Review of Home in Time for Christmas by Heather Graham

I enjoyed Heather Graham’s Flynn brothers trilogy because although her stories are het romance/erotica, she includes a wonderful paranormal aspect to her novels. In the Flynn brothers stories, that aspect bordered on supernatural and in one case, Deadly Harvest, almost stepped across the line.


In Home in Time for Christmas, the paranormal element is time travel. During the Revolutionary War, Jake Mallory is about to hanged by the British for his anti-British publications. His adopted sister Serena casts a strange spell with rose petals (in December!) and he suddenly finds himself in the twenty-first century.

Melody Tarleton, on her way home for the holidays nearly runs over him as he appears before her eyes and her car. Convinced he is a re-enactment actor/nut case suffering from amnesia, she takes him home to her family since she has no idea what else to do with him.

Her father, mother and brother accept Jake into their home with little questions to Melody’s explanation. Mark Hathaway, the man Melody is supposed to be getting engaged to isn’t swayed and becomes suspicious of the enigmatic gentleman, who bears more than a passing resemblance to him.

As hard as she tries to keep his secret although not believing it herself, Melody is surprised to find out that her parents have pieced together how she really came to meet Jake and they have no issue with him being from the past. In fact, they have an idea how to return him to his own time. And the revelation gives her little comfort.

Despite her misgivings, she is convinced that her mother and father know what they are doing and helps them to the novel’s final and somewhat predictable conclusion.

In the Flynn brothers trilogy, Graham put more emphasis on the paranormal aspects, but in Home in Time for Christmas, much of the story is spent on Melody trying to explain to everyone and herself Jake’s sudden appearance and their budding romance.

I prefer the stronger paranormal angle to the romance but I’m probably outnumbered in that respect. In the trilogy, the paranormal phenomenon that formed the premise for those stories was a bit more complex, more detailed than a doorway opened in time with rose petals. We’ve also seen this scenario before: a person about to be hanged is spirited away to another time in both “Dark Shadows” and “The Twilight Zone”.

But if you prefer romance to paranormal, Home in Time for Christmas isn’t too spooky to be romantic.

Deadly Gift by Heather Graham

Contrary to other reviews, I found Deadly Gift, the third installment of Heather Graham’s Flynn Brothers trilogy to be much better than the second, Deadly Harvest. The first, Deadly Night, remains the best of the three. The second and third delved deep into the supernatural but Gift wasn’t as evil and disturbing as Harvest. Perhaps fans of horror will find Harvest more to their liking.

In Deadly Gift, the youngest Flynn brother Zack is called to Ireland to escort a long-time family friend back to the states. Sean O’Riley has been like a father to the Flynn boys so when Sean’s daughter pleads with Zack to fetch him after he falls ill, Zack doesn’t give it a second thought.

Sean planned to spend Christmas in his native country with his new bride, who is the same age as his daughter Kat. But the minute they land in Dublin, he succumbs to a mysterious affliction resembling food poisoning. The doctors cannot find out what happened. Kat charges Zack to bring him back to the states at once. She believes Amanda, her new step-mother, is somehow involved in her father’s sudden illness.

Compounding the situation is the mysterious disappearance of Sean’s business partner Eddie. Both Sean and Zack are eager to return to the U.S. and find out what happened to him. To Zack’s pleasant surprise, Sean’s beautiful nurse Caer Cunningham will accompany her patient back to Rhode Island for the holidays.

Zack is delighted to have her along but senses she’s not all she claims she is. Sean’s aging Aunt Bridey also appears to see more in Caer.

The investigation into Eddie’s disappearance and Sean’s sudden illness is going nowhere until another more blatant attempt is made on Sean’s life and a witness comes forward with a startling revelation.

Zack begins to suspect that these strange events may not have any connection to Sean and Eddie’s business but rather have something to do with a large fortune in buried treasure from the Revolutionary War.

Graham dives deep into Irish supernatural, which has an allure as strong as the Irish culture and lore. I always thought banshees were terrible creature but Graham shows another side of them and their duties on Earth. And I’ll probably never look at a flock of ravens the same way either.

In all three novels, there is a happy ending. The Flynn brother always gets his woman, but in Deadly Gift, the question is ‘what IS his woman?’.

Scenes from Bouchercon 2009 in Indianapolis

The lovely Kathy Lynn Emerson, author of the Face Down series featuring sleuth Lady Susanna Appleton.

The very sweet and gracious Dr. Camille Minichino, author of the Periodic Table murder series featuring Dr. Gloria Lamerino.

Greg Herren, author of the Chanse MacLeod series set in New Orleans.

Neil Plakcy, author of the Kimo Kanapa'aka series set in Hawai'i

Dashing Anthony Bidulka, author of the Russell Quant mysteries set in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Mark Richard Zubro, author of the Tom and Scott mysteries.

Ellen Hart, author of the Jane Lawless mysteries.

Sharan Newman, author of the Catherine LeVendeur mysteries set in twelfth century France.

John Maddox Roberts, author of the SPQR mysteries featuring Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus set in ancient Rome.

