Review for September’s Readers Choice Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore
Publisher: Corgi (Random House)
Release Date: 7th July 2011
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Paranormal, Ghosts, Witches, Romance
Rating: 2/5 stars
Source: Received from the publisher for review

Amazon Summary:
"Amy Goodnight's family are far from normal. She comes from a long line of witches, and grew up surrounded by benevolent spirits and kitchen spells. All fairly harmless, but Amy can't wait to get to college and escape the "family business".


But things take a darker turn when she and her sister Phin spend the summer looking after Aunt Hyacinth's ranch. Amy is visited by a midnight spectre who is clearly trying to send her a message. It seems that the discovery of an old grave on a neighbour's land has been the catalyst for an apparent ghost uprising.


Aided by local friends and Ben, the handsome cowboy who just can't take his eyes off Amy, the sisters investigate. And they soon find that there's something strange and dangerous going on, deep in the heart of Texas..."


Review
So it actually took me a while to get into Texas Gothic. It felt like it took a good hundred odd pages for me to really settle into the story and throughout that time I felt like giving up on this book several times. Looking back now that I’ve finished I kind of wish that I hadn’t bothered.

The thing is I just didn’t like the actual story itself. It reads a little bit like a Scooby Doo mystery and I’ve never been a fan of Scooby Doo. From the back of the book I expected a lot of cool paranormal goings on with the main character and her family being witches but to be honest they were kind of boring witches. I felt that the paranormal aspect of the book was barely there instead it was definitely more of a mystery which would have been fine except I found that side of it a bit dull as well and sussed out all the plot twists and who the bad guys were from the beginning. So the twists didn’t come as a surprise to me making the plot just feel really amateur and underdeveloped. Basically and I know this sounds harsh but the book just wasn’t all that interesting to me.

That being said I will give props where props are due. There were things I did enjoy about this book. Texas Gothic has a really hot and sexy romance between our heroine Amy and Ben the smokin’ local cowboy. The dialog between them sizzled and gave the Texas desert a run for its money in heat! I also really liked the characters especially Amy. She got on my nerves at the beginning with her so desperately wanting to be normal I found that to be a little unbelievable and irritating I mean who wouldn’t want to be a witch and be able to do super awesome spells? But as she rediscovered her Goodnight roots and started to develop an unwanted attraction to Ben I bonded with her more. Amy and Ben make a fiery, quick witted duo who I really wanted to see get together.

Overall Texas Gothic wasn’t really for me but that was mainly down to the issues I had with the plot because plots really what makes a good book for me. If you’re a plot kinda person yourself you may want to give this one a miss but if your all about the hot and sexy romance by all means give this one a go as Amy and Ben have chemistry to boot!