Haunting Rachel [Mass Market Paperback]

Kay Hooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

Danger wears many faces....

Ten years ago Rachel Grant's fiancé, Thomas, disappeared. His body was never found. Now there's a stranger in town, a man who could be Thomas's twin--or his ghost.

His name is Adam Delafield. He's been watching Rachel for days. He has the locket she gave Thomas before he vanished. And he says he owed her father three million dollars.

But there's no record of the loan—or a shred of proof that Adam is who he claims to be. And he's always nearby as accidents begin to threaten Rachel's life.

Is he an innocent man who only wants to repay a debt? Or a figure from the past with a score to settle? Rachel must expose lies and unravel stories, find out who wants her dead and why...before the next attempt to kill her succeeds.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The beautiful Rachel Grant put her heart and memories in cold storage following the disappearance of her fiancé. Her parents' sudden death 10 years later forces her to return home to settle their estate, but she finds that more awaits her than selling off furniture and signing papers. Dealing with her past is made more complicated by the appearance of the mysterious Adam Delafield. He claims to owe the estate several million dollars, but there is no mention of him or of such a large transaction in her father's papers. That would be odd enough, but Delafield is also the spitting image of Rachel's missing fiancé, long presumed dead. Rachel is naturally troubled by his looks, and further bothered by a series of accidents that are too close for comfort. Then suddenly, even her father's business associates and old friends seem to have something to hide.

Fantastic coincidences are central in Kay Hooper's previous--and most popular--novels After Caroline and Amanda. She has put her skills to good use in Haunting Rachel, despite a sometimes awkward style. Dreams, doppelgängers, and dark dealings do make for delightful reading and Hooper seems to have found her niche with this brand of romantic thriller. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In Hooper's fiction (Finding Laura), death is a permeable membrane, not a brick wall. The ghost of Rachel Grant's fiance of 10 years past returns to sentimental effect in the author's pale new novel of romantic suspense. Rachel was 19 when silver-haired cargo pilot Thomas Sheridan disappeared on a mysterious flight to South America. Yet a decade later, when family estate matters bring Rachel back to Virginia from her life as a designer in New York, she starts catching glimpses of a fair-haired man who has just got to be Tom. Then Rachel's car goes out of control because somebody has cut her brake line. Is the man, who calls himself Adam Delafield, the culprit or Rachel's guardian angel?or both? Adam says he has come to town to repay the $3 million Rachel's late father, Duncan Grant, lent him on a handshake, but she doesn't know whether to trust him. Ultimately, trust provides the subtext for the novel. Rachel is flanked by tough-talking men with hard-voweled names, attorney Graham Becket and businessman Nick Ross, each with his own mysterious agenda that may imperil Rachel or save her life. Unfortunately, Hooper's heroine is too vague a character to compel the reader's concern, and her story is not so much enriched by plot threads as freighted with them?hints at CIA escapades, South American dictatorships and judge-fixing are left dangling. Most of the sex, tenderness and humor are allocated to Tom's sister, Mercy, and Ross, moreover, draining the novel of much-needed emotional tension.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553571834
• ISBN-13: 978-0553571837
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #890,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

KAY HOOPER is the award-winning author of Sleeping with Fear, Stealing Shadows, and more than ten other novels of suspense and intrigue along with dozens of other books. She lives in North Carolina.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Read, November 7, 2000

By 

Kari Johnson (Rockford, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Haunting Rachel (Hardcover)

This being the first book that I have read by Kay Hooper, I was impressed! I am not one who like the "romance/mysteries" but this one definately caught my attention. The book had characters which in some ways you could relate to especially the Mercy & Nick relationship. The Rachel/Adam/Tom relationship was almost eerie. To have someone who could be your dead fiance's twin come into you life is most uimaginable but Kay Hooper found a way to make you believe. I found this book a great read and would recommend it to all!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mystery for Romance Readers, September 7, 1999

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Haunting Rachel (Hardcover)

Kay Hooper has written a book of suspense and mystery for women who read romance. She understands us. Terrible things have happened to Rachel Grant. As a young woman, she lost her finance and her world was dimmed, seemingly forever. For years she has gone through the motions, numb. Now, she must deal with the aftermath and guilt of her parents sudden death. She returns home and things begin to happen to her, at once strange and frightening. A man steps into the center of the mystery, Looking like her fiance he seems a saviour, but who is he really? Her uncle seems to be searching the house frantically for something, but what? Her fathers lawyer seems to want to protect her interests but what is he really doing? Ms. Hooper has taken these elements and more, weaving them into an amazingly complex tale with many of the dramatic elements Alfred Hitchcock put in his still thrilling films. Like Hitchcock, humor gleams thru the mystery at the most unexpected moments. When I finished this book, I closed it with the satisfaction that comes with a good read. Like a good meal it leaves a pleasant memory. I recommend it highly.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too mushy - kept waiting for suspense, October 16, 1999

By 

Karen Visser - See all my reviews

This review is from: Haunting Rachel (Mass Market Paperback)

This book really disappointed me. I am a fan of mystery and thrillers and bought the book (partly) on the comments at the cover: " a real hair-raiser", "tremendous punch" - but sorry, I didn't see it. I was already halfway when I realized there WAS no deeper layer in the story: this is it, this is as tense/suspenseful (yawn) as it's going to get. A lot of characters are introduced with quite non-convincing backgrounds, and you saw the end build up real gradually (whodunnitandwhy). I thought the parts where Rachel interacts with Adam were soooooo mushy, talking about touching, caressing, kissing, feelings, blablabla, if I want to read about that, I'll take a romance novel. NO hair was raised what so ever. This is the first Kay Hooper I read, but as far as I'm concerned it will be the last: ultra-thin plot, where some characters are sketched briefly, without a real function in the plot (Marcy, and the housekeeper - forgot her name). Yeck! Take Dean Koontz, or Ann Rule - THOSE are hair-raising!!!