chapin House on Chapin Point in Danmouth overlooking Cape Cod Bay. As an adult, due to her successful business ventures on Amazon Zoe can afford to buy Chapin House. Thinking the Cape Cod abode might be the impetus to drive her boyfriend Sam Stafford and her to the next level in their relationship and always dreaming of owning the place, Zoe impetuously buys it.
The purchase works the opposite of what Zoe intended as it becomes a pointed wedge issue between her and Sam who loathes the slow pace of the island compared with his Manhattan lifestyle where he still works while she remains on the Cape for the summer. Meanwhile Zoe becomes aware that Chapin House has a resident of sorts in Robert Chapin. When a homicide of her cantankerous fiftyish neighbor Curtis Nickerson occurs, State Police Detective Andrew DuBois suspects Zoe as much as the ex wife and other locals as the killer; even as she and Ethan, the nephew of the victim, fall in love.
This is an engaging paranormal mystery that is at its best when the focus is on the lead protagonist Zoe. The ensemble support cast includes unnecessary sexual coupling that detracts from prime twin subplots of who killed Nickerson and Zoe’s troubling relationships with Sam, Robert and Ethan. Still, sub-genre readers will enjoy Zoe’s summer of discontent when she learns the hard way that you can’t go home.
Harriet Klausner
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment