Haunted Warrior doesn’t seem to know what type of world it is building. Is the hero a ghost? Is he an immortal? Is he a warlock? He seems to spend time as all three, and the unfortunate truth about this book was that I never really cared to know the answer because nothing in the characters or the plot made me care.

Kendra Chase is a Ghost Catcher who works for a private firm from Bucks County, Pennsylvania that is hired out to eliminate any concerns that ghosts may have when their resting place is being renovated. Kendra is sent to a Scottish fishing village that is scheduled for renovation into a historic living museum. Unfortunately, in addition to the ghosts having a problem with this plan, the natives do as well. In particular one native, Graeme MacGrath, is particularly opposed to any change coming to Pennard, but for more serious reasons that just being opposed to tourists. He is the Guardian of the village and he has been charged to protect the village by his family tradition.

There is, of course, a bad guy. But this bad guy is a charismatic one named Gavin Ramsey. As Kendra tries to put the pieces of the puzzle of Pennard together, without letting anyone know that she has psychic abilities, Gavin works to undermine her. After all, he is in a centuries old feud with MacGrath and he figures he can kill two birds with one stone. This, of course, puts Graeme on protective overdrive. Though he feels that he has no right to Kendra or to forming a relationship with her, and he fights his feelings tooth and nail, he will do anything to protect her from the evil forces at work in the sleeping fishing village.

I saw no chemistry between the hero and the heroine in this book. It may have been there, but to be honest, I was so distracted by the fact that all Kendra could think of (and by all I mean every other page) was how much she wanted Graeme to kiss her again. After about thirty pages of this, it got so tedious that I really couldn’t pay attention to any chemistry. And by the time he did kiss her again, I was relieved. The problem was it wasn’t because I wanted this couple together or because I thought they were a good match, it was just so I didn’t have to hear about it anymore. And that should not be the reason that you feel relief when the hero and heroine of a book start to come together.

As I said, this book wasn’t really sure what it wanted Graeme to be. At first, he is a ghost walking along the beach. Next thing you know, he is pulling the Grimoire, or Book of Shadows, out from under the floorboards of his kitchen and fighting with daggers that turn into swords. There was just no consistency to what was going on. While I am all for a little fantasy with my romance, there has to be some limitations and “rules”. In this case, it just seemed like the author took whatever she needed, whether it be psychic or magical, to fix a situation and she used it. This inconsistency left me completely bewildered and more than a little disinterested.

While the inconsistency was annoying, I could’ve gotten over it if I cared about the characters. On paper, what isn’t there to love about a gallant Scottish guy falling in love with a cute American woman? But the characters were lifeless and the story dry. Though there are some beautiful descriptions of the little Scottish hamlet and its environs, this book had all the potential, but none of the follow through.