The House on Tradd Street by Karen White

From the Amazon product description: Practical Melanie Middleton hates to admit she can see ghosts. But she’s going to have to accept it. An old man she recently met has died, leaving her his historic Tradd Street home, complete with housekeeper, dog—and a family of ghosts anxious to tell her their secrets.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel despite going in expecting not to like the paranormal element of ghosts. I knew I would like the setting. Charleston is right up the road from me and although we don’t visit often and certainly don’t do the touristy stuff like walking the old neighborhoods, I like knowing it is there for me to do if I so choose and I like reading about it. Karen White captures it so well with her imagery - the porches, the columns, the rockers, she conjures up the historic homes in great detail. The characters were okay. The primary character Melanie has that blind spot that authors so frequently give their female heroines, she can't admit that she's attracted to the male lead, she won't open up to her obvious soul mate even though he is right in front of her waiting with open arms, blah, blah, blech. That is just too Harlequin romance for me and makes me impatient. But I was able to just skim over those parts and also the repeated descriptions of how much junk food Melanie could eat without ever gaining weight - really, who cares? She's skinny, got it. So skimming over the two things that annoyed me took me to the action and I really enjoyed that part. Melanie has a gift in her ability to communicate with ghosts and they come at her from all sides at times with their pleas and their demands. The conflicts with ghosts are more captivating than I imagined they would be and I found myself tensing up and worrying about Melanie's safety at times. As soon as I finished this one I had the next book, The Girl on Legare Street, so that will have to get posted next!