Bone Island Trilogy - Romantic Suspense Review

Ghost Shadow - In the opening of this trilogy we start out with a tour of a Key West oddities museum that goes horribly wrong when a famous exhibit featuring a corpse bride features an actual corpse.  Fast forward more than 10 years later and no one has ever been arrested for the famous murder.  Now all the possibilities are back in town and there's another murder in another museum representing another famous corpse.  Katie O'Hara is from an old Key West family but she was a teenager when the original murder took place but now she finds herself in the middle of it as she grows closer to David Beckett - the ex-boyfriend and main suspect in the original murder investigation.  But Katie has one skill that no one knows about - she can see the dead and the dead talk to her.  This was a really fun read with Key West itself and it's history playing an active role in the story.  The history of the island is discussed in fascinating detail and Graham even includes a timeline of it's history in the front of the book.  The ending felt a bit rushed after so much research in the bulk of the book and I would have liked a little more explanation but it was enjoyable to watch unfold.  This was incredibly fun read with likable characters, a lot of history, and a good dash of ghosts.

Ghost Night - We start out with a bang here - well a scream actually.  A scream that leads to the discovery of two very dead bodies on the beach of an island called Haunt Island.  Vanessa was there that fateful day and not only is she haunted by what she saw she never really felt like she could work out just what had happened.  The one clear suspect was someone that she could just never suspect.  When people start disappearing in the waters around Haunt Island (tip - don't go to a place called Haunt Island) she connects with her old friend Katie and Katie's brother Sean who is about to start filming a documentary regarding the oddities in the water that surround Key West.  I don't think I enjoyed this quite as much as the first book.  I mean it was a fast read with an intriguing plot but I never felt like I connected with any of the characters.  I didn't really understand why Sean was so upset about the fact that Vanessa might have planned to meet with people who worked on a previous film crew.  The fact that that issue popped up throughout the book was a little annoying.  While I loved all the ghosts and the solving of not only a present day mystery but a historic one as well I do wish that more time had been invested in developing the characters.  The cast is pretty large and at time I had a bit of trouble keeping track of who was who.  Regardless, this was still fun and spooky and I'm excited that Liam will get his story next.

Ghost Moon - This is definitely a haunted house mystery with an old isolated house in Key West stuffed with a mix of treasures and junk and a dead man.  The death of Kelsey's grandfather brings her back to her hometown years after she fled with her father after the death of her murder.  Upon arrival she meets up with old childhood friends and goes about trying to find out just what happened to her mother and grandfather.  I really loved the first one and enjoyed the second but this I liked a little bit less.  For one thing I didn't get Kelsey's insistence in sleeping in the house.  I mean I think staying in a bed and breakfast that is literally across the street from the house would be a preferable alternative to sleeping in a home that your grandfather had been sitting dead in for weeks.  And a house that you were so uncomfortable in that you had to have the bedroom door locked at night.  She comes off as hostile and prickly and illogical at times.  The mystery was a bit iffy and the romance was a little flat.  Liam is likable but I had a hard time believing that he had really carried a torch for Kelsey all these years and that they just slid into a relationship as easily as they did.  I think part of what bothered me with this one is there was just so much potential.  The house was crammed full of treasures and only a few were even mentioned and almost nothing was said about any of them.  All in all this was okay but a bit flat.  I don't think Graham is at her best with trilogies or books that focus on the same characters over and over.  I think that's why the Krewe novels really work but so many of her other series fall a little flat for me.