Hope McIntyre, How to Seduce a Ghost

How to Seduce a Ghost

Hope McIntyre

Mysterious, Nov 2005, $24.95

ISBN: 0892960132

In London, ghostwriter Nathalie "Lee" Bartholomew is doing quite well professionally, with her latest potential client being an American soap opera star, Selma Walker, who wants to hire her for a sinful amount of cash to write her autobiography. However, on the personal front, her boyfriend of eight years Tommy, wants to marry Lee; she has doubts about tying the knot, so she tries to delay her response.

Meanwhile Lee has intimate relations with Selma's manager Buzz, only to learn that he is also her client's husband and that he abuses his wife. Even worse, Buzz apparently made it with Lee's neighbor Astrid, who recently died in an arson set fire. Lee wonders if Buzz committed the act, even while the detectives query everyone remotely connected to the victim. However, soon Lee's house is in flames, and a corpse resides in her summerhouse; someone is systematically reducing the Notting Hill Gate neighborhood population, and interfering with lee's love life.

HOW TO SEDUCE A GHOST is a fun chick lit amateur sleuth tale starring an intriguing female who seems to enjoy being on the edge even when it places her long term relationship in jeopardy. Lee is fun to follow as she proves London swings, though her numerous trysts (and that of Selma too) also take away from her arson-homicide investigation. Still fans of ultra lighthearted chick lit whodunits will enjoy Lee's antics enhanced by Selma's escapades.

Harriet Klausner