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REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR
Dr Callie McFay is a young teacher and has been having erotic dreams about a man who comes to her room in the form of a shadow bathed in moonlight. When she travels to Fairwick College, a remote village in the Catskills for an interview, she spots a rundown Victorian cottage and is inexplicably drawn to it. Discovering that this pretty cottage was once owned by Dahlia Lamotte, a novelist from the early part of the twentieth century, Callie is even more intrigued and despite her boyfriend's reluctance and that of the estate agent, buys the house and accepts the job.
Soon after she moves in, her dream lover reappears. Callie becomes besotted with him and soon he seems to take over her every waking and sleeping moment. Strange things begin to happen.
When Callie goes for a run she finds a small bird trapped in a thicket and releases it. When three of her female colleagues, one being the Dean of the college, learn about what happened with the bird, they realize there's more to Callie than even she imagines. She's also valuable to them and when she confides in them about this mysterious man, they warn her about her dream lover, the incubus and how, if she's not careful he'll suck the life out of her.
When Callie decides to fight against her attraction to the incubus, she sets in motion frightening storms and unexpected violence. Before her boyfriend can reach the village to be with her, the village is cut off from the outside world and Callie discovers it's not going to be as easy as she'd thought to fend off this particular creature, whether she wants to or not.
Callie finds an unpublished manuscript written by Dahlia, called The Dark Stranger. It's about an incubus, a demon lover and she begins to wonder if maybe Dahlia was reclusive because of her relationship with this same creature who comes to her at night. Slowly, as the people in the village begin to trust Callie, they start opening up to her and she learns that many of the population of the town have much more about them that is initially apparent.
This is a very different book to the ones I usually read, so it took a little bit of getting used to. The book is darker than I'd expected, but it is intriguing and I soon got into the story. Incubus is a very erotic story and at times I wished there was a little less sex between the incubus and Callie and more progression of the story, but that said it was enjoyable. There's also an interview with Carol Goodman at the end of the book, which was an extra touch.
Incubus is published by Ebury Press on 21st July 2011
To discover more books by Carol Goodman you can visit her website, or follow her on Facebook