The House on Tradd Street & The Girl on Legare Street

Book Bag Rating: Read it!

I loved these two books so much that I even wrote to the author to ask her when the next book in the series was due. There will be four books in the series which will not be enough for me. If you are looking for novels with deep meaning or book club discussion these are not for you. I would categorize these as smart beach or bubble bath reads. A friend described The Time Travelers Wife as really good dark chocolate (not like Forrest Gump) she read it very slowly, only allowing herself a few pages at a time so it would last. This is how I felt about these books. I, however, can devour a box of chocolates quickly and did the same here.

The stories are set in Charleston, SC. The author paints a beautiful picture of Charleston and brings to life wonderful characters. A good book for me always makes me feel like I know the characters whether I like them or not. The heroine of these stories is Melanie Middleton, a real estate agent specializing in historic homes, yet she herself prefers the new and bland. In the first book The House on Tradd Street, Melanie is left quite surprisingly a historic home complete with dog, housekeeper and many secrets with the stipulation that she needs to live in it for one year or forfeit the property. Melanie decides to proceed with renovating the home in the hope of making a tidy profit when it's done. Along the way she meets Jack Trenholm a gorgeous, charming author. Jack is obsessed with unsolved mysteries and the two work together to unlock the secrets of The Tradd Street House. I loved all the renovation and history scattered throughout. I loved the relationship between the characters and I was drawn in from page one.

In the second installment Melanie moves back to her childhood home to help her mother, an opera singer recently retired, renovate the house after buying it back from modern art enthusiasts. Again, Melanie and Jack team up and discover some family secrets that prove dangerous to know. The ending of this book surprised and left me begging for more...Unfortunately, I'll be waiting until 2011 when the next installment is scheduled for publication.

There is a supernatural aspect of these stories but it is not so overwhelming as to make this a horror or science fiction book. Somehow the author makes it believable and readable. Her character development for me was first class and I'll be stalking her website for the release date of the third book.