Mesmerized by Candace Camp **
Mesmerized I was not.
I think it's safe to say that, while I may have been reading the same book as other reviewers, I came away from it with a completely different impression of the story.
Firstly, I didn't care for the supernatural story-line. I don't mind it in general, but this was almost hap-hazardly thrown in. There was no true resolution to the ghost story, and no real explaination of WHY the ghosts were involved at all.
Olivia started out with such vim and vigor. She was tough and unique. By midway through the book, she was a whimpering, teary, "missish" miss. Stephen was rather 1 dimensional. He was a nice guy, don't get me wrong. In fact, about all he WAS was nice. He didn't do much else. A good portion of the book was spent on holding mock seances and searching for books. I won't even go into the whole absurdity of the time they spent together and the situations they were in, without any damage to her reputation. Didn't matter that servants saw them together in her bedroom at night? Riiiight. This, during a time period when merely being in the same room together without a chaperone was enough to "ruin" someone.
Yet again this author is big on the use of the word "loins." Well, in all fairness, I think it was only used twice, but that's more than enough. Especially when used in this manner: "Desire slammed into his loins like a fist." OUCH! That sounds painful... I would think there wouldn't be much desire left after the loins being hit by a fist. I think this author could use a guiding hand with love scenes. They mostly leave me feeling like I want to laugh, not turned on.
This book isn't *terrible,* really it isn't. But the story was weak, the characters underdeveloped, the supernatural aspect unexplained, and the finality unrewarding. I'm not so much sorry I read it as I am just disappointed that more wasn't done with what was already at hand. The book had promise but fell very flat, very quickly.
If you haven't already read this book, I'd definitely pass it over. It's just not worth the time. Definitely not horrid, but is it worth reading a book simply because it's not the worst thing you COULD be reading? That's just not a good criteria by which to choose a book to read, at least as far as I'm concerned.
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