Sandy M’s review of Haunting Beauty by Erin Quinn
Paranormal Time Travel Romance published by Berkley Trade 4 Aug 09

I had seen various email advertisements about this book over the last month or so before its release. The blurb sounded interesting to me, so I put it on the wishlist. Next thing I know, our Syb had the book in hand and sent it on to me. She knows me well, figured this story would be one I’d enjoy. She has no idea how right she was. And now I have just re-created a monster with that comment!

First  I have to say how much I like Ms. Quinn’s voice. It’s absolutely perfect for paranormal romance, mystical and magical, and she does a beautiful job of giving the characters’ words and their world a definite Irish flavor and lilt. I felt like I was actually on the Irish island of Ballyfionuir throughout my read.

Next, the mystery that is woven into the characters’ lives is one steeped in family history, magic, and loads of evil. I love it when an author gives me something so different than what I’ve ever read before, and Ms. Quinn definitely does that. Also woven into that mystery is the paranormal. The hero, for the first part of the book, is a ghost. He’s been sent by his grandmother, who has magical powers of her own, to find the heroine and bring her home to Ireland to set right events that happened 20 years earlier. Sean and Danni end up time traveling to the time of those events, compliments of Danni and her power, so that Sean is no longer his ghostly self but a real, breathing man. Once there Danni’s visions continue to give her more information about the tragedy that hit both her and Sean’s families, and to get to the bottom of it all she has to find the Book of Fennore, an evil tome that seduces its victims into darkness.

Then there’s the characters themselves. Ms. Quinn pulls no punches and gives us a hero and heroine who we care about immediately, both because of their past, their present, and we wonder if they’ll have a future. Their lives are interwoven with each other though only Sean remembers Danni. She was much too young to remember much of anything until she’s back on Irish soil, but her memories are still sketchy. They cling to each other, being strangers to their families, and the way Ms. Quinn weaves that part of the story together is simply stellar. You see both Sean and Danni interacting with their young selves, Danni meeting the parents she can’t remember, Sean finding his memories about his father aren’t truly accurate, all the while trying to make sense of why they’ve been brought back only to live again through the most horrendous night of their lives.

The romance and the love between Sean and Danni slowly grows, goes through some very rough spots, but they show how strong they are individually as well as together. Their love scenes go from loving to furious and are so moving. They have to learn to trust one another, both afraid to tell the other everything for fear of the unknown, what will happen when things are said aloud, will the magic and the evil take more from them, forcing them to work harder for survival.

All of the secondary characters are very well done, each giving depth to their part of the storyline, each giving us a surprise here and there the more we get to know them. Ms. Quinn is great at misdirection when it comes to the villain, changing paths a few times before showing us some true colors.

This is one of the best books that I have read lately. I’m looking forward to the next book, which features Danni’s twin, and I know time is going crawl before I have it my hands.

Grade: A+

Summary:

A mysterious stranger . . .

Danni Jones believed everything about her past—that she was an unwanted child abandoned by her mother. That she was an outcast set apart by her clairvoyance. That she was alone. Then came the stranger. Dangerously seductive Sean Ballagh appears out of nowhere with a startling story that will challenge everything Danni thought was true.

A lost woman . . .

He claims that Danni’s family has been searching for her ever since she disappeared twenty years ago. He’s come to bring her home to Ireland. But Danni fears there’s more to his story than he dares to reveal. And the only way to find out is by following Sean back in time, to a forgotten past, to a world where nothing is what it seems.

A terrifying legacy . . .

Now, in a land where the mystical and the occult are as vivid as the emerald fields, Danni must rewrite history to save her family, to fight a force more evil than she ever imagined, and to reunite with the one man she was destined for—or live forever in time as nothing more than an ethereal memory, a tragic and haunting beauty…

Read an excerpt.