The Ghost and Katie Coyle by Anne Kelleher is part of the Haunting Hearts series.

Derry O'Riordan, the 10th Earl of Kilmartin was a prisoner being transported by ship in 1799 when a storm took away any last chance of freedom.  Doomed to haunt the area around a set of standing stones in New England O'Riordan frequently visits and scares off the residents of Pond House.

He does not know why he haunts the area but is sure that Katie Coyle, the new resident of Pond House holds the key to his release.  There could be no other explanation for the woman appearing now, 200 years after his death, a woman who is the living image of the love he left behind when he set sail on the fateful voyage.

Katie Coyle is a professor of Irish literature and has moved to Pond House to take up her new post at the local college while she is working towards winning the Clancy grant.

On her first night in the cottage she hears the sounds of someone calling for help out on the path to the coast.  Over the following nights she hears more from her ghosts of the past.  What she does not realise is that the mysterious Derry she has met is a ghost of the present, and he is determined to keep his ghostly state hidden from her lest she be scared away from him, and thus take away any chance he has of being freed from his eternal limbo.

Meanwhile Katie has parted ways with her domineering boyfriend and is seeing Alistair Proser, the son of her boss, a man who is her rival for the Clancy grant.

Alistair's proposal to win him the grant is to solve the mystery of the missing Earl of Kilmartin, the very same earl that is haunting Katie.  Piecing together the mystery Katie realises that Alistair is not only on entirely the wrong track but he is also fabricating evidence.  Deciding that the truth should be told she submits a rival paper for the grant with her theory - all she needs to do is get the proof, and make sure that Alistair does not find out what she is planning.

As Katie gets closer to the truth she finds that she is playing a dangerous game and that the stakes are higher than she could ever have imagined, she is not only risking the grant and her career, but also her heart which is held by the ghostly Derry O'Riordan.

Derry has already broken at least one heart while haunting the stones, and the owner of that heart is determined that Katie will not suffer the same fate that she did all those years ago.  But she does not count on Katie having the power to not only free Derry from his past, but also from his ghostly prison.

The Ghost and Katie Coyle is a nice little romance with a little suspense thrown into the mix.  However, I did feel that there were a few ends that could have been tied up a little better, for instance Annie and her son's lives in Australiia were never really looked into.  I think it would have been interesting to know a little more about what had happened to her the first time around.

Not one of the best ghost stories around but Derry's charm and Katie's spirit do help to make up some way for the holes in the plot that could have been filled a little better.
 

RATING : 
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Also by Anne Kelleher:  A Once and Future Love and Love's Labyrinth