I was mostly interested in reading The Vanishing Season because of its setting (Door County, WI), but ultimately this book really couldn't decide what it wanted to be. There was a ghost, a serial killer, and dead girls, but they all played such a minor and almost non-consequential role to real meat of this tale, the relationship between Liam, Maggie, and Pauline. I think this book should have focused on being a contemporary romance and it really would have sung.

Pauline is the girl you want to hate. She's beyond beautiful, wild, and NICE. She wants to be your friend, genuinely, even when she realizes you want the boy who has been in love with her for her entire life, because she isn't sure she even wants him. Maggie recognizes Pauline's sincere honesty and niceness, even as she's jealous and makes a go with Liam when Pauline has to leave town. And when Pauline returns, can Maggie and Liam make it?

Again, great romance, terrible mystery (and unnecessary mystery).