“Then you stay down here and I’ll sleep in your bed.”
His eyes went from half-shut to fully-open, regarding her sharply. “Julia, you don’t sleep in that bed until I’m in it with you.”

Sommersgate House

Kristen Ashley

 

 

Tyntesfield

2.75 I-Wanted-Ghosts-Not-Dramas! Stars.

Lets see the OFFICIAL synopsis for the book:

Douglas Ashton is the cold and unfeeling owner of the gothic Victorian Mansion, Sommersgate House. Julia Fairfax is his stubborn American sister-in-law. After tragedy strikes, Douglas and Julia are forced to live together at Sommersgate and raise their newly orphaned nieces and nephew.

Douglas has no desire to raise his dead sister’s children nor does he want the distraction of the tempting Julia living under his roof. Julia is struggling with grief and trying to make a go in a new country without much help from impossibly handsome but even more impossibly remote Douglas. Not to mention, she has to deal with the active hostility of Douglas’s frosty, Attila-the-Hun-in-a-skirt mother, Monique.

Douglas decides the best way to give the children what they need, get his mother to behave and give himself what he wants is to marry Julia. When he tells her (yes, tells her) she will be his wife, Julia thinks Douglas is (probably) insane. And anyway, she’s decided if she ever has another husband (since the last one wasn’t so great), he was going to be short, balding, have a paunch and worship the ground she walks on (none of these characteristics define Douglas in the slightest).

One more thing, Sommersgate House is haunted by the ghosts of the man who built the house and the woman who was the love of his life. They both died mysteriously at Sommersgate months after it was finished. When they did, a curse settled on the house making it seem strangely alive. And the only way for the beautiful but frightening house to rid itself of this curse is for its owner to find true love.

Now lets see MY VERSION of synopsis:

Meet Lord Daughlas, the owner of Sommersgate House. (He's HOTT!)



And meet Julia Farfax, a divorcee and his sister-in-law. (She's HOTT too!)



Sommersgate House was (supposed to be) a story of the couple and a couple of ghosts, Lord Archie and Lady Ruby (which was what attracted me to the book in the first place) . It was under the Paranormal/Supernatural Category but there was like only a gist (and a very SMALL one at it..) of that elements in the story. (I am not sure whether that is a good or a bad thing but it sure as hell made the story very boring for me.) Mostly the book was about in laws who found themselves left with a custody over three orphaned kids after the death of their parents. Douglas hated taking care of the kids (he left them to his maids) while Julia loved them a lot (she even gave up her job and life to take care of the kids). Why didn't he just give the full custody to her? I don't know (the book might have explained at some point (his sister's wish maybe?) but I was too busy trying to stifle my yawns (yeah, a plural!) to give much attention to the (what I would call, very boring) story).



Now lets get to know the characters from my point of view..

Lord Douglas.

He was supposed to be like this : Hot, broody, broken, mysterious, rich, a successful businessman and perfect. But all I could gather from his personality and actions is he was just a guy (a pretty boring one at that). He was what I would call nothing spectacular, at all. He failed miserably at being broken. Despite what other readers have felt over him, I felt nothing for him. (And don't you dare telling me I don't get his pain, because I have been in the pretty same situation too before!) He was just a workaholics. And mysterious? I wouldn't call him that when the truth is the only reason we didn't know about his life much is because it was never mentioned much by the book while Julia's life was mentioned all over the book (by both the book itself, and the characters). One more thing, at first he freaking planned to give Julia the full custody of the kids because he wasn't really taking care of them anyway but when he saw Julia he went from not wanting them to wanting them and Julia. WTF? He kept telling himself that marrying Julia would be the best solution for the kids but the truth is:

a) He didn't give a damn about the kids. (He knew that his mother was evil, but he left them with her!!!)
b) He wanted Julia. (Julia was hott, remember?)
c) He was nuts. (Yeah, that totally explains everything!)

Julia Fairfax.

She was hot. She loved the kids. End of story.



P/s:

Since a synopsis is a shortened info of a novel, minor details are not included. So no Lady Ruby and Lord Archie for you guys, bear with it! :)

A warm comfort read, perfect for winter holidays. A sort of Captain VonTrapp story with lots of hot, meaningful, breathless moments. Our alpha wearing suits and tuxs and dolling out diamonds and cars, speaking few words, complex, flawed, likable.

Only about 2% of this is about ghosts, and that is a love story too.

I'm just consistently amazed at how enjoyable KA's writing is. Easy, reliable, fun, awesome.

LOOOOOOOVED IT... Pure KA blisss!!!!

I don't know why I didn't read these books earlier.... they are so beautiful and endearing.

This was another fairytale told as only KA can!

"If I could," he whispered into her neck one dark night, "I'd have the world watch me make you mine."

Like in the previous book the story concentrate on Julia and Douglas relationship and how Julia and the kids settle in their new life. I loved Julia-Douglas couple and I really liked how KA addressed the children grief. The part when Ruby realizes that her parents will never come back is heart wrenching. The ghost part was different from book 1 and I liked it better here. Again, though it is present, the supernatural part doesn't take a lot of place in the story and the book can mostly be read like a contemporary romance.