Set on the banks of the Mississippi, GHOST HORSE: A Gothic Romance is a spooky and intense tale of a young woman who arrives at a brooding large house with a stud farm. While taking up the post of governess to a young teen girl, she is secretly searching for her missing college friend.
Greylord Pastures is a family-run Thoroughbred farm, and the small cast of characters provide newcomer Chloe Morgan with welcomes and information – or they don't. Not everyone is pleased with her arrival. Foreseeably, the temperamental daughter Nissa is displaying an attitude; nobody asks a thirteen-year-old what she wants. Nissa's father, Damian Greylord, is newly divorced and annoyed that the previous governess, Dawn Reed, just vanished, leaving a note saying that she was going to get married. Chloe knows that Dawn would never have behaved in this manner, and would have been in touch if she was planning a wedding. Damian is also coping with a series of tragic or unlucky events on the farm that summer.
I enjoyed the story, which qualifies as romantic suspense. While I don't read a lot of Gothic tales, the ingredients are identifiable; the isolated large old house, death, separation in the family, contrast between wealth and shabbiness, whispers and rumors, and glimpses of ghosts. What surprised me greatly was that Chloe, who is sneaking around investigating between lessons and rides, hears noises in the attic and dismisses them – she should have immediately wondered if her friend was being held there. I was also surprised that a farm this big has no dogs.
Young Nissa is braver than she knows but confused and angry at her mother's desertion followed by the casual disappearance of the governess she'd come to trust. Nissa is a well-realized character on the cusp of adolescence, horse crazy and seemingly friendless. I could imagine her starring in her novel a few years later.
The GHOST HORSE of the title refers to a tragedy at the start, which sets the atmosphere, and a ghostly visitation at times during the book. We meet some residents of nearby Galena. The romance develops slowly, despite the atmosphere and ongoing suspicions. Author Patricia Rosemoor has written several books previously, and she has strung together many elements of sadness and intrigue to create GHOST HORSE.
Chloe Morgan is the summer tutor of the daughter of Graylord Pastures's owner, Damian Graylord. But her real job is investigating what really happened to her missing best friend. A task that gets more difficult as she becomes closer to Damian – her prime suspect. His property seems haunted, first by the noises in the attic over her room, then seeing a pale horse that doesn’t exist on the property. A horse that supposedly died in a terrible accident on the very day her friend disappeared...
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