reviewed by
LOLA SPARKS
In the fourteenth-century, Alexander Douglas was on his way to meet his bride, when he was set upon by Colin MacDougall, the bride's true beau. Colin tossed a mystical brooch onto Alex and Alex was unwittingly cursed by his own words, cursed to haunt the bed he meant as a gift to his bride.
In present day London, American Mara McDougall leads tours of the city and dreams of buying an antique bed that she can in no way afford. She's not even put off by the Scottish jerk who tells her the bed is his and she'll never spend a night in it. Fortune smiles upon her when Mara is gifted with a castle and money, and naturally she buys the bed--the bed which Alexander Douglas, the Scottish jerk, haunts.
Thus begins a very strange tale, in which the ghosts seem to have no rules to govern them, for though the curse would appear to tie him to the bed alone, Alex seems to go entirely where he wishes to--and spends some time hanging out with his friend Hardwick de Studley (I kid you not, gentle reader) at what seems to be a whorehouse for the dead.
There seem to be no hurdles to any aspect of the relationship between Mara and Alexander; while they do argue, nothing deep or meaningful is revealed in the arguments. Only late in the book is a challenge presented: their love seems to threaten Alexander's very existence. Is something pulling him back from Mara's world and into another realm? A more satisfying twist for this reader would have been to introduce this jeopardy mid-book, Mara and Alexander fighting together to overcome it.
Instead Mara spends entirely too much time having her nipples caressed by errant wind (despite her being fully clothed), and Alexander spends too much time worrying about his man parts (or for that matter, Mara's "female place."). Mara places herself in mindless peril, Alexander rescues her, and they fall in love despite his vow to destroy the MacDougalls, or the McDougalls.
Souls are touched, bodies shatter into millions of shiny, orgasmic pieces, but this reader remains unconvinced that this book advances the paranormal romance genre in the slightest; nor does it do the genre any favors. This novel perpetuates the worst of it: the cliché, the trite, the unbelievable. The worst of it is, I can see a better novel trying to climb out of its pages. It just never fully makes it.
