Hello everyone!
Yeah, I'm basically a coward. LOL.
But this one got me as I was browsing some new ARC suggestions on BookSirens, that online hub of authors and reviewers where we exchange opinions and books, because it had an interesting enough premise.
I mean, a woman goes to Ireland and falls in love with a ghost? What's not to be intrigued about?
So I decided to pick up a copy of this book and sit down to read it over the course of the last two days or so.
And the only reason it took two days was because of of the fact that I needed to give my eyes a break in between, otherwise I probably would have gone right through it in one sitting.
But enough of me blabbering - Ghost of the Gaelic Moon wants an introduction!
There will be a couple links to some other paranormal books I've read down at the bottom of the page, as always.
Anyway, Ghost of the Gaelic Moon is the first in a series and tells the story of an American woman, Mary, who comes to Dublin with her best friend Amy to help set up a subsidiary for her company. In the process, she meets Sean, a businessman there in the city, and the two of them connect almost immediately.
It should be said that Mary has had dreams of a red-headed, blue-eyed Irishman who keeps saying he's her soulmate or something along those lines, but we never actually get confirmation that it IS Sean, because that plotline seems to just dangle into thin air?
Amy encourages Mary to have a hook-up while they're in Ireland, seeing as Mary still isn't over the fact that her ex cheated on her instead of marrying her, and her heart chooses Sean even though Sean initially says they can only be friends. Mary pushes though, and Sean wants her too much, so you can see where this is going.
But why did he say they can't be lovers, you ask?
Well, he's kind of married. See, the setting is Ireland at the tail end of the nineties, during which time divorce wasn't exactly common and only JUST made it into Ireland to begin with, and he married the most beautiful girl in town in his teen years, but after she had an abortion (the baby wasn't even Sean's, which he learns later on ) all chance of anything went right through the window, but she's so fixated and insane about Sean that she can't see it, continually claiming that they'll get back together and he still loves her.
Maggie - the ex - is also inconveniently a witch who dabbles in black magic and it's how she gets people to do whatever the hell she wants, plus she placed a spell on Sean's mother to make her a firm supporter instead of the good hearted woman who loves her children more than anything else.
Naturally, this all comes to light, and Mary's devastated, but Sean eventually convinces her that he's serious about getting a divorce now, even taking her to his hometown, where disaster strikes as Maggie creates an illusion that she's pregnant - spoiler alert: she can't have children at all because of that abortion - which prompts Mary to hightail it out of there.
A couple of days later, Sean, inebriated and literally drinking his life away, dies in a magical fire that Maggie starts in the pub called The Gaelic Moon, and he dies in the process.
But that's not all! He comes back as a ghost, tied to the Moon, and the pub keeper, Donald, explains that the pub is more than just a pub - it's an anchor for strong magical power, and the legends saying there was a keepsake of the Druids somewhere that they built within the foundations or something is actually false in that the PUB ITSELF is that keepsake.
And also, Sean still has work to do, don't you know.
Four years later, Mary returns to Ireland with her son because she wants to introduce the boy to his father, and learns Sean's dead, but she also learns she can see him and he can occasionally touch her, if he concentrates. However, their problems are only just beginning because Maggie's still around, too, and she's plotting revenge because it's everyone else's fault that she's a bitch and ended up in a wheelchair after the fire, don't you know.
She ends up recruiting Paul, an obnoxious American who's been sniffing around Mary since she was first in Ireland despite her saying no, and for some reason she just can't seem to shake him despite the fact that she knows he's a misogynistic prick. In the end, the only reason she kicks him to the curb is when he starts saying they're engaged just because he went down on one knee (she didn't say yes) and wants to make decisions for her (but really, girl, he's been doing it all the time!), and the rejection lands him with Maggie, who anchors a demon into his body.
Then Maggie kidnaps Mary and Sean's son to torture and kill him so the two will suffer as much as she has, but thankfully the gang (also including her former lover and doormat Patrick and Sean's sister Lillie as well as Amy's fiancé Rob) make it there in time before it can all go too far.
Seeing as it's also the night of the fabled blue moon, Sean takes corporeal form and enjoys it for what it's worth, before he and Mary part ways in the morning as he becomes ghostly once more. However, Mary's decided to stay in Ireland with the family she found here, so that she can be with Sean even in this weird iteration.
Oh and also, she's a witch, too. The end!
Whew, okay, so.
The story itself has some good foundation and good bones - the idea is VERY sound. A woman falls in love with a guy who then becomes a ghost so they need to overcome that if they want to be together.
That's all well and good, but there's a lot of additional plotholes along the way.
Plotlines seem to just disappear into thin air occasionally, or things are mentioned once but never again after, and the main character isn't exactly the most likeable person either, which is a shame. Mary HAD the makings of a really great character, but she was basically a pushover who let Paul boss her around and couldn't stand up for herself no matter what, not until the end in any event.
And the kicker here is that she KNOWS all the time that Paul is basically a creep and a possessive idiot, yet her excuse is that he's nice to her.
No, woman, no. That's him luring you in, how stupid can you get?
But aside from that, my issue with the book is more the writing style and the grammatical errors all around. I think it must be because this was an ARC not a published copy, because as I understand it, the author is an English major, which means they have a good grasp on the language, but there were errors in the use of tense, gender occasionally, words were missing, or parts of sentences would be missing. The editor had their work cut out for them, I think.
Also, I don't know why, but a lot of what was said or done in this book reminded me strongly of what you might see on television, in a rom-com, where things abruptly end or turn around, or someone says something and then the action or sequence cuts because it's such a witty line. I don't know if it was intentional, but it came across as a little bit weak in terms of the written medium, to me at least.
So all in all, this HAD potential, but between a lukewarm main character, the fact that you keep getting the feeling people use English like foreigners would, and different problems with the text makes me think I won't be picking up the sequel to this story.
It's a good story, don't get me wrong, just not great, not to me.
xx
*image not mine
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