GABRIELLA LUCAS

'The Caretaker' enjoyable

Published on Sunday, Dec 20, 2009

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 A happily-ever-after ending is one of the requirements for romances offered by the publisher of The Caretaker, according to the guidelines posted on its Web site. How the author gets her characters to that ending is what makes the book enjoyable or atrocious. The Caretaker, an imaginative ghost story by Medina writer Gabriella Lucas, is most enjoyable.

The main character is Nikki Quinn, a discouraged, just-divorced mom. With time running out on her need to find both a job and a new home for herself and her daughter, she's just gotten a call from her best friend Stephanie, who's come home from Ireland and is living in the house she inherited from her grandmother.

Nikki is due for a little good news, and she gets it when she's hired as office administrator of a law firm, whose youngest partner is a handsome widower named Michael Williams. For the bad news, Stephanie's breast cancer has advanced, and she may not have long to live. Stephanie tells Nikki she is comforted by her Irish lover, Paddy Doyle, who lives in the carriage house and makes her ''feel beautiful and young and healthy.''

Nikki and Michael begin a tentative relationship; when Stephanie dies, she leaves the house to Nikki — and Paddy stays with the house, along with a curse that has waited centuries and crossed the ocean to be broken.

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The publisher gives The Caretaker a ''spicy'' rating, which should be observed: Steph's descriptions of her trysts with Paddy are spicy, and Nikki has a bad experience with a date. The Caretaker has humor, intelligence and regard for history.