Book : The Shop On Royal Street - White, Karen

-Titulo Original : The Shop On Royal Street

-Fabricante :

Berkley

-Descripcion Original:

Nola Trenholm is hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past-as well as new ones-in this first book in a spin-off series of Karen Whites New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels. After a difficult detour on her road to adulthood, Nola Trenholm is looking to begin anew in New Orleans, and what better way to start her future than with her first house? But the historic fixer-upper she buys comes with even more work than she anticipated when the house’s previous occupants don’t seem to be ready to depart. Although she can’t communicate with ghosts like her stepmother can, luckily Nola knows someone in New Orleans who is able to-even if he’s the last person on earth she wants anything to do with ever again. Beau Ryan comes with his own dark past-a past that involves the disappearance of his sister and parents during Hurricane Katrina-and he’s connected to the unsolved murder of a woman who once lived in the old Creole cottage Nola is determined to make her own...whether the resident restless spirits agree or not. Review “White has added another page-turner to her repertoire of haunted houses and ghosts who wont stay put.-Northwest Indiana Times About the Author Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including The Shop on Royal Street, the Tradd Street series, The Last Night in London, Dreams of Falling, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the coauthor of four collaborative novels including The Lost Summers of Newport with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and one spoiled Havanese dog near Atlanta, Georgia. She is the proud mother of two grown children and when not writing enjoys reading, playing piano, and avoiding cooking. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 1 Shadowy reflections of drooping banana leaves haunted the dirt-smudged windows of the old house. It made me think of the hidden memories of people and a past long since gone but still trapped within the walls of the crumbling structure. The roof of the front porch sagged as if weighted with the gravity of the experience of people who had once passed through the corridors before exiting through the doors and windows forever. I stepped up onto the porch, my fingers brushing the rainbow-hued Mardi Gras beads dangling from the handrails and next to empty spaces left by missing porch spindles that lent a grinning-pumpkin look to the front of the house. Creeping vines from the overgrown front yard claimed most of the three guillotine windows that lined the porch adjacent to the front door, completing the abandoned air and haunted look of the Creole cottage Id already set my heart on buying. This dilapidated structure was a symbol. A call to arms for me. A new place to start after an impressive and unexpected stumble and a complicated knot of bad decisions, stupidity, and an alarming amount of unwarranted confidence that had almost derailed my life. And all despite the family whose love and support I wasnt convinced I deserved. Nola . . . Despite the worry and caution in my stepmothers voice, she stopped. We had both learned over the last six years that I needed to make my own decisions. And accept the consequences. I slowly hopscotched broken boards and patches of termite-chewed wood, the lacelike sinews as dangerous as thin ice. Spots of faded fuchsia paint clung to the front door and corbels of the porch roof, contrasting with the inevitable blue paint of the ceiling and lime green of the clapboards. A line of dusty blue bottles sat atop the sash of one of the windows, a precarious position for something so fragile. Maybe whoever had placed them there believed in taking chances. It needs a little work, I said. Mostly TLC. And maybe