Graphic designer Sonya MacTavish is stunned to learn that her late father had a twin he never knew about―and that her newly discovered uncle, Collin Poole, has left her almost everything he owned, including a majestic Victorian house on the Maine coast, which the will stipulates she must live in it for at least three years. Her engagement recently broken, she sets off to find out why the boys were separated at birth―and why it was all kept secret until a genealogy website brought it to light.
Trey, the young lawyer who greets her at the sprawling clifftop manor, notes Sonya’s unease―and acknowledges that yes, the place is haunted…but just a little. Sure enough, Sonya finds objects moved and music playing out of nowhere. She sees a painting by her father inexplicably hanging in her deceased uncle’s office, and a portrait of a woman named Astrid, whom the lawyer refers to as “the first lost bride.” It’s becoming clear that Sonya has inherited far more than a house. She has inherited a centuries-old curse, and a puzzle to be solved if there is any hope of breaking it…
Comment: This is the first installment in the Lost Bride trilogy, the most recent trilogy published by Nora Roberts.
Sonya has just found out her fiancé was cheating, when news from an uncle she didn't know she had also arrive. This uncle, twin to her deceased father, has left her a manor in Maine, and Sonya feels she has to at least see it before she makes any decisions about it. Leaving isn't as hard as she imagined, and she does fall in love with the house, although she is warned that it is haunted, something she discovers to be true very soon after moving. But Sonya is determined to honor the house and the memory of a family she realizes might have been closer than she imagined. In fact, she has cousins and other family members around, and she thinks she can carve a life for herself there...unless the bad ghost in the house does something about it...
Reading this author's trilogies nowadays isn't as thrilling as the ones published in the 90s but the formula is similar enough for the sequence of events to make sense right away. I also miss the trilogies that were focused on romance and character development - as opposed to the ones including paranormal content - because some of those were truly special in their simplicity (such the Born In or the Dream trilogies). The ones that are focused on PNR elements, such as this one, sometimes seem to have too many distractions, but perhaps that is my impression.
I liked this book for the premise and the likable evolution of how things progress. Everyone that matters is easily placed in a predictable role and most characters are kind of black and white, something the author has always been known for, but which the last decades have exacerbated. I say this with the sense that the main characters are very polite and polished all the time, even the villains are perfected to a role, and this does disappoint a little. I really loved the books where some surprises and the novelty of a connection would be highlighted.
For instance, the romance between Sonya and her love interest is very bland, they are great civilized people and they agree they would be good together. In this first book there is no commitment yet, beyond agreeing to be a couple, but nothing in the progression of their romance felt, well, romantic. No real chemistry except the one they claim to have, and while I like them and already know they will have a perfect HEA, there's no excitement about them, as was between Zoe and Brad in Key of Valor, another book by the author I loved.
The story is quite set on domesticity and Sonya's adaptation to the house and the fact there are ghosts in it. I assume the next volumes will bring in more details about how the ghosts are still there, although it all has to do with a murdered woman in the past, killed by someone who had some witchcraft knowledge, and how that initial act caused a curse that affected several other women down the family tree.The elements related to this are intriguing, but I admit there are many names to keep track of, and some just didn't stay memorable.
Sonya is also a woman who left her steady job over the bad breakup with her fiancé, who worked for the same place. Luckily, all Nora Roberts' heroines are great at what they do and Sonya finds a way to be relatively well succeeded in her freelance business, which means her biggest worries are about the ghosts and how well she can adapt. Hint: very quickly. I mean, I liked the story and I do like the author's style despite the obvious changes through the decades, but some recent books aren't truly exciting.
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