Lawson’s review of Dark Obsession (A Novel of Blackheath Moor) by Allison Chase
Historical romance released by Signet Eclipse 6 May 08

Set to be a moody Gothic romance, Dark Obsession sounded like a good story. Deep passions, escape from scandal and a possibly haunted house out on the moors in Cornwall. Add in a mystery of how someone dies and the appearance of a ghostly helper, Gothic is something this story is packed with. Unfortunately, the dark passions it strives for and the players of the piece end up more temperamental that brooding and mysterious. Maybe it’s trying to hard to be Wuthering Heights.

Honora Thornegoode, called Nora, is in a bind. She’s a talented artist and wants to introduce new talent to London, but she’s been painted in a compromising portrait and to save her reputation she has to marry. Her father, a very unscrupulous businessman, picks Sir Grayson Lowell for her husband. He’s got a story as well, for gossip says that he murdered his own brother. Though her father thinks Gray is a noble fellow, Nora’s not so sure with the gossip.

They get married and after an awkward wedding night (her parents end up eavesdropping to make sure things happen), there’s some passion there and Nora is optimistic about her new husband. Especially after he does realize that the gossip about her was false and she was, in fact, a virgin. Gray is haunted by his brother’s death though, and packs Nora and himself off to Cornwall to escape the London gossips.

When they arrive at Blackheath Grange, Gray changes to a distant stranger who seems to alienate everyone. He withdraws into himself and lets Nora do what she wants with her painting, which she soon involves his nephew who hasn’t spoken a word since his father’s death the year before. Unraveling the mysteries of the Grange and dealing with the past starts to overwhelm everyone and Nora is afraid her bond with her new husband may not survive.

Nora, by turns, was insipid, then serene (after she’s become a woman on her wedding night), then just there. She had more personality at the beginning of the book rather than at the end. She doesn’t do anything particularly stupid, but she does behave in the way a true Gothic heroine would: without much sense. The sparks at the beginning she has with Gray go the way of her personality by the end. Kind of a shadow of what was and a dream for what could be.

Gray himself is okay, until he does something that I don’t think any hero should do. He becomes TSTL. Imagine a hero so involved in his own guilt and fears that he pushes everything away and just becomes more and more selfish not letting any light in to get him past his demons. He believes he’s going insane and shuts Nora out when she’s the only person that really believes he’s just dealing with his grief. He suspects his best friend of wrong doing and he always whines and bemoans the fact that he was the cause of his brother’s death.

Gray’s brother Tom, obviously had a positive effect on those around him. Just about everyone, except for Nora, blame themselves for his death. Even the ghost of his dead wife. It made for far too much melodrama in a story and took away from the bond between Gray and Nora. Which was pretty shaky and based more on mutual lust than anything else. By the end, the HEA doesn’t ring true and everything is tied up in a way that just doesn’t fit with the whiny tone of the rest of the story.

Though Gray’s friend Chad, Earl of Wycliffe, is a decent enough character and the interactions with Nora and Johnny, Gray’s nephew, through artistic endeavors are touching, it doesn’t outweigh the overly moody tone and stupid actions of Gray during the story.

Grade: D

Blurb:

They say that spirits haunt Blackheath Moor.

They wed in haste-Nora Thorngoode, to save her ruined reputation, and Grayson Lowell, to rescue his estate from foreclosure for unpaid debts. Each resents the necessity to exchange vows that will bind them for all time, and yet from the first, passion flames between them. quickly engulfing them in a sensual obsession.

But soon the lover that Nora married becomes a dark stranger to her, a man torn apart by guilt over his brother Tom’s recent, mysterious death.and driven half-mad by ghostly specters who demand that Gray expose the truth. Has Nora married a murderer whose wicked deeds blacken everything around them? Or, together, in the secret passageways of Blackheath Grange and along Cornwall ‘s remote coastline, can Gray and Nora discover what really happened that terrible night.and in setting free the troubled ghosts, free themselves as well?

Read an excerpt.