Helpful Score: 1
Yet another of the author's beautiful, benighted heroines (The Girl on the Beach, etc.)--this one twentysomething Gail Loring, still recovering from a disastrous affair, a breakdown, and a sojourn in a psychiatric clinic. An unlikely set of coincidences results in her renting a house in the old whaling town of Hampton Harbor on Long Island. Surprise! This is the very town in which had lived one of Gail's forebears, and according to her dour, alcoholic great-aunt Louise, one who'd committed an unspeakable crime. Surprise! This turns out to be the very house in which the so- called Monster of Monroe Street had lived. Gail promptly begins a series of trips into the past, in which she is Martha, married to wealthy, bullying Samuel Fitzwilliam but in love with whaling captain Jared Cantrell. Between doing local research on her house and ancestors, and spells of living back in the 1800's, Gail manages to inspire the romantic attentions of teacher-realtor Martin Crowley, who's on hand when Gail finally exorcises her ghosts and regains normalcy--a happening the reader may find as unconvincing as the artificial plotting here. For faithful fans only.
