jayvall reviewed Seeing is believing by Erin McCarthy (A Berkley Sensation Book)
Review of 'Seeing is believing' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
SEEING IS BELIEVING is Erin McCarthy returning to her Cuttersville ghosts series. This book picks up 14 years since the previous book in the series, HEIRESS FOR HIRE ended. In real time, it's been 6 years since the last book in the series, and McCarthy has written SEEING IS BELIEVING as though readers finished the previous book a mere 6 months ago. I would assume she reread the previous books to get in the zone of writing this one, and perhaps readers should do the same. Even though all of the previous characters are present and we get caught up on what's been happening in their lives since the last story, for me, there was too much of this is what Shelby is up to, and not enough reminding me of exactly who Shelby was again. This took away from my enjoyment of what could have easily have been written …
SEEING IS BELIEVING is Erin McCarthy returning to her Cuttersville ghosts series. This book picks up 14 years since the previous book in the series, HEIRESS FOR HIRE ended. In real time, it's been 6 years since the last book in the series, and McCarthy has written SEEING IS BELIEVING as though readers finished the previous book a mere 6 months ago. I would assume she reread the previous books to get in the zone of writing this one, and perhaps readers should do the same. Even though all of the previous characters are present and we get caught up on what's been happening in their lives since the last story, for me, there was too much of this is what Shelby is up to, and not enough reminding me of exactly who Shelby was again. This took away from my enjoyment of what could have easily have been written as a standalone book, if only the author hadn't assumed I had kept all of these characters in my head for the past 6 years.
Those complaints aside, I didn't really love SEEING IS BELIEVING. In the past I've loved all of McCarthy's contemporaries, but I just didn't believe in the chemistry between these two. I also found it annoying that nothing happened for the majority of the book. This would have been fine if SEEING IS BELIEVING had been a character driven, rather than a conflict driven book, but McCarthy sets up a paranormal/ghost/mystery in the first couple of chapters that is completely dropped until the last 50 pages or so. By then I no longer cared about the ghost and thought it was just filler to keep the page count up and keep Piper and Brady from their happy ending.
Perhaps from a lesser author these things wouldn't have bothered me, but I really do enjoy McCarthy's contemporary books, so the fact that this one was such of a miss for me is really sad.