Title: Wight Mischief
Author: JL Merrow
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (2nd Edition)
Length: 216 Pages
Category: Mystery/Suspense
At a Glance: While I enjoyed the story overall, it was definitely not my favorite by this author, and left me with a lot of unanswered question and an unresolved feeling on the mystery.
Reviewed By: Lindsey
Blurb: A ghost of a chance at love.
Personal trainer Will Golding has been looking forward to a getaway with his best friend, Baz, a journalist researching a book on ghosts. But on the first day of their camping trip on the Isle of Wight, Will takes a walk on a secluded beach and spies a beautiful young man skinny-dipping by moonlight. Ethereally pale, he’s too perfect to be real—or is he?
Lonely author Marcus Devereux is just as entranced by the tall athlete he encounters on the beach, but he’s spent the years since his parents’ violent death building a wall around his heart, and the thought of letting Will scale it is terrifying. Marcus’s albinism gives him his otherworldly appearance and leaves him reluctant to go out in daylight, his reclusiveness encouraged by his guardian—who warns him to stay away from Will and Baz.
The attraction between Will and Marcus can’t be denied—but neither can the danger of the secrets haunting Marcus’s past, as one “accident” after another strikes Will and Baz. If they don’t watch their step, they could end up added to the island’s ghostly population.
Review: JL Merrow can write settings like no one else. I just adored the vivid scenic descriptions; it felt as I was right there with Will and Baz, journeying through the island in search of ghosties and uncovering even more than Will bargained for. There is a certain humor in the conversations that I truly appreciate, lending the story a lighthearted feel. But despite loving the location and feeling, like I was right there with Will, I was expecting more in certain areas and am still scratching my head about some things.
To start off with, if you are looking for a romance where your MCs get a lot of on-page time together, you may be disappointed. To me this was first and foremost a mystery with a dash and sprinkle of building romance. Will and Marcus have very little page time together, and what time they did have wasn’t something that really created the best foundation for me. Will and Baz were together more often.
Marcus has issues, without a doubt, and it becomes obvious why he doesn’t know how to interact socially and is paranoid of Will and Baz and everyone else. I understood the mental and emotional abuse aspect of his personality and was empathetic to what he had gone through. But as a romantic interest, I had trouble picturing it, and in all honesty ,the whole romantic portion of the plot just didn’t work for me. Though Will and Marcus are attracted to each other, the interaction is fairly minimal. They don’t even have real physical interaction until about eighty-percent through the book. And up until that point their shared time was usually Will being a nice guy and Marcus being paranoid and even mean; it was hard to see the chemistry. Once they do give in to the attraction, it all got a bit rushed from there, and the difference in pacing was a little jarring.
Baz’s character was an interesting and prominent part of the entire plot, and through Baz’s behavior and Will’s reaction the reader gets more of a feeling of Will’s overall personality and sympathizes with him. Baz was the catalyst for coming to the island, but his focus as a writer and journalist is what brought everything out to the open. Though I wouldn’t call Will a pushover, he also is not into confrontation. He is loyal to a fault, and Baz takes that for granted as well as has taken advantage of Will. Baz was someone who was richly developed and gave me lots of feelings. More often than not, I was cringing and shaking my head at his behavior and wishing Will would just see past the years of friendship to the person Baz truly was. He was brash and disrespectful to Will quite often. He was very self-involved and rarely took into account anyone else’s feelings, especially Will’s. Baz was out for Baz and what would benefit Baz. But, there were moments of true caring that popped through and allowed me to see beyond the self-centered friend he appeared to be through most of the book. Their relationship dynamic kept me absorbed and reading on, and I found it more complex and interesting than that of Will and Marcus, to be honest.
The mystery, while not surprising in its outcome, was fun to follow, mostly because of the different locations Baz and Will traveled to around the island. I figured out pretty quickly who was responsible and was interested in the reasons why and how everything would be revealed. Sadly, that is where the mystery let me down. It left a <i>lot</i> of unanswered questions as to the motivations and how everything happened, both in the past and the present. When everything ends, it’s clear that most of the information would never come to light. I know in real life sometimes the reason for the crime never gets exposed. I logically know monologues aren’t quite as common as I have grown used to in my fictional world, so it’s probably more realistic that the villain’s reasoning, methods and feelings were absent. But whether it’s realistic or not, I can’t help that it drives me nuts when I don’t know or don’t understand the motivations behind the actions of a good mystery. This one left a lot unanswered.
Despite the fact the romance didn’t really do it for me, and the mystery left more questions unanswered than I tend to prefer, there was still a lot of enjoyable qualities to Wight Mischief. I did appreciate the times with Will and Baz, and Will beginning to see <i>himself</i> and his worth, as well as the different locations and the process of uncovering clues in the big mystery. The eerie feeling of some of the ghost’s locations and the vivid descriptions were phenomenal. Not my favorite by this author but still a fun little read.
You can buy Wight Mischief here:
[zilla_button url=”http://bit.ly/2JIl4Kp” style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Dreamspinner Press [/zilla_button][zilla_button url=”http://books2read.com/u/boZv8a” style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon, B&N, and Other eTailers [/zilla_button]