Gwen’s review of Double Dating with the Dead by Karen Kelley
Paranormal romance published 1 Sept 07 by Brava

This contemporary paranormal romance is a light-hearted tale of two people in professional compeittion with each other.  They’re thrown together in a challenge to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts.  The answer, no matter what it is, will ruin the professional career of one or the other of them.  I suppose this is a good enough reason to fall in love. 

By the way, I detest this cover.  It’s difficult to tell what you’re look at with the mist and the couple dancing just aren’t “speaking” to me.  And, as Sybil pointed out, this is my boy, Nathan Kamp!  I should be loving it, but no such luck.  Ick.

Here’s the book blurb:

Hands Off My Astral Plane!

Psychic Selena James is having the kind of week that makes her happy to talk to the dead. First, famously skeptical (and sinfully sexy) writer, Trent Sanders, called her delusional on TV. Next, her outraged mother publicly challenged him to spend two weeks with Selena at the haunted Garvey Hotel. Now, if Selena can’t prove ghosts exist, she’ll answer to Trent’s private wager: one night in his bed. It doesn’t take any psychic abilities to know Trent could satisfy a woman’s every fantasy. And she may find out very soon, if the two sex-starved ghosts in residence have their way…

Trent Sanders doesn’t believe in anything he can’t see, taste, or touch, and what he sees right now he would definitely enjoying tasting and touching. Selena James might be a bit kooky, but she’s also blessed with a body that could certainly raise the dead, if not talk to them. She’s even got a wicked sense of humor, like when she pinched his butt and insisted it wasn’t her, but one of the “ghosts.” Riiiiiight. But as things move from “haunted” to extremely hot, Trent’s starting to believe the paranormal is a one-way—make that four-way—ticket to paradise…

Read an excerpt.

This was a cute book.  Not a great book.  It’s supposed to be a funny book, but I didn’t find it terribly witty.  I liked the heroine, Selena, well enough I suppose.  But the hero, Trent, was a shallow, ignoble, sex-hungry asshole with very few redeeming characteristics.  This depressed me because my high school crush was named Trent.

This was an amusing story if you’re looking for something light and not complicated.  Not for me, though.  I felt like I was reading the script for a bad movie-of-the-week.

Grade: D