Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

This satisfying conclusion to bestseller Roberts’s Lost Bride trilogy lovingly spotlights various kinds of family while slowly building to a thrilling finale. The story picks up where The Mirror left off, in the aftermath of a tragic vision showing the brutal deaths of the seven ghost brides of Lost Bride Manor, all of whom were murdered over the past two centuries by the evil witch Hester Dobbs. To free the spirits from Dobbs’s continued torment, the house’s living owner, Sonya MacTavish—supported by her lover, Trey; best friend, Cleo; cousin (and Cleo’s lover) Owen; and their menagerie of pets—must find the seven brides’ rings, break Dobbs’s curse, and bring peace and renewal to the manor once and for all. Despite these seemingly high stakes, much of the novel focuses on the pleasant mundanities of summer in a picturesque coastal Maine town, with regular interruptions from Dobbs to keep the plot moving. With plenty of wish fulfillment and strong character work and relationship building on full display, Roberts once again showcases what she does best. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House. (Nov.)

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A trilogy about a haunted house in Maine meanders to a close. In the first two books of the Lost Brides trilogy, Roberts introduced readers to Sonya MacTavish, a Boston graphic designer with a cheating fiancé. Then, an uncle Sonya didn’t know existed, a man named Collin Poole, died and left her a gorgeous mansion on the coast of Maine. Sonya and her best friend, Cleo Fabares, moved into the house, only to discover it was haunted by the spirit of a 19th-century witch named Hester Dobbs. Starting in 1806, Dobbs murdered generation after generation of women who married into the Poole family, using the wedding rings of the murdered women as talismans that help her consolidate her power over the mansion. The ghosts of the seven murdered brides and other people killed by Dobbs also inhabit the house, and they want to help Sonya and Cleo, along with Sonya’s lover, Trey Doyle, and her cousin Owen Poole, in their quest to exorcise Dobbs from the property and keep her from killing again. Unfortunately, as this plot was well-established in the first two books of the series, there’s little left for Sonya and her cadre of pals to do. Sonya and Cleo spend much of their time cleaning out the attic and basement rooms, finding clues and information about the dead women. This feels like filler, with repetitive and boring scenes that offer only dribs and drabs of information about the family and the house's history, but do little to illuminate anything new or interesting about Sonya or Hester Dobbs as her nemesis. The plotting is glacially slow until the final battle, which the author rushes to the point of being underwritten. A promising series ends not with a bang, but a whimper. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.