Book 78, 2020

[chez_jae]

Raintree: Haunted by Linda Winstead Jones

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



At work today, I finished the book I'd taken in to read on my lunch breaks. It was Raintree: Haunted by Linda Winstead Jones, and it's the second book in the "Raintree" trilogy, written by three different authors for Silhouette's 'Nocturne' line. Main characters were Gideon Raintree, from the gifted Raintree family, and his new partner, homicide detective Hope Malory.

Gideon has an amazing success rate for solving homicides. Unknown to the others on the force, it's because he can communicate with ghosts. He also has the power to harness and unleash lightning. The last thing Gideon wants is a new partner. Hope is used to having to work harder to prove herself in a male-dominated career. She is pleased to be partnered with Gideon, and she would like to learn from him. Hope hadn't counted on being thrust into the middle of an investigation into a serial killer. Gideon prefers to work alone, that way he doesn't have to try to cover for the fact that he's seemingly talking to himself when communicating with the ghosts of the victims. He does everything in his power to push Hope away, but Hope is nothing if not determined. Complicating matters for Gideon is the fact that he keeps seeing the spirit of a little girl in his dreams--a girl who calls him 'Daddy' and says she will be coming to him soon.

I detested the first book in this trilogy (Raintree: Inferno), but I'm glad I gave this one a chance. It was written by a different author, and I found it enjoyable. While Gideon is more domineering than I like, at least he wasn't a complete asshat like his brother. Hope was made of sterner stuff than the insipid twit in the first book, too. I really liked Emma, the spirit of their unborn daughter. In fact, I was quite enthralled with the concept of her appearing to Gideon before she was even conceived. Narrative shifted from Gideon's perspective to Hope's, and it occasionally was written from the perspective of Tabby, the killer. It was refreshing to read about a female villain. What did annoy me...


- In the first book, the male lead automatically believed that the female lead was one of the rival Ansara family of super-humans, but in this one, it never once crossed Gideon's dumbass mind that Tabby was Ansara.
- When Gideon was still hell-bent on "getting rid of" Hope, he sexually harassed her (Now she'll put in a for a transfer for sure!). Not only did this piss me off because he was a pig, but let's be honest. If Hope was dumpy or dowdy, he never would have done it, and he certainly wouldn't have done it if his new, unwanted partner was a man. Note to authors: this is not romantic! Good grief.
- Ended on a cliffhanger again. Guh.

The plot in this one was thrilling, creepy at times, and even gory at others. Characters were three-dimensional, including secondary ones.

Favorite line: It was going on four forty-five in the morning, and no woman was meant to wear a bra for twenty-two hours.

Giving this one four stars.

Comments

[pauraque]

"and he certainly wouldn't have done it if his new, unwanted partner was a man"

So true. I have a habit of picturing sexist scenes on TV and in movies as they would play if the female character were a guy. Often it would make the male lead look like a complete lunatic and every viewer would see that. But when it's a woman he's harassing or condescending to, half the audience doesn't even notice.

[chez_jae]

I can't believe this passes for 'romantic'. But, it was written about 20 years ago. Let's hope we've made some small progress.