Customer Reviews

Mesmerized

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At a séance Stephen St. Leger tries to prove that it is a fake by capturing a woman he thinks is part of the act, but instead he catches Olivia Moreland, an investigator of Psychic Phenomena. All her life Olivia had been fascinated with the idea that people can communicate with spirits, but had never run into a "psychic" who proved to be the real thing. Her grandmother, one of the first to be called a 'mad Moreland', had the 'second sight' and claimed Olivia did too. Stephen's frustration lies in the fact that his mother is being duped by a medium, Madame Valenskaya. His brother had died the previous year and in order to ease her grief she turned to Madame Valenskaya, a woman who manipulates Lady St. Leger's feelings to extort money from her, pretending she can communicate with the Lady's dead son. Stephen wants to tell his mother that the woman is just making a fool out of her, but he knows it is going to take more to convince her of that so he hires Olivia to help him show his mother that the medium is a fraud. Olivia is determined to keep their relationship strictly on a business level, but will she be able to ignore the attraction she feels for Stephen? After arriving at Blackhope Hall, Olivia starts to have dreams about a woman who lived long ago. Did this woman really exist or is she just a figment of Olivia's imagination? Olivia soon finds out Stephen has dreams about a knight who loved the woman Olivia has been dreaming about. Are these dreams real or are they just another trick of Madame Valenskaya? As darkness and evil loom around Stephen and Olivia, they find themselves falling in love, but will that love be powerful enough to save them?

I found Olivia to be a very believable and likeable heroine. She wasn't an impossibly beautiful woman, her looks bordered on plain and ordinary, but in the eyes of the hero she was beautiful. She was witty and open-minded, loving her family despite the things that other people in society found odd. It was nice to read about a heroine who had a loving and unique family; they only helped add to the story, they never took away from it. She was very confident in her abilities, but in the ways of being a woman, she wasn't sure how to act. I found this very endearing and relatable. Stephen wasn't your typical hero; he wasn't a womanizing, lustful creature. He was compassionate and truly cared about what the heroine thought and felt. His love and loyalty to his mother was touching, even though he didn't believe the medium was the real thing, he let his mother keep her around. He was never cruel to any of the main characters, which I found to be a refreshing change from the norm in historical romances.

Even though there are a lot of romance novels out there, many don't contain true romance, but this novel was an exception. The moments between the hero and heroine were breathtakingly romantic, not simply an exchange of passionate kisses and bold caresses. The reader can feel the deep connection and love between these two characters. Instead of spending all their time kissing, they actually talked to one another, building a foundation for a deep and strong love. I enjoy reading about characters who converse in a story, it helps draw in more emotion from the reader and makes their confession of love more plausible. I'm not usually one for a mystery in a romance novel, but I felt Camp did a great job weaving it into this story. The mystery never overpowered the novel, it simply complemented the romance between Stephen and Olivia. I was pleased with the novel as a whole and I can find no real faults with it. The storyline was fresh and original as were the characters, the secondary characters never overpowered the storyline, and all the events in the novel fit together perfectly. This is definitely going on my 'keeper' shelf.

This is the first of another trilogy and an excellent beginning.

I had to chuckle at the way Olivia Moreland met Stephen, Lord St. Leger - it definitely scared the medium, Mrs Terhune.

Included in the rounding out characters is Capshaw, Stephen's cousin, who was surprised at Stephen's attack on Olivia. The one in the shadows is, Rodrick, Stephen's deceased brother whom his mother is trying to communicate with - with the help of the Russian medium, Madame Valenskaya and her daughter Irena.

St. Leger is not too happy when his mother, Lady St. Leger, when she informs her son the she has invited the Madame and her daughter and their sponsor, Mr. Babbington, to Blackhope Hall. Also attending Lady St. Leger is her daughter-in-law, Lady Pamela, the Countess St. Leger and Belinda, Stephen's sister.

Lady Pamela is also trying to get back in the good graces of St. Leger as she has her [cold] eye on the "Martyr's Treasure". Ah, that is another mystery.

Stephen approaches Olivia about joining the party along with Tom, her right hand man.

Olivia Moreland has a neat family even though they are labeled "Mad Morelands".

The reigning patriarch is her father, the Duke of Broughton and his red-haired wife - there is the oldest son Theodosius, the adventurer and his twin sister, Thisbe and her husband. Then her sister, Lady Kyria Moreland who was labled "The Goddess", who says marriage is not for her - Reed, who takes care of the finances - Olivia and the ten year old twins, Alexander and Constantine. What a great family of characters, including Great-uncle Bellard, the historian.

