Review: Seeing Is Believing by Erin McCarthy

Title: Seeing is Believing
Author: Erin McCarthy
Published: March 5, 2013
Pages: 304
Genre: Contemporary Romance (with paranormal elements)
Source: Publisher (Berkley)
Rating: C
Reviewed by: Ellie

Favorite quote: “Are you comparing my hair to a Beatles album?”

summary from Goodreads
Cuttersville, Ohio is full of ghosts, and they all want Piper Tucker’s help.
One guy in town just wants Piper.

Ever since Piper Tucker was young she wanted to be like everyone else, but her uncanny ability to see ghosts always put her on the other side of normal. And the apparitions are showing up now more than ever, desperately seeking help. But what can she possibly do for them? They’ve already been dead for years. Besides, she has a personal concern of her own right now. A real flesh and blood concern—named Brady.

He’s Piper’s childhood crush, and no sooner is he back in town than sparks start giving off heat. For Brady, it’s hard not to notice the sexy young woman Piper’s become, or forget the special gift she had as a girl. And right now it could come in handy, because a long-forgotten murder has been keeping a restless spirit from finding peace. All Piper and Brady have to do is solve the crime to put the specter to rest. But the passion brewing between them is just as restless, and could prove twice as dangerous.

Ellie's thoughts:
Brady Stritmeyer couldn’t wait to get out of the small town of Cuttersville, Ohio and start his life in a big city. Now over a decade later he’s back in his hometown unemployed, broke and no idea what to do with his life. Brady is lost until he meets Piper Tucker the skinny kid he used to babysit for when she was younger. Piper has turned into Brady’s dream woman and being around her makes him realize that what he needed might have been waiting for him at home all along.

Piper Tucker just wants to be normal and like everyone else. She wants her father to forget he missed the first eight years of her life, her mother to forget she can see ghosts and brady to forget that she is younger than him. Piper has had a crush on Brady since she was eleven and now that she’s all grown up she is determined to break out of her shell and go for what she wants. Not everyone is happy about their relationship most of all Red-eyed Rachel, a ghost who is doing everything she can to keep Piper and brady apart. Together they must figure out Rachel’s past to have have a future of their own.

Seeing is Believing is a cute book that is mostly contemporary romance with a little paranormal thrown in to spice things up. This is the third book of a series but it can be read as a stand alone with no problems. The author does a great job of catching up the reader to everything that has happened before and the history between Piper and Brady. I liked the book but I did have a few issues mostly about why in the world Piper could see ghosts.

Piper had a rough childhood, can see ghosts and was bald until she was thirteen and because of that everyone treats her as ‘special’. I felt bad for Piper and was really glad when she stepped out of her comfort zone with Brady. The romance between them is super cute but I would have liked to see more of them getting to know each other then we got. I really wanted to know more about Brady and all of his issues. I did feel at times their relationship was rushed and they needed to get from point A to point B and wrap everything up quickly.

I just didn't get Piper seeing ghosts and why that was important. I think this could have been a very cute contemporary without all the paranormal stuff but I think that the ghosts tied in with the rest of the series since Cuttersville, Ohio is the ‘most haunted town in America’. My other big issue was how Brady talked about all the women from Chicago. As a woman from Chicago, I found the jobs to be annoying and made all the women living in the city to be unfeeling and more worried about their careers than having a relationship with Brady. I think it was Brady and not the people of Chicago who was the problem and it really rubbed me the wrong way.

I liked Seeing is Believing but I didn’t love it. I have no idea if there will be more books in the Cuttersville series and I’m not sure I would want to read anymore. Sadly the highlight of the whole book was reading the excerpt for the next Fast Track book, Full Throttle, that I didn’t think we were going to get.