Spirited Bluestocking [Paperback]

The Dennings, a gentle-born family with scholarly leanings, have traveled the world researching regional entomology and horticulture. With both of their parents dead, Elinore and Henry return to England for a respite from their international pursuits. Elinore, tired of the constant moving around, hopes to make the stay permanent. When a solicitor extends an offer for the Dennings' dilapidated estate, Seagate, she declines for "her lord and master," knowing her reclusive brother keeps so busy with his studies he pays little attention to such details.

Working as an intelligence agent for the British government, Lucien Wendon, Marquess of Seabrook, offers to buy Seagate in person, because it is a good observation point for a case he working on. When Elinore stubbornly refuses to give Seagate up, Lucien tries to scare her out of the crumbling manor with stories of its haunting, unaware that it really is haunted.

Since this reviewer is predisposed to enjoying a good ghost story, it is appreciated that Author Joan Overfield let this 1992 novel's spooky components "hang." There is no effort to explain what natural occurrences caused them. Seagate is haunted, but the ghost's relevance to the main story is negligible. Its one pivotal scene has no bearing on the outcome, making the ghost's inclusion frivolous and keeping the protagonist from actively defending herself. It's like having the characters in drawing room mystery watch a spaceship land and then never mentioning outer space again.

The characters sometimes bordered on inconsistency. Elinore is described as being headstrong and "bossy" in the beginning, yet quickly demurs when someone puts her in her place. Seeing some rebelliousness might have been compelling. Henry is supposed to be reclusive and obsessed with his work, although what makes him so malleable when Lucien plays a Henry Higgins is poorly exploited.

Overfield's narration has one irritating trait. Almost every single line of dialogue was attributed to a character, regardless of how many were in the scene. Occasionally, one speaker would be identified twice in the same paragraph. Readers can be trusted to understand who is speaking by character actions or when they're referring to each other by name.

A SPIRITED BLUESTOCKING serves as an adequate Regency romance. If the ghost component was more intrinsic to plotline, it would have been much more satisfying--regardless of whether it was included for laughs or thrills.