Julia C. Porter, Heart’s Revenge

Heart's Revenge

Julia C. Porter

Five Star, May 2006, $26.95

ISBN: 1594144478

Grieving the recent death of her beloved father, Maritime Studies Professor Ella Simon is grateful to her boss Dr. Bramlett for sending her to research the alleged finding of Blackbeard's ship, The Revenge off Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. Her guide is dive-master Mitch Thompson, whose father is a close friend of Bramlett and who found the sunken vessel.

On their first dive, Ella suffers a tank accident that she blames on Mitch. He insists he checked her equipment just before the dive, and that he saw something odd just above her. As Mitch and Ella work together they fall in love, but she is a hard fact realist who knows she must return to New England soon, while he is a romantic who dreams they can find a way to stay together. However, before either can consider compromise there are several problems, starting with ghosts seeking their deaths, and even more dangerous, tourists visiting the islands.

HEART'S REVENGE is an interesting horror romance starring two likable seemingly opposite humans chased by mean-spirited ghosts and the dreaded tourists. From the onset, when Ella, while driving sees strange sights, until the final twisted confrontation with Blackbeard, readers will wonder whether the lead couple will survive and end up together. Though solutions to complex personal issues seem too simple, fans of an interesting ghost story enhanced by romance will want to read Julia C. Porter's tale of long dead pirates riding the high seas.