nora roberts midnight bayou book summary

Ghosts haunt the house, although it's never 100% defined whose ghosts (Abby, Lucian, Lucian's mother, certainly Abby and Lucian's daughter as a baby, maybe potentially Julian, Lucian's brother, the one who rapes and murders Abby). Interwoven in Declan and Lena's story is the turn-of-the-century story of Abby, the bayou servant who marries Lucian, the heir of Manet Hall, and bears him a child (Lena's ancestor), but whose rape and murder by Julian, her husband's twin, is covered up by her husband's mother. There he falls for Lena, a bar owner and descendent of a previous inhabitant of the Hall.

Suffice it to say that Declan, a rich Boston lawyer, quits everything and buys a house in New Orleans, Manet Hall, that he has always been drawn to. The above link takes you to the Barnes & Noble site for the book, with its plot summaries. Rethinking my ideas, I don't think Eric and I are talking about exactly the same thing, but here we go anyway. I'm reading Nora Roberts' Midnight Bayou and it's doing exactly that in ways I think I'm going to blog about when I've finished it. That is, does the 'paranormal' part of the world correspond in some way to the world of romance experienced by the reader while reading the book itself-and, by extension, to the worlds of desire and love?Įric, yes, absolutely. I wonder whether paranormal romance lends itself to allegorical reading, or at least metafictional reading. Only the companionship of alluring Angelina Simone can distract him from the mysterious happenings in the house, but Angelina has her own surprising connection to Manet Hall-a connection that will help Declan uncover a secret that's been buried for a hundred years.In my post on the definition of paranormal romances, Eric asked: Local legend has it that the house is haunted, and with every passing day Declan's belief in the ghostly presence grows. He sees visions of days from a century past and experiences sensations of terror and nearly unbearable grief. But the days spent in total isolation in the empty house take a toll.

Determined to restore the mansion to its former splendor, Declan begins the daunting renovation room by room. Ever since he first saw Manet Hall, he'd been enchanted-and obsessed-with it. Declan Fitzgerald had always been the family maverick, but even he couldn't understand his impulse to buy a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans. #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts presents a novel set deep in the bayou of Louisiana-where the only witness to a long-ago tragedy is a once-grand house.

Nora roberts midnight bayou book summary