Many weird things start to happen when Olivia comes to Blackhope Hall - first she thinks she sees a Norman Castle that ends up blending into the Hall. Then the dreams, and the chill of evil. Then Uncle Bellard shows up along with Stephen's friend and partner from Colorado, Rafe McIntyre.

[Please pray tell, how these castles are built that there can be passages and hallways and so many rooms on the 3rd or 4th floors that it is possible to get lost.] I need a detailed drawing of these buildings.

All I am going to say is that it is a Hot Plot with Sir Raymond, his wife, Alys and Sir John. And I dearly love the resolution of the combined stories. I still don't think that the Victorian ladies would surrender that easily to their passions. They would actually live in fear of being caught.

#2 is Beyond Compare with Rafe and Kyria's story.

#3 is Winterset with Reed and Ann Holcombe's story. Hope these turn out as well as this first book.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED PLUS --M - a keeper set? We shall see.

In 1876 Olivia Moreland works at exposing hoaxes that prey on the grieving who desperately want to communicate with loved ones from the great beyond. During a séance, she gets up to debunk the latest fraud, but Lord Stephen St. Leger stops her, thinking she is the fake. Once the air is cleared, both are tossed out as skeptics. Before Olivia leaves for home, she gives him her business card stating she is an Investigator of Psychic Phenomena. Stephen indiscreetly labels her as a member of the "mad" Morelands.

Not long afterward, Stephen hires Olivia to unmask a so called psychic taking advantage of his mother still mourning the loss of her oldest son. His sister-in-law is too selfish to help and mostly hinders Stephen and Olivia's efforts. As Olivia tries to prove fraud, Stephen and she fall in love with one another though she believes he still loves his deceased sibling's wife.

This engaging Victorian romance will please readers who appreciate a spunky young woman, a hunk of a hero, a touch of the supernatural (perhaps) and a pinch of suspense. The duo shares in common a healthy skepticism and a growing attraction. The entertaining story line leads to fans MESMERIZED by Candace Camp's fun historical.

Harriet Klausner

I think it's safe to say that, while I may have been reading the same book as the other reviewers, I came away from it with a completely different impression of the story.

Since everyone knows the plot by now, I'll skip to what I did and didn't like.

Firstly, I didn't care for the supernatural story-line. I don't mind it in general, but this was almost hap-hazardly thrown in. There was no true resolution to the ghost story, and no real explaination of WHY the ghosts were involved at all.

Olivia started out with such vim and vigor. She was tough and unique. By midway through the book, she was a whimpering, teary, "missish" miss. Stephen was rather 1 dimensional. He was a nice guy, don't get me wrong. In fact, about all he WAS was nice. He didn't do much else. A good portion of the book was spent on holding mock seances and searching for books. I son't even go into the whole absurdity of the time they spent together and the situations they were in, without any damage to her reputation. Didn't matter that servants saw them together in her bedroom at night? Riiiight. This, during a time period when merely being in the same room together without a chaperone was enough to "ruin" someone.

Yet again this author is big on the use of the word "loins." Well, in all fairness, I think it was only used twice, but that's more than enough. Especially when used in this manner: "Desire slammed into his loins like a fist." OUCH! That sounds painful... I would think there wouldn't be much desire left after the loins being hit by a fist. I think this author could use a guiding hand with love scenes. They mostly leave me feeling like I want to laugh, not turned on.

This book isn't *terrible*, really it isn't. But the story was weak, the characters underdeveloped, the supernatural aspect unexplained, and the finality unrewarding. I'm not so much sorry I read it as I am just disappointed that more wasn't done with what was already at hand. The book had promise but fell very flat, very quickly.

If you haven't already read this book, I'd definitely pass it over. It's just not worth the time. Definitely not horrid, but is it worth reading a book simply because it's not the worst thing you COULD be reading? That's just not a good criteria by which to choose a book to read, at least as far as I'm concerned.

In hopes of stealing a couple of hours of uninterrupted reading time, I had ridden along with my husband to a meeting. It was a beautiful late summer evening and I opted to stay in the car. I opened by purse, and guess what? No book- I had left it on my nightstand! Disappointed and frustrated, I found a neighborhood drug store and picked up "Mesmerized".

Normally, I do not enjoy historical romances. However, I'm always drawn to ghost stories with in minutes, I was "Mesmerized". The characters were delightful. The plot was well thought out and quite wonderful. I literally couldn't "put it down". And now that I've finished it, I'm rather sad. It's been far too long since I've enjoyed a book this much! Now all I need to do is find another treasure like this one!

