The best book in the Raintree trilogy

books:


	• Raintree: Haunted (Silhouette Nocturne) Linda Winstead Jones Silhouette, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 32 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The best book in the Raintree trilogy

Courtesy of CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

Gideon Raintree is a homicide detective who never fails to get his guy. This is because as a member of the magical Raintree clan, he has a few extra talents up his sleeve. He can speak to the ghosts of the victims to find out what really happened. He also has the ability to harness electricity and use its energy as he chooses. Now as the equinox approaches and danger looms from the enemy Ansara clan, his powers go haywire and the last thing he needs is a new partner.

Hope Malory is all about practicality and new to Homicide and eager to prove she has what it takes to be a detective. While she does not even remotely understand her new partner's odd idiosyncrasies, she is eager to work with this star detective on the Force. When their investigation into a serial killer starts to reveal some very unusual clues, everything Hope believes is put to the test, and she finds herself drawn deeper into the magical mystical world of Gideon. Now the greatest danger may in fact be to her heart.

Gideon is my favorite of the Raintree clan. Even from his short introduction in Inferno, I knew I liked him... Strong, seductive, stubborn, with a wicked sense of humor, and a fierce dedication to his duty. Oh yeah, and we can't forget his ability to harness and manipulate electricity coupled with a talent for communicating with ghosts. What's not to love? His drive to find the answers and his penchant for talking to ghosts, make him a very formidable homicide detective who always gets his man (with a little help from the Other Side).

Hope grew up with a loveable but loopy flower-child mother and as a result scorns all things mystical and magical, believing only in what can be proven with science and logic. When she meets her new partner Gideon, he sparks all kinds of warnings for her. His secretive ways and his bad habit of talking to thin air make her wonder about the enigmatic man, but she can't help but be wildly attracted to him. As she spends more time with him, she comes to understand and even accept his ways, and can't help but admire how fiercely he upholds everything the police force stands for.

The story in Haunted is very dark. After all what is to be expected when you have a vicious serial killer with a sadistic streak and a detective to converses regularly with the victims, discussing the details of what happened? Yet there are enough funny and light moments to counteract the sinister feel, toning it down enough to keep it from going too far. Most of these lighter moments, if not all, center around the familial relationships. One especially tender touch was the ghostly Emma, who appears almost immediately, declaring herself Gideon's future daughter and bringing him a riddle about how she will come into being. (No, this is not a spoiler...) My favorite moment in the entire book comes when Gideon figures out the answer to the riddle. His reaction to this discovery is absolutely delightful and made me laugh out loud.

While the evil Ansara clan has a much stronger and more tangible presence in Haunted, the details of the rivalry are just glossed over, having been explained thoroughly in the preceding title, Inferno. However, don't let that fool you. Haunted is completely stand alone, providing us with a fully developed story in the middle of the bigger arc encompassing all three books in the trilogy. Additionally, Haunted ends with a bang, making readers more than a little bit eager to read the final installment in the Raintree saga.

© Kelley A. Hartsell, September 2007. All rights reserved.

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3 stars

Gideon Raintree prefers to work alone; nonetheless, he is assigned a new partner, Hope Malory, when a woman is murdered after being mistaken for Gideon's cousin. Quickly, they determine that there is a serial killer on the loose, but one thing that Gideon keeps from Hope is the fact that the killer is after his family, because of their numerous psychic gifts. He sees spirits, both of the dead and those yet to be born. Hope is a die-hard skeptic, but she may well have to change her tune the longer she's around Raintree. For one thing, a certain spirit seems to think that they are her parents.

*** Strong characters carry this fast paced, edgy story. Though you always know "who dun it," that does not diminish the suspense as you watch Gideon deal with the living and dead as he tries to stop the spread of evil. ***

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Ghost

Good story. Heavy on the romance needed a bit more mystery. This is the 2nd book of a 3, I'm hoping by the time I read the third it will form a complete story rather than incomplete chapters.

Same story; 3 authors

I must admit i got these 3 books because i liked the idea of 3 friends writing a serial, especially when one of them was Linda Howard. I liked Haunted. I liked the idea that the fermale lead knew what she wanted and was willing to push to get her man. And I was glad that the author did not have Hope agonizing over the fact that Gideon talked to dead people. She accepted him and his differences in a reasonable amount of time and fashion. None of that usual 100 pages of the heroine vacillating between true love and being repulsed by her lovers abilities,which gets on my nerves. One of the best lines in the book is written after Hope and Gideon make love for the first time, and Hope tells him "You give a whole new meaning to the word afterglow Gideon."----loved that line.A nice short read that continues the story line smoothly, with 2 people you can really care about. What else does a book need?

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the best of the triology

this is by far the best out of the three raintree books. it has amazing characterization and lots to keep you glued to the page. it is very obvious that the author had a firm grasp on the subject matter and had a lot of fun.

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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