Rendezvous With Hymera

Melinda
De Ross
Genre: 
Paranormal

Clara DeVine is enjoying a wonderfully relaxing vacation in a cute summer cottage.  While exploring the nearby town, her vacation continues to improve when she bumps into Colin Lambert, her old high school crush.  They spend some time together, and romance rapidly kindles between the former classmates.  Just as they are settling into a comfortable routine, their blissful bubble is shattered by the eerie visitations of a ghostly woman.  Who is she?  What does she want?  And why does she seem to have an affinity with Clara?

 

Romanian author Melinda De Ross writes with intricate, multi-layered prose that is sometimes beautiful and other times detrimental.  It’s hard to stay immersed in the scene when you have to stop to look up every third word in the dictionary.  The supernatural elements of the tale deal with the idea that practicing yoga can lead to a heightened state of being, which is a unique and unexpected way to approach a ghost story.  However, being part romance, part ghost story, this book struggles to find its footing.  The specter is not very scary, and the romance takes a back seat to the mystery.  Unless one is extremely interested in the doctrine of yoga practitioners, there is just not enough substance here to make a compelling read.  Being only fifty pages in length, it would be beneficial to expand the plot to encompass either more details about the spook, or even better, more insight into the quickly-formed love between Clara and Colin.

 

Leslie Stokes