July Read/Patti

Title: Black Rose

Author: Nora Roberts

 published 2005

Patti's Read: 

                This the second of a trilogy with the first being “Blue Dahlia” and the third being “Red Lily”.

Three women meet at a crossroads in their lives. They are each seeking to grow and  they all have ended up living in the same beautiful old huge home with huge and beautiful gardens.

                Rosalind Harper is the restorer and owner of the gorgeous home.  Her son Harper lives with her. David a friend of Harper lives there and cooks for the household. A Stella and her boys Luke and Gavin live there too.  Stella is going to marry Logan who lives in a cottage on the property.  There Hayley, a cousin, and her baby who are living there. 

                There is a large business called “In the Garden” near the property that Rosalind started and has made very successful in order to make a living and keep her home up.  All of the people who live in the house are involved with the business.

                A Mitch Carnegie becomes involved with Rosalind and the others as he researches and is writing a book about the house’s ghost called “The Harper Bride”.  She is interested in the young male children and sings to them at night.  She becomes violent as Mitch and Rosalind become involved romantically. 

                Rosalind’s ex-husband causes her trouble and at the end of the story he attacks her garden business and Rosalind who is saved by the ghost coming to her rescue and attacking the ex-husband. 

                The reader is made aware that the ghost is named Amelia and was the kept mistress of Reginald Harper, the family ancestor, in order to bear him a son and heir that his wife couldn’t do.  Amelia has a son and it is stolen by Reginald who tells her it is a stillborn girl.  He pays off the doctor and others.  He takes the son home and forces his wife to pretend that she has been pregnant and this is her child.

                Amelia is told to get lost by Reginald who tries to buy her off with no success.  She loses her mind and goes to the Harper estate to get her son back.  It all ends in tragedy. What happens to her is solved in the last book of the trilogy, “The Red Lily”.