Blue Moon

Estate surveyor Mary Corbett agrees to assess the contents of an antebellum mansion in this overwritten romantic suspense. Mary arrives at the mansion to learn she's been paired with Jack, a fellow curator to whom she made sexual advances five years earlier. Now Jack is married, to a terminally ill woman, and Mary must make the best of an awkward situation until the job is done. To add to her woes, she's haunted by the mansion's resident ghost, who insists that she holds the key to a long-buried secret. Soon, Mary recommends turning the mansion into a B&B; she also learns that Jack's wife wants Mary and Jack to get together before she dies. This novel lacks sufficient suspense, and Ledbetter mixes elements from too many genres--the mansion's former owner even becomes a torch-waving psycho.