2016 New York Book Festival Award Winner!

A psychic interior designer reluctantly agrees to renovate a sexy investor’s abandoned hotel on Loch Sheldrake, a lake rumored to have once been the mob’s body dumping ground.

Interior designer Kate Bardach loves her single girl’s lifestyle, living in Manhattan and spending weekends at her lake house. She’s passionate about her career, too–reinventing old buildings. But there are some projects she can’t take on because of the spirits trapped inside. Kate is psychic–she sees dead people.

Marco Lareci is one of Wall Street’s most successful investment brokers who’s achieved all of his life’s goals–except for finding his soulmate. His latest project, an abandoned resort on Loch Sheldrake, needs a savvy designer to transform the crumbling complex into a boutique hotel. When Marco meets Kate, he can’t believe his luck. She’s the perfect match for his business and his heart.

Marco’s body excites Kate even more than does his renovation project. But he wants more than a casual relationship, and she’s not willing to give up her freedom. Plus, the haunting at Marco’s resort, a bonafide poltergeist, affects her on an intensely personal level. Kate’s aunt disappeared from the place fifty years ago.

Will the spirit doom Kate and Marco’s love, or drive them closer together?

Targeted Age Group:: 18+

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The story concept for Hearts Unloched hit me out of left field while I was in the middle of writing another novel. My husband grew up in Sullivan County, N.Y., near Loch Sheldrake. We were in the area visiting friends & family when he told me a few stories about growing up there. He also told me the urban legend about the lake… .

A visit to the Sullivan County Historical Society's Museum in Hurleyville (just a few miles from the lake) confirmed the legend: back in the 50s and 60s, rumor had it that thugs in the Mafia used to drive up from NYC and dump their victims' bodies in Loch Sheldrake – a small lake in a remote location that's very, very deep. That sparked an awesome story idea.

Over the next few hours, we drove around the lake, I took photos, and I talked, asking the question "What if?" During the four hour journey back to Massachusetts (where we now live), I literally wrote the book – verbally, creating the story and relating it to my husband. Upon arriving home, I frantically hit the keyboard and typed an outline. Two months later, Hearts Unloched was born.

There are bits and pieces of truth in Hearts Unloched: my husband actually did work for a resort near Loch Sheldrake, parking cars. He and his buddies did take them out for a spin in the wee hours of the morning. The ethnic/religious differences between Italian hero Marco Lareci and Jewish heroine Kate Bardach also have roots in our family, where there have been two such marriages.

I'm a big fan of ghost stories and romantic novels, so it's only natural for me to write a combination of both. My debut novel, Phantom Traces, takes place in an old, haunted library. The kernel of truth in that story is the May-September romance: my husband is fifteen years older than I am, and we've been happily-ever-after married for thirty-eight years.

If you enjoy romantic suspense with intensely emotional plots, you have found your author. I hope you enjoy Hearts Unloched, and will look for my next paranormal romance – ghost story, Spirits of the Heart, coming later in 2016. And become another of my super fans. 🙂

[Read more…] about Hearts Unloched by Claire Gem