Advertising executive Dana Perrin is an avid reader of romance novels. One might even say that she is addicted to them, because her latest find – a novel by the name of The Devil’s Cup – has her grabbing every spare and not-so-spare moment to read it. When a stray bolt of lightning causes her to wreck her car on an unfamiliar back road one evening, she staggers to the closest house to ask for help and is amazed to find it to be the mansion straight out her romance novel. Once she is ushered within by a very creepy butler, Dana finds herself trapped inside the house.

The butler tells Dana that the master of the house is in mourning and is indisposed. As time passes, she does not meet him, and before long she is convinced that he either does not exist or is dead. Why, then, does she keep having increasingly erotic dreams about the man? How can she possibly fall in love with someone who is only a specter? Dana is convinced that her romance novel is coming to life and that she is captured within its plot. Having snuck a peek at the end of the story, she knows that her novel ends with the death of the heroine. Does that mean she is doomed to die here? There must be some way to close the pages of this book and bring her back to reality.

The Erotic Ghost by Audrey Godwin is a story that combines paranormal and gothic elements. It has a very interesting premise – a heroine caught within the pages of a tragic novel who falls in love with a man who may not truly exist, and a doorway between two worlds that is being closed forever by the Fates. It teases the reader by making them wonder if the entire story is perhaps a figment of the heroine’s imagination. I had high hopes for this novel and was eager to read it. Regretfully, it did not live up to my expectations.

This story is highly imaginative, and the characters are vivid. Unfortunately, they are not colorful in a good way but seem more like caricatures or cartoons than actual people. Their actions are erratic and sometimes contradictory, and I spent much of the story trying to puzzle out the motivation of the hero. The heroine is not difficult to figure out, however. Although she is supposed to be an intelligent business woman, she strikes me as something less than intelligent – more like thick-headed and impulsive.

While I cannot say that I enjoyed this book, every once in a while I would stumble on a nice image or turn of phrase, and this kept me involved. In addition, Ms. Godwin does a good job of keeping the suspense level in this story high, so the conclusion is not a given, and that is an element that I certainly can appreciate.


Reviewed by: Whitney