Customer Reviews

Beaudry's Ghost

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"... and they say the ghost of Union Soldier Jared Beaudry rides the Coast of the Outer Banks to this very day, looking for his lost arm, leg, head. Looking for revenge against Bloody Zachariah Harris, the Confederate Lieutenant who took them and his honor by shooting him in the back."....

Jared can't believe his ears, these soldiers are talking about HIM. How do they know about all these years that he has suffered; riding his horse along the coast, compelled to endlessly return to the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras, the scene of his death?

Who are these men, dressed in Confederate Uniforms, armed with Confederate weapons? Has his chance for revenge against his murderer finally arrived?

Unbeknown to Lieutenant Jared Beaudry, he is watching re-enactors, men who relive history and act out the 1860's army life and battles. Among these men hides a woman. A woman battling her own demons. Grieving the tragic death her twin brother Troy, she has taken his place, and wearing his uniform has joined the ranks of the Confederate Army.

Jared is determined to use this re-enactment to regain the honor that he lost in 1862. With the help of Troy's ghost, an unwilling "body" and the grieving Miss Taylor Brannon, his objective is finally within his grasp.

But when his plans go horribly wrong, the entire group of re-enactors are put in mortal danger. Can Jared salvage the situation and find eternal peace?

Taylor, gifted or cursed by the ability to see ghosts (except the one she most longs to see), realises what is happening and wants to help. But in helping will she have to sacrifice the romantic feelings she and Jared are beginning to feel?

This is one paranormal romance where the reader will be kept in suspense right to the end of the book. How can a ghost relive his own death to regain his honor, and still keep the living woman?

This romance is superbly written. The plot is fresh and unique and the characters come alive. As a veteran romance reader I can guarantee satisfaction with this story.

Jared Beaudry was mutilated and shot in the back by Bloody Zechariah Harris during the Civil War. For over a hundred years his spirit has roamed the beaches of North Carolina, refusing to rest until he finds a way to restore both his limbs and his honor while exacting vengeance on the man who took them. Although managing to make himself seen by a few people over the years, he's unable to make contact until he stumbles into a re-enactment of the battle where he died and meets psychic sensitive, Taylor Brannon.

Taylor has the ability to see spirits, an ability that terrifies her. She's spent her life running away from it. With the loss of her twin brother, Navy Seal Troy Brannon, Taylor tries to embrace her gift in an effort to make contact with him, but to no avail. Cutting her hair and dressing in her brother's Confederate uniform, she joins the re-enactment, hoping this will bring Troy to her. Feeling Taylor is the answer to his prayers, Jared makes a last ditch attempt to set things right by jumping into the body of a Union re-enactor, setting off a deadly chain of events no one could have foreseen.

Ms. Ivy has extensive knowledge of the Civil War and her ability to present the historical details in a way that doesn't slow the plot was quite impressive. I like the way the romance between Jared and Taylor develops and found the paranormal aspect done extremely well. The author has a talent for putting the reader right there in the thick of things, as the plot races along. The secondary characters were interesting and believable. The book could do with some editing to correct extra/missing words, but these didn't detract too much from my enjoyment of the story, which was well written and the editing will probably be taken care of in the new version. I do think the ending cries out for a sequel and I'm happy to find there will be one. I'll be sure to get a copy.

Hello,

I'm Carolan Ivey, author of Beaudry's Ghost. I'd like to let readers know that a newly revised and explanded version of this award-winning paranormal romance is now available from SamhainPublishing.com in ebook - the paperback will be released (and available in Amazon) in November 2008.

If I can be so bold, I do believe it's an even better book than it was before. Also, the sequel is in the works and has been tentatively slated for release in October 2008.

Thanks!
Carolan

Beaudry's Ghost is an exciting read filled with history, romance and passion. I highly recommend it. Lisa Hamilton, CompuServe Romance Reviews

BEAUDRY'S GHOST is one of the most well thought out romances I've read in a long time. In some ways, it doesn't even read like a romance, though it is so fascinating I barely noticed. Set in modern times, BEAUDRY'S GHOST is the story of a Civil War reenactment gone bad when ghosts of soldiers past possess living men to once again commit the heinous murder of captured Union soldier Jared Beaudry. This time, however, Jared intends to die with his honor intact so he can rest in peace rather than haunt the Southern coast as a headless, limbless ghost. Jared also has a heroine to help him, a girl named Taylor who has her own ghosts to face as she battles Jared's captors. Jared and Taylor are likable, sympathetic lead characters, and the plot is fast-paced and engrossing (not to mention bursting with Civil War history). I could barely make myself put the book down. The ending is satisfying and plausible, and rather exciting as it leaves room for a sequel. I highly recommend BEAUDRY'S GHOST as an enjoyable, vastly entertaining read. If you are looking for a good romantic ghost story, this is it! PS. You can buy an electronic version at LTDBooks.com.

I found Beaudry's Ghost to be a fun read and

I loved it. I love the author's descriptive way of writing.

