This is a book in search of a genre. In the first scene, I thought it was going to be a romantic suspense featuring characters Kayla and Connie. But – surprise! – they disappear never to return again. Next it seemed like it was some kind of psychic romantic suspense with Jack, Greg, and Darci. Wrong again. Then a psychic fantasy romance with Darci and some hovering spirits who are inadequately identified. Another no. Here’s my conclusion: it’s a time travel with psychic elements. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The following synopsis is what I think happens in Always, but there’s no money-back guarantee. In the interest of clarity, I’ve ignored the silver box and the healing ball and a lot of other gimmicks that don’t make much sense and just serve to give Darci and Jack more to worry about.

Jack Hallbrooke (but he goes by Jack Ainsley because he faked his death) is an FBI agent with a bad attitude. He’s the son of a multi-billionaire who never had time for him so he spent the best years of his childhood palling around with Greg Ryerson, the son of his father’s chauffeur, who’s also an FBI agent. Greg pairs Jack with Darci Montgomery, a psychic, to solve the kidnapping of Jack’s father. Darci’s husband Adam disappeared along with his sister, and Darci has been searching for him.

Darci’s psychic abilities finally pinpoint the source of Jack’s attitude problems. It’s not because he had an absentee father and a rotten childhood – it’s because an angry spirit hangs around him all the time never giving the poor guy a break. The angry spirit is identified. It’s Lavender Shay who died after a fall from a window on the day she was to be married to John Marshall in 1843. Was she pushed? Was it suicide?

Jack and Darci go back in time to fix everything and discover some mid-nineteenth century doppelgangers – John Marshall is almost Jack Hallbrooke’s double, Adam Drayton is a near match to Darci’s missing husband, Adam Montgomery, and Darci closely resembles Adam Drayton’s dead wife. Can they save Lavender, straighten everything out, and return to the present? And what happens after they return? Will they be able to locate Jack’s father?

This book badly needs a Cast of Characters page – a page that will identify all the characters, explain which ones were in an earlier book and safely can be ignored in this one, and specify which are human, spirits, living, or dead. I tried to sort them out and keep track of them all, but because I hadn’t read the earlier books, it just wasn’t possible. I finally just gave up and concentrated on Darci, Jack, and Lavender.

Some stories can be described as character- or plot-driven. Neither can be said about Always because driven implies the story is going somewhere, and this story is as directionless as a child’s spinning toy top. There’s a lot of motion but little progress. Darci is searching for her missing husband. Jack likes 1843, and Lavender likes him. Simone, another psychic, tells Darci about multiple lives and diminishing powers. Adam Drayton desperately wants to apologize to his dead wife. Darci can’t figure out why she had to travel into the past. Me either.

Okay, I lied. I was totally bewildered way beyond the early pages of this book.

I have to mention the book’s ending. I’ve read a lot of preposterous endings, but this one wins the all-time prize. It’s a total cop-out, and I expect that readers who have hung in through all three books are going to be either disappointed or annoyed. Maybe both.

At one point in Always, Adam (the 1843 version) asks Jack where things went wrong with women between his time and the twenty-first century. Jack answers:

“Don’t give them the vote, don’t let them drive and, above all else, don’t let them read romance novels.”

He’s probably speaking about this book.

--Lesley Dunlap