Cheating Death: The Gambling Ghosts Anthology

ANTHOLOGY:  Madam Azalea runs a successful teahouse, thanks in part to her abilities as a medium, and in part thanks to the fact that her gambler ghost of a brother and his friends haunt the back room every night playing poker. In four stand-alone stories, four women interact with the teahouse ghosts with varying degrees of romance, humor, and action. In “A Highland Ghost for Christmas”, Maddy Jacobson sees Madam Azalea at her friend’s insistence and gets more than she bargained for with two men, one living and one ghostly. In “Viking Ghost for Valentine’s Day”, Abigail Jenkins takes a job cleaning the teahouse and finds unexpected help with a poltergeist after her children and her own heart. Next, “Confessions of a Pirate Ghost”; Harley Davis should have known better than to get involved with a mobster, but who knew that salvation would come from a long dead pirate? Finally, in “The Biker Meets His Match”, Charlene Walker is determined to stop a ghost from haunting her brother, no matter what it takes, but it turns out gaining Rufus’ attention might not work the way Charlene intended.

A collection of ghostly romances, “Cheating Death” has a story for everyone, as the varying characters are full of fun and sparks fly. Amazingly, each story has a different twist, and no two stories end the same. Due to the length and quick pace, most of the romances start and end with a bang one way or another, but only the predictability of the conflicts and the minor commonality in the heroine’s descriptions keep this anthology from topping the charts. Further, there is plenty of room for this anthology to turn into a full series, Overall, lovers of paranormal romances, and bad boy ghosts, should enjoy everything this anthology has to offer.

Sarah E Bradley