Ghost Hunter by Jayne Castle

Where deadly energy ghosts lurk in the ruins of an ancient alien civilization. Where dust bunnies prove to be loyal pets. And where a ghost hunter will discover that a woman's heart is the most dangerous adversary of all . . .

Local Guild boss and powerful ghost-hunter Cooper Boone is everything botanist Elly St. Clair could ask for - the handsome, strong, and silent type. Maybe too silent. For when Guild secrets threaten her career at the college, Elly has to call off their marriage - and leave small-town life behind...But starting over in the thriving metropolis of Cadence City isn't easy, especially when one of Elly's new friends disappears in the eerie catacombs beneath the streets.

Cooper turns up just in time to help Elly investigate. And as the mystery deepens and dangerous ghost myths and legends come to light, Cooper makes it clear he intends to stick around - and this time he's holding nothing back . . .

My Thoughts
Ghost hunter takes place on Harmony, a planet colonized by humans when a curtain, or wormhole, opened up between the planets enabling people to travel back and forth between the two planets. Everything was great until that curtain suddenly closed, the settlers were left stranded and had to learn how to survive all over again. Two hundred years later, most of the citizens have developed certain psychic powers. Most of these abilities center around the ruins of settlements there were abandoned by an earlier culture on the planet. Under these cities are massive catacombs with large masses of energy, which are called ‘ghosts’. It is these ghost that ghost hunters hunt, using their physic abilities to diffuse this energy to keep archaeologists and others safe.

Elly St. Clair is a botanist from a Guild family. Her ancestors were Guild founders, her father is a powerful Guild leader and her brothers are following in his footsteps. She can "read" plants, a talent her family has hidden. Elly recently became engaged to Cooper Boone, the new Guild boss in Aurora Springs. Cooper is from a family of academics; he's psychically powerful and can hunt blue ghosts, a very rare ability. Elly believes that Cooper wants to marry her only so he can advance his career. She breaks their engagement and moves to Cadence City, opening St. Clair's Herbal Emporium, and gets on with her life. Six months later Cooper comes to see her and hopes she's ready to come back to him.

Elly enlists Cooper’s help to find a friend who has gone missing in the catacombs. They then become embroiled in a scheme to discover who hurt Elly's friend when she stumbled into a drug-making operation, while clues of a mysterious and mystique legend keep cropping up, etc.

What I really liked about this book was Rose, the dust bunny and Cooper Boone. He was enigmatic and sexy, sincere, interesting and patient with Ellie. The man was HOT and the love scenes were smokin’. Elly, on the other hand, was irritating, boring, and childish and came across as nothing more then a spoiled brat. She throws tantrums several times in the story one example being the fit in her fiancée’s office where she throws a pitcher of orange juice on the hero for saying something she doesn't like. It was completely over the top and did nothing to endear me to the heroine at all.

Overall it was an okay read that kept me entertained. While intriguing me enough to read the next instalment in the Harmony series, I have no intention of reading the previous two novels.