Stevie’s review of The Rarest Rose by I. Beacham
Contemporary Lesbian Romance published by Bold Strokes 17 Jul 13
I do love a good ghost story mixed in with my romance, and this gentle romance most definitely features a ghost, although the mystery remains for a long time over whether the spirit in question is malevolent or simply misunderstood.
Eleanor Teal was a major star of British breakfast television, until the day ten years ago when she suddenly dropped out of the limelight. Now she lives with her cat in a Georgian-style former vicarage and paints pictures of wild birds. Her first illustrated book is about to come out, and she’s appeared in public opening a shopping mall, so the editor of a local glossy magazine sends photographer Kiernan Foyle round to get a photo-story. All very British. We love our perky, early-morning presenters and every county or major city seems to have its own style magazine that crops up in supermarkets with pictures of gala dinners and country shows on the cover and inside. Like Hello, but with the added attraction that the readers are more likely to bump into those featured while buying the magazine for themselves.
Ele and Kiernan don’t completely hit it off on first meeting, and then it all goes downhill when Keir has to call round and re-take her shoot twice – once because none of the images come out and then again because a mysterious man appears in every shot. A man who definitely wasn’t there when the photos were taken. Ele initially accuses Kiernan of trying to con her, and then more weird stuff starts happening – including her cat rubbing up against the legs of someone neither of the women can see.
Ele and Kiernan start to investigate former inhabitants of the house, and become closer to each other in the process – cautiously because Ele’s withdrawal from public life came as a result of her childhood sweetheart’s illness and then death, and because Kiernan’s previous lovers have all left her – but even once they figure out who the man is, they can’t understand what he’s trying to tell them. It has something to do with the alterations Ele has made to her property – and the building contractor’s wife seems to have fallen ill around the same time – but what? I do like the fact that the women investigate each obvious conclusion at around the time I thought of it, and that when the answer finally comes to them, it is something that seems so mundane until you know the whole story that anyone could have overlooked the same possibility.
A few little niggles for me with this one, all relating to cars. Because I’m a car geek, I find it hard to accept that a Land Rover would have a squeaking door due to age after only eight years. And an MGB should not be described as a veteran, when the term has a very specific meaning to classic car enthusiasts, nor would its temperature gauge tell Kiernan that the roads are likely to be icy unless she’d been to Halfords and fitted a gizmo herself. Those niggles kind of distract me from a big dramatic car moment at one point as I tried to remember which way my MGB used to skid on ice and whether that fit with what the book is describing. If it hadn’t been for the niggles, I’d have just gone with the drama.
Car niggles aside, this one starts a little slowly, but then I was gripped with a need to know what the ghost wanted and whether our heroines are ever going to come to their senses and trust each other’s feelings. Some lovely similes in the descriptive passages too.
Grade: B
Summary:
Beautiful Eleanor Teal has accepted the tragedy in her life and gradually become reclusive, living alone in her Georgian home in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds—a place she once shared with the woman she loved and lost, and a place where she feels safe and cocooned with her memories. But suddenly the house doesn’t feel safe anymore. Things start to happen there—things distinctly paranormal. She finds her life being haunted by the presence of a ghost who is desperately trying to tell her something. Help comes to Eleanor in the unexpected form of Kiernan Foyle, a freelance photographer with an abundance of Irish charm and wit.
Brought together by the haunting, they soon discover the power of true love, but are they willing to risk loving again?
Read an excerpt.
