Spellbound is the latest in Rebecca York’s long-running 43 Light Street, which has lost some steam in recent entries. This one doesn’t rank among the series’ best, but it is the most entertaining in a long time.

When strange events plague Andre Gascon’s Louisiana estate, he contacts private investigator Morgan Kirkland. Several area men have turned up dead in the bayou near his home, rumored to have been killed by a jaguar. Andre believes the deaths are the result of a more human threat, and he hires Morgan to prove it.

She comes to Andre’s small town posing as a librarian hired to catalogue his vast collection. Upon her arrival, Morgan is immediately caught up in the mysteries surrounding Andre’s home, Belle Vista. Some of the locals warn her not to go there, and when she has car trouble, she suspects one of them tampered with it. She sees the jaguar he claimed was only a myth. Then she begins to have strange dreams of another man and woman who lived long ago and look exactly like her and Andre. The biggest mystery of all may be the man himself, who’s acting strangely and has secrets he’s keeping from her.

As the plot indicates, this is the latest Eclipse Gothic romance. It isn’t as atmospheric as York’s previous Gothic, Phantom Lover, but it also doesn’t fall apart in the end. It’s more of a plot-driven pageturner, more interested in its fast-moving storyline than creating much mood. In that respect, it’s an entertaining read. York wastes no time with an instantly engaging beginning and a plot that never flags. The story feels a little overly busy for such a short book, with voodoo curses and flashbacks to past lives and Andre’s mysterious secret. I’m not sure it all comes together that well, but it’s certainly never boring. It delivers plenty of action, with the right touch of mystery and a dash of romance to keep the reader interested.

The characters tend toward the shallow. This isn’t as much of a problem with Andre, because this is a Gothic romance and the hero’s supposed to be mysterious and remote, so his lack of development didn’t really bother me. Morgan was a little more problematic. She’s no deeper than the pages she’s printed on, and the author’s attempts to add some dimension to her character by giving her a dead husband who was killed two years earlier in Afghanistan don’t amount to much. Her backstory is all there is to her. It feels perfunctory, is forgotten for much of the book, and in the end is dealt with in a very typical and annoying way. At the same time, she’s a strong, sympathetic heroine. No mere vulnerable and naïve Gothic heroine, she’s a resourceful woman who has no trouble taking care of herself. She may not be deep, but she is likable.

I wavered on whether or not to recommend Spellbound. While it’s one of the better recent entries in York’s long-running series (and the Eclipse mini-line altogether), it’s also fairly shallow and I’m not sure it’s anything that will stick with me. Still, it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s an efficient little thriller, briskly paced with an engaging storyline. It had its flaws, but they were easy enough to get past and I can’t say there’s anything I really disliked about the book. If all you’re looking for is a fast, entertaining story with a Gothic twist, this should do nicely.