Ghost Hunter

Author: Jayne Castle
Published: May 30, 2006 (Jove)
Category: Paranormal Romance
Series: Harmony
Rating: 8/10

I was right! Jayne Castle's Harmony series gets better and better with each book she writes! I loved After Glow, but was so disappointed in After Dark, the book preceding that one. I'd been hoping that since the first two books I read involved Emmett and Lydia, this third would be about them too (kind of hoping for another series couple like Nora Roberts' Eve and Roarke), but Castle introduces Cooper and Elly instead.

Local Guild boss and powerful ghost hunter Cooper Boone is everything botanist Elly St. Clair could ask for—the handsome, strong and silent type. Maybe too silent. For when Guild secrets threaten her career at the college, Elly has to call off their marriage—and leave small-town life behind...

But starting over in the thriving metropolis of Cadence City isn’t easy, especially when one of Elly’s new friends disappears in the eerie catacombs beneath the streets. Cooper turns up just in time to help Elly investigate. And as the mystery deepens and dangerous ghost myths and legends come to light, Cooper makes it clear he intends to stick around—and this time he’s holding nothing back…

There's a bonus to Ghost Hunter as well. We get to see Emmett and Lydia again (of After Dark and After Glow), enjoying wedded bliss, although Emmett has become domesticated and prefers BBQing over going out on the town with Lydia. And we have more dust bunnies! Fuzz now has a girlfriend and Elly has Rose, a dust bunny with a sense of style, as she borrows all of Elly's bracelets to wear as necklaces. Dust bunnies are awesome and I can't get enough of them.



This turns out to be one of those romances where the conflict derives from a lack of communication between hero and heroine. Elly thinks Cooper didn't care about her as much as running the Guild. Cooper didn't want to scare her off with his stereotypical alpha-male ghost hunter personality. It's very much like Emmett and Lydia, how he didn't want her to think he was just another macho jock ghost hunter. I enjoyed Cooper's carefully planned attempt to bring Elly back to Aurora Springs, and his surprise to find that Elly had broken out of her shell in the big city without her parents and keeping up appearances for the Guild pressuring her.

Negatives? The cover, for one! Yet another book I have to press into my bag or hold parallel to the ground so I don't get sneered at on the subway. Ugh, he's shirtless and wearing a leather vest. I know that ghost hunters have a tendency to wear leather and khakis, but I don't recall them not wearing shirts.

Regardless of leather vest on front cover, the book was great and I can't wait for Silver Master, the next book in the series, which comes out in just a few days!