INHERITANCE

4 stars out of 5

Reading any book by one of my favorite authors is always a treat - and both can be said of this one. Still, I have a few reservations - most notably to become aware of an inevitable event and then having to wait till the end - and wading through pages and pages and pages of "stuff" that was interesting and fun and well-written but not all that relevant to said event - for it to actually happen. On the plus side, though, it did boost my anticipation for the next book in this, the first in the author's "Lost Bride" trilogy.

After she's barely recovered from a gobsmacking personal setback, Sonya MacTavish, a graphic designer, is visited by an attorney who gobsmacks her once again with news that she's got an uncle she never knew she had. Actually, that's because her father never knew it, either - he was a twin, no less. Now deceased, that twin has left Sonya much of his personal estate, which includes a huge Victorian house in Poole's Bay overlooking a Maine coast. If she claims it as her own, though, she must agree to inhabit the premises for a minimum of three years. In large part curious as to why her father and his twin were separated at birth - a factoid Sonya's mother would like to know as well - she decides to have a looksee. After all, the house itself is a bit of a curiosity, known to the locals as Lost Bride Manor because of a history of just-wed grooms whose new wives never made it much beyond their "I dos" (starting with one named Astrid).

Oh, and did I mention the house is haunted? As things start to go bump in the night and day, Sonya becomes a believer - attested to by the hunky, marriage-eligible young attorney who's familiar with the house and shows her around. I was a little more skeptical; it was a little hard for me to believe the "spontaneous" eruptions of perfect-for-the-occasion musical numbers blasted from Sonya's computer and harder still to accept the mysterious whole-meal clean-ups that happened during the 15 minutes everyone was gone from the kitchen.

Meantime, Sonya and her best friend Cleo Fabares, who plans to move into the multi-room manor, spend a lot of time inspecting all the rooms, nooks and crannies - finding reminders of those who once lived there (and with them, clues to days gone by) and figuring out how all those weighty objects can be relocated to lived-in parts of the house. In the process, Sonya, at least, manages to land graphic design clients hand over fist - everything she touches, it seems, turns to gold - and she gradually begins to trust most of the "ghosts" and wants to find out why they haven't yet left the building. As might be expected, though, not all the ghosts are the friendly variety; at least one initiates all sorts of bad vibes and experiences that test Sonya's will to continue living there.

Meantime, interspersed chapters give readers a look at the fates of those foregone brides, adding important background. But by the end, both Sonya and Cleo have decided to stick it out - in no small measure because love tends to conquer fear (or at least cancel it out for a time). The actual end, which came as no surprise to me, is a big cliffhanger that no doubt will be the opening chapters in the next installment, which I'm hoping comes soon. Before that happens, I'll thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to get in at the beginning of this intriguing series by way of a pre-release copy.

Inheritance by Nora Roberts (St. Martin's Press, November 2023); 448 pp.