Tess Gerritsen is one of my favorite authors. My love for her started with Rizzoli & Isles and now I’ll pretty much read just about anything she writes. So when Netgalley offered me the opportunity to read her standalone (thriller/mystery/ghost story/ghost sex story?) I jumped at the chance. Without knowing much about it except:

“After an unspeakable tragedy in Boston, Ava Collette flees to a remote village in Maine, where she rents an old house named Brodie’s Watch.

In that isolated seaside mansion, Ava finally feels at peace . . . until she glimpses the long-dead sea captain who still resides there.

Rumor has it that Captain Jeremiah Brodie has haunted the house for more than a century. One night, Ava confronts the apparition, who feels all too real, and who welcomes her into his world—and into his arms. Even as Ava questions her own sanity, she eagerly looks forward to the captain’s ghostly visits. But she soon learns that the house she loves comes with a terrible secret, a secret that those in the village don’t want to reveal: Every woman who has ever lived in Brodie’s Watch has also died there. Is the ghost of Captain Brodie responsible, or is a flesh-and-blood killer at work? A killer who is even now circling closer to Ava?”

Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to read that? Apparently, I shouldn’t have. When I checked Goodreads the vast majority of the reviewers LOVED it.  I wanted to. I so badly wanted to love and appreciate this book if for no other reason than I too am a writer compelled to write in different genres. This book, however, is a hot mess and no matter how hard I try I just can’t make myself finish it.

I love reading too much to spend my Sunday yelling at a character “You in danger girl!” in my Whoopi Goldberg voice to make myself finish this book.

2 Stars because Tess Gerritsen is an amazing writer, her descriptions make you see, smell, taste, and feel whatever she is attempting to portray on the page. This book just didn’t do it for me personally.

Read if you like genre-bending books and have ever fantasized about fucking a ghost.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley.