Terri Lynn Wilhelm

All of her life the heroine has been the dutiful daughter, than the dutiful wife. She's always swallowed her pride and strived to be the woman everyone else wants her to be. Now a widow, she's finally free. She sells her house and sets off to follow her passion for art and to see the world. But she does so with a heavy heart with the guilt of knowing she's tricked the unwitting new owners of her house. See the place is haunted. The hero is horrified to realize his new home, the place intended to be his peace, is haunted by a mischievous and frustrating phantom of the previous owner. In his rage over having been duped, he tracks the heroine down and forceful drags her back to the house, demanding she find a way to rid the house of the ghost. Not a bad person and horribly guilt ridden over her decent the heroine agrees. All she wanted was freedom. Her father sold her off the man who lusted after other men and therefore paid her zero attention. Since the age of 15 she's been secluded away in that house with only the ghost to keep her company. So, of course she loves the phantom as her only friend. I really felt for the heroine. She selfless to a fault. She latterly gives the clothes off her back and food off her table to the people of the village and she tried everything in her power to be a good wife but all she got for it was heartache. In the hero she finds something within herself never felt before. She feels powerful in her womanhood and desirable as the hero treats her like no other man has ever treated her before. With respect. He truly was a very good man. At times he can be a bit harsh on the outside but inside everything he does is in service to those around him. Tortured by his memories of the war, plagued by a limp caused by an old wound and hunted by his scum of a step brother, he has a lot of things working against him. But he's willing to fight to protect the things and people he loves and it was truly admirable. He wasn't overly dramatic, so dark or moody. Most times he was smiling and flirting with the heroine in some fashion but at times he was taken back to his cousins death and it broke your heart to see him in pain. I really liked the story. The two characters had mad chemistry. At first I hated the ghost but as time goes on you understand his loneliness and his pain and it even helped the hero to relate to him though they hated each other for most of the story. I felt a little like the evil brother popping out of the woodworks was a bit haphazard and rushed. But overall I loved the interactions between the sweet naïve but eager to please heroine and the sad, hardworking but loving hero.… (lisätietoja)