Dead Secrets by Richard Milton

This book was given to me to review. It was presented as a paranormal romance. Cover unseen at this point, those two words brought up a couple pictures in my mind. Paranormal of course usually brings up something to do with vampires or werewolves, not that I mind much, but the subject is getting rather old in my opinion. And then there is romance. Most romance I've seen lately involves a whole lot of "love at first glimpse" and "I just can't live without him/her". The rest of the book, in my opinion, too many of them fall just short of erotica as the erstwhile pair struggles to hate each other while at the same time they can't stay out of each others pants. The whole point of the story is to get from point A-in bed to point B-in bed to point C-in bed... You get my point.

Anyway...

This book has paranormal more along the lines of precognition and the romance is the kind that makes you cringe with fear. Yes, I said fear. Almost as soon as Tony meets Miss Eve Canning, he loves her, but he still carries on with his research. His goal, to debunk scientifically one wealthy psychic. However an inheritance from his mother opens a puzzle-box that he can't resist. When his work starts to cross paths with the mystery surrounding his mother, he has to dig hard, and when his psychic ends up dead, Tony starts mixing with the rich and rather freaky. I mean, when some old lady with a title can shell out 7 million for a skull... Yeah - scary.

Have I tweaked your curiosity yet? This book is well written and well researched. If I didn't know it was fiction, I could have easily taken it for some kind of diary. It lead into realms, London, that is, I'd never been to before, and yet I had no trouble following in Tony's footsteps, nor did I have any trouble following his logic. I don't believe I would have made the choice he made at the end, but then again, I was more than a little scared of Eve, and I wasn't in love with her.

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