This is the first romance novel I've picked up by Camp since high school and I have to say she did NOT disappoint. The characters were enjoyable and relatable and the plot was definitely interesting. The paranormal is trendy right now, but Camp manages to make it so much less obnoxious.

Synopsis: In 1876 Olivia Moreland works at exposing hoaxes that prey on the grieving who desperately want to communicate with loved ones from the great beyond. During a séance, she gets up to debunk the latest fraud, but Lord Stephen St. Leger stops her, thinking she is the fake. Once the air is cleared, both are tossed out as skeptics. Before Olivia leaves for home, she gives him her business card stating she is an Investigator of Psychic Phenomena. Stephen indiscreetly labels her as a member of the "mad" Morelands.

Not long afterward, Stephen hires Olivia to unmask a so called psychic taking advantage of his mother still mourning the loss of her oldest son. His sister-in-law is too selfish to help and mostly hinders Stephen and Olivia's efforts. As Olivia tries to prove fraud, Stephen and she fall in love with one another though she believes he still loves his deceased sibling's wife.

My Review: Mesmerized is the fun tale of Olivia, a shy, average young lady who's interest in the Spiritualist movement propels her to set up her own business as a (mainly) Spiritualist debunker. At the time many families were being duped by fraudulent Mediums, so Olivia goes undercover as a interested guest to these Seances to catch the frauds in the act. At a seance she meets Stephen-who mistakes Olivia as one of the frauds and finds out she's a member of the "Mad Morelands"-an eccentric though aristocratic family. Stephen unwittingly insults Olivia and sparks fly. A week later, he goes to Olivia's office to apologize and ask for her help. A medium, Madame Valenska, he feels is conning his mother by acting like they are in communication with her recently deceased brother Roderick.

There begins a fast paced, exciting tale that is full of adventure and romance. The books moves along well and the romance is sweet, the love scenes are moderate-fairly "hot" but not over the top. Warm enough to enjoy but not hot enough to turn a sensitive reader off.

There are a few, minor places where the book gets bogged down by the ghost storyline being explained. But they are short enough that they are fairly easy to get through. I enjoyed the supernatural aspect of the book, as well as the "debunking" of the mediums part of the book. Both are major parts of the storyline and if you don't do supernatural then you should probably skip this. Several enjoyable secondary characters that I'm sure we'll see in future books

All together a fun, enjoyable Romance 4 stars.

Olivia Moreland, of the mad Morelands, runs a business of disproving mediums. Her grandmother has told her she has the "second sight". Olivia decides to disprove mediums instead of believing she herself is one of them. While at a seance she meets Stephen, Lord St. Leger. He later requests her help in disproving a medium he believes is scamming his mother. He invites Olivia to the family home, Blackhope, to attend seances being held by the medium Madame Valenskaya. The Madame tells his mother that she can communicate with the spirit of Stephen's dead brother. Madame Valenskaya also says there are many restless spirits in the house. Strange things begin to happen around the house. Olivia and Stephen are right in the middle of the strange happenings. They even begin to share dreams of previous occupants of Blackhope. With everything going on they are having a hard time disproving and disbelieving the medium. They set out as a team to solve the mystery about Blackhope.

Mesmerized was an incredible read. It was exciting and romantic. Olivia and Stephen, though not friends at first meeting, soon become partners to solve the mystery before them. The storyline of this book was excellent and the characters very believable. There is just the right mixture of romance, suspense and intrigue to make the book exiciting and hard to put down. There are enough shady characters to keep the reader guessing as to who is behind the strange events. This book was a great read. Candace Camp has once again written an excellent book of love and suspense. A well written read from first page to last.

Mesmerized is the tale of Olivia Moreland and it is in the series of the "Mad Morelands". In this, Olivia goes to Blackhope in order to get evidence that Madame Valenskaya is a fraud. She and Lord Stephen St. Ledger (the Master of Blackhope) find that there are other sinister and romantic ghosts that haunt the mansion. Will they solve the mysteries? For that, read Mesmerized by Candace Camp.

this was my second Candace Camp read and like the last one it is one of my all time favorite romance books. Olivia and Stephen end up teaming up to unmask a medium Stephen is sure is playing his mother. but while they are both positive that the medium is a fake other events begin happening that they can find no answer to explain except that they are real. in fact another love mystery has been brought to life at Blackhope. not only will you be sure to love the growing love between Olivia and Stephen but there is that other love story that will be sure to catch at your heart too.

i wish Candace would write a book about that love story too. you'll see what i mean when you read it.