Emma Daniels

2.5 stars
I read this book as part of a Shelfari group read.

After their mother died, Natalie shared the family house with her brother, Trevor. They began to get on each other's nerves, so Natalie applies to rent a beach house so they can have a break from each other.
She gets the house and then finds out it is haunted. So far, so good.
But then the story went downhill for me. The ghost hardly ever shows up and when he does, he's (mostly) dismissed.

I didn't think the protagonist, Natalie, displayed much wisdom in her choices. For instance, she goes to bed with Karl who has a reputation as a womanizer with no protection-telling him it's a safe time of month for her. Hello, safe time of month doesn't mean you can't get herpes or AIDS!

Once I realized there wasn't really a ghost story going on, I still gave it a chance, because I liked Natalie. However the stupid things Natalie was doing, combined with some truly cliched dialogue (I'm going to show you heaven, oh please!), made me cringe. The last part of the story sort of took a hairpin turn then wrapped up within a few pages. It was weird.

I think the author has the talent to create good characters, but I do feel that the dialogue really needs a lot of work. The character of Natalie didn't act in the ways that I would expect a modern, intelligent woman to act. Altogether- I think the story was decent but I probably won't be reading anything else by this author.… (altro)