I wish every book was as enjoyable as this one. Took me a little bit to get into it, and then once I did I couldn't put it down. Read it if you like mysteries, paranormal, hot Texas guys and women who kick ass. (not girls. Women. Plus no love triangle so plus ten for that!) Ummm, kick ass in a "I am going to do this even though I am dying on the inside" way, not in a ninja/swordfighting way.

3.5 stars. Even though I figured some stuff out, I enjoyed this book and will read the next in the series.

Great start, definitely lost steam over time becoming a less a good spooky story and more tepid romance novel.

I went into this thinking (and hoping!) I was going to love this book, and there were many parts of it I did love - the Louisiana plantation setting, the narrator's voice - "an outsider," the well-developed characters, and the mystery of it it all; but there were things missing that would have made it a better read for me. I ended up "liking" the book well enough, and I am pretty certain I'll pick up the next book to find out what happens next for Charlie. Thanks to the publisher and the author, I won a copy of this book, and this was my unsolited and honest review.

Close to being a great book, but had to settle for being good because some key portions of the plot were soooo obvious. Still enjoyable though.

The genre of Southern Gothic Mystery is new to me. This is the first of this type I have read and I loved it. The story was told wonderfully. I could not stop reading. While the idea of someone knowing what was going to happen to children in danger or what did happen to children that had been lost was outside of my normal comfort zone, I enjoyed the entire story.

There was a mystery, of course. The who-dun-it actually lead to more and more mysteries of the Evangeline house. The Deveau Family has a lot of history. As with many families there are secrets. Within those secrets is love, abandonment, murders (yes, more than one), and family dynamics. The love is interesting. From the very first interaction with this family you know something is not right. Each family member is off, they all have secrets, and they are not all as they appear. The more I read, the more I understood their relationships with each other. Even the hired help in the Evangeline house have secrets that lead to the long time mystery being solved.

The relationship between Noah and Charlie was intense. Charlie was still dealing with the death of her young son. Noah had his divorce to come to terms with. I have to admit that I figured out how Noah fit into the story long before it ended, but I still did not know the why’s of who he was. Their relationship almost seemed doom before it started yet they both realized what they had with each other and worked so very hard to make it work. When doubt came in they pushed through, when fear was there they stayed strong with each other, and when they were in danger they knew that could trust each other.

This is a great read. The pace of the story was perfect, the characters are strong and mysterious, and the ending is amazing. I definitely recommend checking out The Gates of Evangeline.

I picked up The Burning Island from a display at the library and realized it was the the third in a series, so I returned it and checked out this book first. So glad I did. I really enjoyed the paranormal suspense and the atmospheric Louisiana swamp plantation house setting, as well as the various characters. Looking forward to reading the next two books in the series.

I feel like the Louisiana swamp where one of the pivotal scenes in the book takes place is a good comparison for the novel overall. It's murky and meandering and full of scary things you can't quiet see but you know are out there. There's a lot going on, but it didn't feel overly jumbles to me. Charlie has dreams of children that need help, and it has a paranormal/ghost story feel to it. There's the cold case involving a missing child, and the Deveau family has lots of secrets, some that go back decades. Charlie also gets a chance at romance, all while she's still grieving for her son. Young manages to keep it all together, though, doesn't let the story ramble too much or get overly stuck in the subplots. I guess, really, there are no subplots - it all ties together in the end, it's just getting there that sometimes seems like your paddling around and through and past dead ends and tree roots.

You can find my whole review, along with an excerpt from the audio at my blog, Carol's Notebook.

Suffused with the hot, steamy atmosphere of Louisiana The Gates of Evangeline immediately immerses the reader into the leisurely pace of life in the deep South, and the chasm between the have and have-nots. Inveigling her protagonist, Charlie Cates in the lives of the singularly dislikeable Deveau family, with all their deep and dirty secrets, Young spins a tale flavoured with a good dose of Southern Gothic, and a family saga tinged by an otherworldly supernatural twist. Young also captures perfectly the feel of this atmosphere of privilege and superiority that oozes through every pore of this family, and their innate sense of entitlement. With her vivid use of the Louisiana setting, and the depiction of the Deveau mansion and grounds, this aspect of the book is particularly potent. Equally, I loved the use of the steamy, festering, alligator-infested swamps, backing onto the Deveau property which added a real air of threat and menace to the whole affair. The description of these was absolutely enthralling, and sent a proper chill down this reader’s spine.

Labouring intermittently under the grief of having lost her own child, and some strange deviations into mystical dreams and visions, on the whole, Charlie Cates embodies a good mix of dogged journalist and vulnerable woman. She is an engaging protagonist, if a little too ruled by other parts of her anatomy rather than her head, as she embarks on a rather dodgy romantic liaison in the course of her investigation into this really rather unpleasant family. I did find the whole ‘vision’ thing a little wearing as the book progressed, as I was much more impressed with her when she was in journalistic mode, trying to tease out confessions and soliciting information from each family member as to the events thirty years previously. With her natural amiability and persistence, she does indeed uncover some grim truths, some obvious, some not, and these more than anything give a credibility and solidity to her character, outside of her more mystic Meg moments, and the slightly cheesy romance with the admittedly buff landscape gardener, Noah, who has more than one secret of his own.

What I particularly enjoyed about this book was the way that Young had obviously strived so hard to make this a comfortable, fairly linear and entertaining read for the reader. There were no real surprises, and a few hackneyed plot devices, but it was really refreshing to read a book that just smoothly carried me along, without making any real demands along the way. It was almost as if Young had sat down and thought what sort of book would entertain her as a reader, and then endeavoured to write that book, and so the book carries a certain kind of charm to it, that lifts it above the slight clunkiness of some of the narrative. I also liked the knowing reference that Young incorporates into her story where one character remarks that, “Not a lot of writers can pull off the whole Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil thing” as The Gates of Evangeline does navigate similar waters, if less successfully. Yes, the denouement and reveals were not particularly well -disguised, and some of the character’s actions did feel a little out of step at times, but I quickly started ignoring the more obvious missteps, and instead found myself avidly reading to the end, thoroughly enjoying Young’s uncomplicated and engaging style.

Please, please don't attempt to write in dialect unless you know what you're doing. This is one of the *worst* attempts I have ever read.