Rather than taking the word of a loquacious,

garrulous "critic?" who attacks other reviewers,

form your own opinion.

Storyline was more geared toward mid-teens (if you removed the few pages where the hero/heroine slept together near the end.) The book also moved at a snail's pace, contained far too much repetition, held way too many inconsistencies, was riddled with misspelled words, and had Civil War ghosts who never stayed true to their era.

The heroine was too much the "wounded-bird." All her emotional angst kept dragging me down and the hero kept switching what was most important to him. Also, the way the hero/heroine kept gazing at each other but shying away before any connection was made throughout most of the book became quite boring. I didn't feel all warm and cozy with the ending. When two spirits were fighting over one body, obviously one of them had to lose. This story didn't make me feel like cheering.

I bought this book thinking it would be wonderful, based on the glowing reviews I'd read about it on Amazon. However, when I held it in my hot little hands, flipped it over and noticed that the critic's recommendation on the back was written by one Harriet Klausner, I was immediately filled with trepidation. You might be familiar with Ms Klausner's reviews...she does a LOT of them on Amazon, and without fail, no matter how bad the book is that she's reviewing, she ALWAYS praises it. In fact, it seems that the worse the book is, the better she usually rates it. (Seriously, she would give the Ebola virus a good review!) Sorry, Harriet, but the role of a critic (as the title suggests) is to CRITICISE things, especially when they're bad. If you praise everything indiscriminately, then your praise is worth nothing.

Anyway, my initial trepidation turned out to be well founded. Sadly, this book was pretty crappy. It may have won the 2002 Independent Publisher Award for Best Romance, but that's probably not saying much: generally, independent publishers only publish the books that the real publishers have already rejected, so it's like saying it's the best of all the small and inadequate fish a fisherman rejected and threw back in the water.

I'll admit, this book does have a few good things going for it: the writer does seem to have a real passion for, and understanding of, the background to this novel--the Civil War, and the re-enacting of it. She's done some good research. She has also created a strong, capable heroine, who saves the hero from time to time, which is refreshing in a romance. But other than that, this is a deeply flawed, even irritating work. The writing style is very pedestrian, inelegant, unstructured, fraught with errors, and plagued with inconsistencies and logic gaps. The plotline too is shabby, and often contradicts itself. And the characters are at times almost schizophrenic in the way their motivations, traits, impulses and minds change back and forth. Worst of all, though, the character of Beaudry the ghost did not at all seem like someone from 1862. His dialogue was jarringly modern, full of terms like 'automatically' (was anything automated back in 1862?) and 'appetizer', and phrases such as 'like a balloon on a string just waiting to be jerked' (did they even have balloons back in 1862?). Plus, the writer actually describes one of the ghosts in the story as 'releasing his breath'...since when do ghosts exhale, or need to breathe at all? And there's some plot twists I didn't entirely understand, too, like when the heroine gets shot in the shoulder...at first she notices sharp, overwhelming pain in her shoulder; then the next moment she doesn't seem to feel it at all, and the wound goes unmentioned for about the next day or so (even though she's covered in blood); then suddenly she notices it again, and the pain is suddenly excruciating, to the point where she's passing out and losing the use of her arm; she is then surprised to discover that she has a bullet wound in her shoulder, and that the blood covering her is her own. Huh? That doesn't seem possible, for someone to not even know they've been shot, and for the pain of a major wound to just disappear and then reappear like that! Personally, if I'd been shot in the shoulder and suffered severe pain and blood loss, I'd notice it! And I wouldn't just forget about it for a day, then act all surprised to find that I'm in pain and covered with my own blood from a gaping, infected wound! One can only assume that the writer wrote this incredulous bit of storyline that way so that the heroine could suddenly swoon into the hero's arms and let him take her clothes off to treat the heretofore unnoticed but suddenly life-threatening wound. Couldn't the writer find a more plausible way for the heroine to end up naked in the hero's arms? Romance is about mutual attraction, and a well-matched couple shouldn't need an insane plot twist to end up naked together!

Sadly, this book started out okay but got worse. And I really hated the ending, since I don't find the idea of corpse-snatching and killing innocent bystanders appealing. Still, I suppose the ending did leave the door open to a sequel...though I won't be buying it! I've had more than enough of this story already, thanks! Furthermore, my opinion of the book was not helped by it being full of typos, either. The publishing company did a hammy job: there's words missing, extra words mistakenly added in, inaccurate grammar (i.e. 'taught' instead of 'taut', 'gravely' instead of 'gravelly', etc.) The editing was sloppier than custard. For the exorbitant price I paid for this book, I expected better quality work.

I got the feeling the writer of this book perhaps read a few too many romance novels and decided she could write one too. WRONG! Sadly, this is a classic example of how NOT to write a romance novel. It could have been a great book--after all, it's based on a very intriguing concept. But the writer's lack of skill failed it, leaving it only a ghost of what it could have been.