Alan Gordon, author of mystery series featuring Feste from "Twelfth Night" set in thirteenth century Italy.

The lovely Heather Graham, prolific paranormal author.

Deadly Harvest by Heather Graham

Wow! I love a good ghost story and Heather Graham delivers a great one in Deadly Harvest, the second installment in her Flynn brothers trilogy. Aidan, Jeremy and Zach Flynn inherited a mansion outside of New Orleans from a great-aunt whom they have never heard of before her death. Aidan, the oldest of the brothers, and his now-wife Kendall deal with their own ghosts that haunt the mansion in Deadly Night.

Deadly Harvest opens in New Orleans just before Halloween as Jeremy Flynn is involved in a series of debates with Rowenna Cavanaugh on the use of paranormal abilities in detective work. Rowenna is open to the possibilities but Jeremy is adamantly closed-minded. Still the debates are a great money-raiser for Aidan and Kendall Children’s House charities.

Jeremy and Rowenna, for different reasons and different ways, are caught up in the same mystery back in Rowenna’s hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. The wife of Jeremy’s ex-partner vanishes in thin air from a cemetery on Halloween in the middle of town when Salem is packed with tourists.

The detective on the case is the father of the man Rowenna was to marry until her fiancé was killed in Iraq. She remains as close to him as if actually was her father-in-law by marriage. Joe does not like private investigators like Jeremy Flynn, but through her, they forge an uneasy alliance.

Although she denies having a ‘gift’ or any psychic abilities, Rowenna ‘sees’ things and can sometimes put herself into a victim’s place to solve crimes. This ability leads her to the body of a young woman who has been strangled and hung up like a scarecrow. Since it isn’t Jeremy’s friend, the chilling realization that a serial killer is loose soaks into the close-knit community.

Jeremy stays close-minded but is haunted by the ghost of a young boy Billy who drowned several years before. Jeremy was a forensic diver back then and was unable to save Billy. He continues to torture himself for not being there two minutes earlier that he might have saved him. But as with Deadly Night, Deadly Harvest has a benevolent ghost and in this case, it’s young Billy. The reader gets the notion that Billy is not vengeful long before Jeremy does.

Unlike the first book though, Deadly Harvest contains many disturbing references to demonism, since the murderer in the story is trying to become the Prince of Darkness in the flesh and must sacrifice young women to achieve his goal.

Though not as many ghosts as the first, Deadly Harvest moves at an exciting, pulse-pounding pace and is very difficult to put down. I read the nearly four-hundred page book in one day. It’s that good.

Deadly Night by Heather Graham

Imagine being the recipient of a grand New Orleans mansion, pre-dating the Civil War. That’s the scenario that opens Heather Graham’s excellent ghost story, Deadly Night. Aiden Flynn and his brothers, Jeremy and Zack, inherit the house upon the death of an aunt whom they never knew existed.

It’s been neglected and in dire need of fixing up. Oh, yes. It’s also haunted. A Confederate soldier, his beautiful wife and his Union cousin still walk the grounds, giving the locals a juicy legend of family betrayal and murder.

Kendall Montgomery, a tarot card reader, lived in the mansion with the again Amelia Flynn until the old woman’s death. Slightly disappointed about not getting the estate, she gladly returns to her apartment in the French Quarter, leaving the Flynn brothers to their inheritance.

Meanwhile, Aiden has found human remains on the property and begins investigating in the face of ho-hum reactions from the New Orleans police department, still reeling from Hurricane Katrina. Flynn, with the help of his brothers, finds a string of mysterious disappearances of young women, dating back ten years. His investigation keeps leading him to Kendall and the jazz bar where her friends play in a band.

Kendall has been experiencing her own strange encounters with the paranormal. She never had any illusions that she could foretell someone’s future by reading tarot cards but, when the death card comes alive and mocks her, she begins having dreams that she is being stalked.

Although they don’t like each other at first, Aiden and Kendall are drawn together as the mystery of the plantation and the disappearance of the young women deepens.

Graham keeps the excitement building as Kendall receives more warnings with frightening and increasing frequency that she is in serious danger. When she moves back into the mansion with Aiden, she is visited by the ghosts of the Flynn ancestors, but are they malevolent or are they warning her of danger?

Graham’s depiction of New Orleans as a dark, gritty and dangerous place does not sugar-coat anything but does the great city justice by painting her as a place of wonder, mystery and magic.

There is a bit of cliché in that Aiden Flynn suspects serious crimes where the local authorities see none. Their excuse is Hurricane Katrina washed up many bodies out of their final resting places and hundreds more are still missing. The bones could be from anyone. It’s easy to see their point of view, but one would think they would be interested in body parts found on land where the flood waters didn’t reach even during the hurricane.

With lackluster response from law enforcement, the story takes a unique twist as the ghosts take matters in their own hands and help Aiden and Kendall solve the mystery but also save Kendall’s life.

Deadly Night is a great haunted house murder mystery for everyone, including those that may not enjoy horror.