Haunted on Bourbon Street

Title/Author: Haunted on Bourbon Street (Jade Calhoun #1) by Deanna Chase.

Genre:  Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Bayou Moon Publishing.

Source:  Purchased.

Synopsis: Jade loves her new apartment -- until a ghost joins her in the shower.  When empath Jade Calhoun moves into an apartment above a strip bar on Bourbon Street, she expects life to get interesting.

What she doesn't cont on is making friends with an exotic dancer, attracting a powerful spirit, and developing feelings for Kane, her sexy landlord. Being an empath has never been easy on Jade's relationships.  It's no wonder she keeps her gift a secret.  But when the ghosts moves from spooking Jade to terrorizing Pyper, the dancer, it's up to Jade to use her unique ability to save her.  Except she'll need Kane's help -- and he's betrayed her with a secret of his own -- to do it.  Can she find a way to trust him and herself before Pyper is lost?  ~Goodreads.com. 

Midnyte Musings:  Cute cover with witch, check.  Intriguing title, check.  Interesting premise, check.   This book definitely appeals to a lot of things I love.  First of all, it's a total fantasy for me.  Main character Jade Calhoun is an empath, so she's got a supernatural gift.  I want a supernatural gift!  She is young and moves to New Orleans. I want to be young again and move to New Orleans!  She is a lampworker.  She makes beads!  I want to learn lampworking!  AAAaaand, when she moves in she meets a bunch of nice, new, cool people including a hot guy who happens to be her landlord and sparks fly between them.  I want!  I want!  I want!  So reading this was an immersion in a fantasy. I got to live vicariously through Jade.

Also it takes place on Bourbon Street.  Bourbon Street!  Okay, I enjoy Bourbon Street, but I don't think I'd want to live there, especially over a strip club.  However, in this version of living above a strip club, it's quite enjoyable.  The owner/landlord is a hot guy who wants to class the place up.  The manager, Pyper,  is a woman who wants to take care of her workers.   Even the strippers are pretty much normal.  Along the way, Jade encounters ghostly problems, along with issues from her past.  She has to navigate through her own insecurities and learn to accept help from others in order to persevere.

I appreciate that Jade learned from some of her actions.  When she feels that someone invades her privacy using supernatural powers, she comtemplates her own gift and its effect on someone from her own life.  I like how she wonders if her own feelings are somehow tied in with her empathic abilities.  Does she bond with people because she can feel their emotions?  Or does she/did she genuinely rely on her own feelings?  I thought that was interesting.

Although I'm sure some questions I had will be answered as the series moves along, I feel a bit frustrated that things got brought up, but didn't get resolved.  I want to know what happened with her mom.  What happened the night her ex-boyfriend saved her and her best friend in the Foster home where they all lived for a while.  In this story, I wasn't clear on the details of the nice ghost who seemed to be smitten with Jade.  I didn't particularly like the insta-love between Jade and Kane.  Although maybe it's more believable because they are not teens?  Not sure.  There were also a few cliches along the way that caused a few eye rolls and it frustrated me that Jade sometimes acted like a victim.  Why is it that characters who have pyshic gifts or supernatural powers are always shunned and look at in a negative light?  I'd be in awe of someone with true powers.

Constellation of Characters:

Jade - A sympathetic main character.  She has issues trusting people because of her empathic abilities have gotten her in trouble in the past.

Kane - Jade's landlord and owner of the strip club who is interested in her.  Hot and wealthy.  He sometimes comes off a little cheesy, but he's genuinely a nice guy.

Kat - Jade's best friend who she grew up with.  She convinced Jade to move to New Orleans.  Will she let her relationship with Dan ruin their friendship?

Dan - Kat's boyfriend and Jade's ex-boyfriend.

Pyper - The manager of the strip club.  She shows Jade that not everyone is turned off by her empathic abilities.  

Starstruck Over:   Haunted on Bourbon Street is a guilty pleasure.  I enjoyed the fun storyline, likeable main character and of course, ghosts and magic in New Orleans.

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Witches on the Road Tonight.

Title/Author: Witches on the Road Tonight by Sheri Holman.

Genre: General Fiction.

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press.

Source: Purchased.

Favorite character: Cora and Willis Alley.

All in all: A quiet book that gets under your skin.

Favorite Quote: "Once witches slip in, they're hard to get rid of." ~Cora Alley.

Synopsis:  As a child growing up in Depression-era rural Virginia, Eddie Alley’s quiet life is rooted in the rumors of his mother’s witchcraft. But when he's visited by a writer and glamorous photographer researching American folklore for the WPA, the spell of his mother’s unorthodox life is violently disrupted, and Eddie is inspired to pursue a future beyond the confines of his dead-end town.

He leaves for New York and becomes a television horror-movie presenter beloved for his kitschy comedy. Though expert at softening terror for his young fans, Eddie cannot escape the guilty secrets of his own childhood. When he opens his family’s door to a homeless teenager working as an intern at the TV station, the boy’s presence not only awakens something in Eddie, but also in his twelve-year-old daughter, Wallis, who has begun to feel a strange kinship to her notorious grandmother. As the ghost stories of one generation infiltrate the next, Wallis and Eddie grapple with the sins of the past to repair their misguided attempts at loyalty and redemption. ~Goodreads.com

My Thoughts: "Of all the props I saved only the coffin remains."  This is the first line from Witches on the Road Tonight which made my mouth water in expectation.  Even before I opened the book it just gave off an aura of mystique and intrigue.  However, it was not quite the story I was anticipating even though it won me over by the end.

I was hoping for more magic, more witches, heck, more coffins from this book, but it was really a tale about a family and their hopes, fears and hurts.  More literary than supernatural Witches crept up on me slowly yet once it had me, it wouldn't let me go thanks to rich, mysterious characters with deep desires kept half hidden making me as a reader, puzzle over what was behind their thoughts and actions. The buildup is a bit slow, but needs to play its part and I'm thankful that I was patient enough to keep delving into the story.

There were supernatural elements to this book, yet after I read them I still wasn't sure if the author meant for the reader to take them literarally or metaphorically.  Were the magical parts just the mind of an unreliable narrator or is there really something to the mountain magic that the Alley family has passed on?  Is each reader to decide for themselves or could it be a bit of both?  Magic or  metaphor?  Unfortunately, not everyone was granted their wish and at times it broke my heart.  The longing, misunderstandings, jealousy and resentment is sharp and painful. 

The writing is beautiful.  The details of the character's lives made me feel as if I was there.  Descriptions of the mountains where Cora lived were especially picturesque and powerful.  Sometimes the prose is complex due to the character's thoughts, but I still felt connected to them, still felt like a witness to the story.  The folklore that is woven into the book gives an otherworldly feel to the narrative and at times an eerie background. 

I can't say I loved the ending, but for some reason wasn't dissatisfied by it either.  I think by the end I understood what had happened in each character's life to bring them to where they were.   I think there is more to be explored in this book, but I have yet to figure out what it is.  This is a book I will continue to contemplating as questions linger and haunt me. 

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