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Book review	Mary Becelia
Hope Tarrís The Haunting You've probably read a bit about Hope Tarr lately. She was one of Front Porch's PEOPLE TO WATCH in January 2007, and she was featured recently in the Free Lance-Star, in an article about her new book, The Haunting. I'm going to write about that book, too. In fact, you could call this piece a sort of a book review, but given that Hope is a local resident, it seems only right to acknowledge that fact up front. You can learn a lot more about her at her website: hopetarr.com On it, she sounds like a great person. She loves animals, especially cats, and in the couple of emails we exchanged in mid-March, she seemed like a kind and friendly person. But, did you know she can also really steam up the page? Yes, The Haunting is the real deal -- what one might call a "bodice ripper" or, even, semi-erotica. It is published as part of Harlequin's Extreme Blaze series, and, indeed, Ms. Tarr turns up the heat in this fictional love story between Maggie Holliday, a new professor of history at the University of Mary Washington, and Ethan O'Malley, the Civil War-era ghost inhabiting the attic of her historic Caroline Street home's attic. As a resident of the 'burg and one-time resident of Caroline Street myself, I thoroughly enjoyed the references in The Haunting to local sites such as the Central Rappahannock Regional Library, Hyperion Espresso, Bistro Bethem, Kybecca, and more. In addition, I've worked at UMW since arriving in town in 1993 and so that angle of the story was also appealing to me. And, what's not to like about a handsome, virile ghost who describes himself to Maggie as, "Your lover, your soul's mate as you are mine. Had our past lives turned out differently, I would have taken you as my wife to love and cherish for all time." Sigh. True romance writing there. But back to the virile part... Well, you see, Maggie has been having a bit of difficulty in the bedroom area for quite some time, as the story opens. Her boyfriend, Richard, is rather selfish in bed and Maggie is not exactly enjoying their liaisons at this point. It's been quite some time since she had a decent romp between the sheets, in fact, and Ethan is just the one to remedy this problem. To go any further, in a family publication, would be indelicate, but suffice it to say that Ethan and Maggie, who were lovers in their previous lives during the Civil War, take up right where they left off when they meet again in modern-day Fredericksburg. No, this is not the Harlequin romance of yore where the hero and heroine discover at the end of the novel that they love each other and the scene fades to black with a kiss. By Chapter 3, in fact, Maggie and Ethan have had their first encounter and it's a no-holds barred one. More follow, and the reader never has to wait long before the next red-hot love scene. In between the frolicking, Maggie gets settled into her new abode and starts reading the diary written by Isabel Earnshaw, who is actually Maggie in a prior incarnation. This diary tells of how the two lovers initially met, and details their love affair's brief tenure, as well as its abrupt end, when EthanÖ Well, read the book and find out! The story is fast-paced and enjoyable, as long as you are not a reader who is put off by fairly graphic sex scenes. Maggie is smart, funny and attractive and Ethan is, like all the best heroes of romance fiction, gorgeous, chivalrous, gentle and yet, as needed, macho. I found myself a bit confused if I tried to think too hard about the past lives' influence over the present (and vice versa), as well as some of the musings about the afterlife, but quickly decided that this sort of thinking was not what The Haunting was all about anyway. It's about fun, light summer reading, pure and simple. Pick it up to revisit some of your favorite spots in Fredericksburg, page through it to find some juicy love scenes, and enjoy it for what it is: a romance novel with a bittersweet ending, set in our lovely town. Thank you, Hope, and I will look forward to a possible sequel, especially if your characters stop by for a milkshake at my favorite downtown haunt: Goolrick's Modern Pharmacy! Mary Becelia of Fredericksburg is a freelance writer and periodic contributor to this magazine.
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