Nora Roberts, Blue Dahlia

Blue Dahlia

Nora Roberts

Jove, Nov 2004, $7.99, 384 pp.

ISBN: 051513855X

In Southfield, Michigan, Stella Rothchild is making dinner when strangers arrived to tell her that her beloved husband Kevin died in a freak accident. Stunned, not long afterward, she leaves Michigan with her two young children for Memphis to get away from the memories.

Two and a half years later in Memphis, Stella has become manager of a nursery on the grounds of the Harper Mansion. Owner Rosalind Harper persuades Stella to move into the large house with her two boys. The work is fine and Stella enjoys her spirited battles with landscaper Logan Kitridge, which slowly brings her back to life. As they begin to fall in love, the angry lunatic ghost The Harper Bride haunts the mansion as she has for over a century, seeking children, especially infants. Stella wants to know why in order to protect her offspring, but the truth goes back to 1892 to one of Roz's ancestors and his mistress.

BLUE DAHLIA, the opening of Nora Roberts' paranormal trilogy, is an exhilarating ghost story that grips the audience throughout the tale. Though Ms. Roberts writes more novels than rabbits breed, somehow she always makes her cast seem genuine regardless of the milieu in which she places them. This tale is no different as the audience will appreciate the powerful secondary cast that for the most part reside at the Mansion; accept the realistic changes in Stella that keep the tale focused, and enable the audience to believe in ghosts.

Harriet Klausner