The House of Haunted Dreams

by Jane Peart

Book by Peart, Jane

Genres: Gothic

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Jane Johnson Peart of Asheville, North Carolina, Humboldt and Marin counties, California, and in recent years, Hawaii, passed away in 2007. She was the author of more than 60 works of suspense, historical fiction and romance, which touched the hearts and minds of thousands of readers whose correspondence she treasured. She wrote for the secular and Christian market, and is best known for the Brides of Montclair series.

Reviews

[MV · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well-written book, but also very easy reading, and with a mystery that's super easy to figure out from the beginning. The heroine isn't the brightest and it's a wonder she survives. What I liked about this book, though, was how well it brings out the beauty, tradition, and wonder of New Orleans, one of my favorite cities. So, ultimately I enjoyed it.

I do want to note there is an obvious error in this book. The origin of the family home is changed abruptly from what was originally stated and it really threw me. I had to go back and re-read some pages to make sure I wasn't tripping or something but no, it's quite the error! More specifically, the beautiful mansion Belle Monde is originally explained as having been built by an ancestor on the heroine's father's side for his wife, many years ago (before the Civil War). But then throughout the rest of the book, the running theme is that the same home was on the heroine's mother's side of the family, and her mother and aunt grew up there together. The home didn't make it to heroine's father's side until the marriage of her mother and aunt to two brothers from the same family. The author must have decided to change the home's origin partway through her work, and forgot to go back and update that earlier piece of the story. A good editor should have caught this.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm being generous giving this a 3, maybe a 2.5 is more accurate. There was nothing in itself wrong with the writing, in terms of a young woman finding out her identity she has been raised to believe is a lie and so she sets off to find the truth and her real family in New Orleans, in that way it's wrote fine, authentic writing to the time period, but why the book itself is not great? because there is no romance in it, NONE, they do not even kiss in it, the hero is also not prominent at all in the story, this should not even be classified as a romance so it was a waste of time.

Also spoiler: while the heroine was nice enough she could be quite stupid like at the end of the book when she finds out Dev was using her and wanting her out of the way to get her inheritance and that he was probably involved in a murder plot........and yet she still agrees to drive off alone with him to the country house..........dumb b*tch lol and then she gets locked in a fire by him so naturally she deserved to die for being so stupid but all is well of course and the guy she thought wanted to kill her saves her...........and still no romance.