The first cut is the deepest....

So I happen to be a huge, HUGE, fan of Julia Templeton. The first story I ever read of hers was a short titled "Border Lord" in the Parlor Games collection. This story was actually so good that some of my younger brothers have actually borrowed the book to read it. (We're a family who are all fond of all things Scottish, thanks to a small dab of Scottish heritage.) They loved it as well. I've read a fair amount of her other works The Bargain, The Conquest, Sinjin, Victor, Rory, and Return To Me. I have absolutely LOVED them all. All of them are in the Erotic Romance genre so I was a bit curious when she announced she would be crossing over to the YA side of writing.

I seriously had my doubts about how this would be working out. She had such a fail proof technique with the erotic storytelling, what happens when you remove most of that? What's left?

Well this week, knowing I'd be doing traveling during Thanksgiving I got my Kindle out and downloaded her debut YA release "The Deepest Cut" written under the pen name J.A. Templeton. This book is the first in the MacKinnon Curse book series.

I started reading it Thanksgiving day in between routes to various branches of the family tree. I'm so happy I did. I'm a huge fan of the "ghostie" stories and it's been awhile since I've read one that grabbed my attention the way this one did. It might've been a genre change, but underneath was still the fabulous writing that has always held my attention and left me wanting more. More of everything in the pages, from the characters, to the story itself. I literally kept hitting the forward button wanting more. I'm glad to see I won't have to wait much longer, as Book 2 in the series is due out in December. Also, Book 3 is due in February.

I will throw this out there though, before I get into a small synopsis. If you're a squeamish reader, you might want to take this story in pieces, or just be forewarned that there is blood, cutting, and one really angry, angry ghost.

The story is about a 16 yr old girl named Riley, who along with her brother and father have just relocated from Portland, OR to Scotland. (Lucky, lucky, LUCKY girl....at least for that bit.) She's been able to see spirits/ghosts since the accident that took her mother's life a year earlier. Although no one believes her, therefore she has to keep it a secret and try to ignore all the spirits whose paths she crosses. Until of course she meets Ian MacKinnon, the nineteen year old spirit who was murdered over 200 years ago. She ignores him at first, but then when he see's her cutting she accidentally acknowledges him and then the cats out of the bag. When he questions about her cutting his reaction isn't as she expects it to be and soon they strike up a friendship. Not long after though, the girl who cursed Ian to roam his family's land soon shows herself to Riley as well and threatens to make Riley pay if she doesn't leave Ian be and refuse to help him end the curse.

I'm going to stop there so as to not give away any of the good parts. If you've ever watched Ghost Whisperer or anything to that effect you'll love this book as much as I did. I cannot wait to read Book 2 to see what's going to happen next with these characters!