A review by andipants
Mesmerized, by Candace Camp

5.0

I've never read anything quite like this before - historical romance, with a solid haunted house plot to boot! I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The main characters were likable, particularly the heroine - a bit more prone to fainting than I'm usually okay with, but intelligent and spunky nonetheless. The paranormal plot wasn't scary, but it did present a good mystery, and the glimpses of the past were intriguing, to say the least. I also appreciated that it wasn't the usual sort of plot where the woman can communicate with the spirits because of her mystical woman-ness but the guy doesn't see anything (and thinks she's probably a little crazy). That storyline gets real frustrating real quick, so it was a refreshing change here that both the hero and the heroine are in on the creepy goings-on, and also that they're believably skeptical, but not stupidly so in the face of clear evidence (another frequent pitfall in supernatural stories I've read).

If I had one complaint, it's that the prose in the adult scenes was most decidedly lavender-tinted; it was a little cringeworthy in some places. But there were only two such scenes and they weren't over-long, so I can get over it. Overall it was an excellent read, and I'm looking forward to more from this author.