Horny Ancestor Ghosts and Weird Romances of the Living – Ghost Lover – Liza O’Connor
Here’s a book review for you all. It’s been a while since the last one. I obtained a free copy in exchange for an honest review. It’s an exciting book, if not often wholly realistic. I would recommend it for some fun holiday reading or for the young adult audience (if you’re happy for the detailed sex scenes to be read!)
Ghost Lover by Liza O’Connor
Publisher: Possibly self-published, though the publisher used to be Lyrical Press.
Genre: Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: 229 pages
Heat Level: Pretty spicy – some play by play love scenes thrown in – even one where a ghost sleeps with a living human!
Rating: 3 stars/5
Synopsis according to Amazon:
Two sexy English brothers.
One irresistible ghost.
Who would you choose as your lover?
Completely broke and with a criminal record to boot, Senna Smith is one day from eviction from her apartment when Brendon, her promiscuous roommate from London, suggests she go to England, marry him, and manage his fortune. With few other options, she agrees to an open marriage. But she’ll never, ever, have sex with him, knowing if she falls in love with him, he’ll break her heart.
As trustee of Brendon’s family fortune, there is no way Brendon’s older brother, Garrison Durran, is going to let him marry a self-professed American gold-digger. As Senna tries to embrace castle life and English society for Brendon’s sake, Gar discovers Senna is the perfect woman for him–beautiful and intelligent, kind and caring. Now, if she wasn’t already engaged to his brother…
The ancestral ghost of Durran Castle has to intervene if the Durran brothers have any chance of an heir. He can’t leave them to fix matters on their own. They are useless buggers when it comes to love. As counselor to Gar, matchmaker for Brendon, and lover to Senna, a ghost’s work is never done.
Ghost Lover is not a novel for those who value realism, and that does not mean there’s a lack of realism because there are ghosts in the story; it is the characters and situations in this book which defy reality rather than the paranormal characters which, if anything, are more magical realist interlopers.
Brendon and Gar are brothers; rich, upper class men based in the United Kingdom, and yet they act like over the top, ridiculously selfish, pre-pubescent boys who’ve never been taught manners. There is some reasoning for this, as they’ve had a terrible upbringing, but it was shock to find a romance novel with such immature and rude male protagonists.
The setting is also exaggerated and surreal as these brothers live in a huge house in the country, basically a mansion. Few of these still survive today and even fewer with rich, attractive brothers attached rather than an architecture-loving charity or grey-haired old men.
The plot follows the same route as the setting: Senna is willingly whisked away to the UK when she passively lets Brendon steal her money and not pay her back, with the condition if she marries him, she can have some of his trust fund. Many questions hit me at this point. Why would she trust him? Has he proved this trust fund exists? No. Why would she go with him then? The questions remain. Even later in the book, etiquette becomes a major concern and a large ball is hosted where Senna fails to make a great impression. For a modern day, contemporary romance, this does not reflect even the upper class within the UK that I live in. Balls are a very rare, special occurrence rather than everyday and the upper class are much more in line with the rest of the population than in previous decades.
Having said this, I was enamoured with Mr Finch, the ghost cat, and Lassier, the promiscuous orgasm-inducing ghost, ancestor to our boys Brendon and Gar. Lassier is the brains and the schemer behind the love interests the brothers eventually find and works behind the scenes to ensure a future generation for his family line, even if it means literally taking over his descendents’ bodies to do so. Mr Finch is a much warmer, cuddlier, and seemingly harmless purring cat who sometimes gets ticked off and throws papers to the floor but otherwise doesn’t really impact on the plot.
What surprises me with Ghost Lover, is that, despite all the inconsistencies in “norms” for the contemporary UK, despite the over the top, lacking in believability character traits and despite the slightly too perfect ending, I enjoyed reading it. It isn’t realistic and doesn’t appear to pretend to be. It’s a bit of pure fun where logic can remain suspended just long enough for the weird boy to get the equally strange girl.
You can buy this book if you fancy it on Amazon UK or Amazon USA
and here is her personal website: Liza O’Connor’s website and extra character info on Ghost Lover.
Until next time!