Deanna Chase's Haunted on Bourbon Street

I first got Haunted on Bourbon Street in May 2012 thanks to it being a freebie on Amazon (which, at the time of this writing, it still is .... or is again .... whatever). I'd read that and then the second book in the series, Witches of Bourbon Street, and then got distracted by other things and life and never continued. I found out that one of my favorite side characters was going to be getting her own spin-off series which made me anxious to catch up. Of course, there are now six books in the Jade Calhoun series and the spin-off is set for March so that's a lot of catching up in a little time ... but first, I felt like I should refresh my memory on what happened!

(For now I'll only do a quick ramble about Haunted so you can then go and read it yourself before jumping in to Witches. You know I don't like spoilers -- getting OR giving!)

Jade Calhoun is an empath who has recently moved to New Orleans from Idaho. Her best friend since high school, Kat, lives there and Jade had lived with her for the the first month until it got a little too awkward. Kat happens to be dating Jade's ex-fiance which, of course, Jade didn't know when she agreed to relocate. SO, Jade decides to move in to her own place -- an apartment over the top of a strip club named Wicked. They advertise themselves as having "hundreds of beautiful women and three ugly ones."

Jade does a "cleansing" of the apartment before moving in with some sage and cedar, knowing a bit about such things from the witches in her own family. All seems to be well and good. She's given a housewarming present from her new co-landlords, Pyper and Kane, which includes some edible body powder called Honey Dust. It's been a long day and she takes a bath to unwind and give herself a cleansing... and quickly discovers that she's not entirely alone.

So, her apartment is haunted and ghost hunters are called in to try and straighten things out.

Before long Jade bonds with Pyper -- working for her part-time at a cafe and helping out when needed as a bartender at the strip club in exchange for some free furniture. She also feels a strong attraction to Kane and carries on a flirtation with her ghost hunter, Ian.

Oh, yeah. And she has sex dreams with the ghost.

(Yeah .... there's that. I'm the first to admit that I'm pretty prudish when it comes to what I read but luckily I also have an amazing talent of skipping over "steamy." It helps, too, that the dream occurrences are mostly italicized which makes it a lot easier to skip over. The "real life" steaminess that happens? Well, I'm a good skimmer.)

As it turns out, Jade isn't the only one with ghost issues. Pyper is having them, too, but hers aren't nearly as .... ummmm .... friendly. To make matters even more confusing, the ghost Jade refers to as "Mr Sexy" isn't the only one invading Jade's dreams.

With the help of her new friends, her psychic aunt (Gwen) back in Idaho, and her own empathic abilities Jade sets out to figure what's going on -- not only with the ghosts, but with her own life in general.

Steaminess aside, it's an excellent read. Even the second time around there were parts that got me laughing out loud and parts that got my heart racing from the suspense and anxiety oozing from the pages (or screen, since I've been reading it on my phone).

And now on to the next ...