Cape Seduction by Anne Carter

This is a good mystery novel with a touch of historical fiction in it. It goes back and forth between 2008 and 1948. The story surrounds a lighthouse on the California coast with a shady history.. I did some research and came to the conclusion that the Dragon Rock lighthouse in the book bears a striking resemblance to The St. George Reef Lighthouse which sits six miles off the northern extreme coast of California.

"The St. George Reef Lighthouse took eleven years to build and sits on a concrete
pier 70 feet high. Its tower is 134 feet, made of 1339 granite blocks
with some blocks weighing up to 2 1/2 tons each."

Anyways, the 1948 story line follows a young movie starlet, Darla as she stars in a movie filmed at the lighthouse. She falls in love with her very handsome, very married co star, Jordan. In the backdrop there's a controlling father in law that is filming the movie, a jealous wife, a jealous ex boyfriend, and an couple of pregnancies. To make a long story short, someone either murders Darla or she disappears... and the lighthouse is at the thick of it.

"It was dubbed the "Dragon Rocks" by explorer George Vancouver in 1792."

The 2008 story follows Rebecca, a journalist/photographer with a mysterious family past. While driving around California shooting pictures of classic cars, Dragon Rock lighthouse draws her in. A woman on the shore blows her a kiss and then disappears.. Upon sneaking onto the lighthouse, a baby cradle beckons her. Rebecca must take extreme measures, however, to get on to the lighthouse property in order to get to the bottom of what she feels is a mystery needing to be solved and she poses as a woman with a charity organization to get close to the lawyer guarding the lighthouse for the owner. What she doesn't count on is her own personal feelings about her deceit and about the man she is deceiving. She starts to fall in love.

"Decommissioned in 1975, the 6000-pound first order Fresnel lens was removed by the
Coast Guard in 1983 and is now on display in Del Norte County Historical Society museum."

As Rebecca tries to push aside her feelings and get to the bottom of the mysterious ghostly woman in the lighthouse, readers slowly find out what really happened in 1948. There were a lot of shocking twists, turns, family secrets, and surprises by the conclusion of the book. It kept me guessing. I was amazed at the connections between the 1948 people and the 2008 characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, but it doesn't hit the five star mark for one reason: Darla. I didn't like her. I found her stupid, naive, deceitful, and just too unbelievable in her ignorance. Rebecca was deceitful as well but she remedies her ways and I came to like her. But, Darla was just TSTL (too stupid to live..) which is actually sorta why she dies. LOL

Four stars. I bought this on Amazon Kindle.

Lighthouse information was found on this website: http://www.pbs.org/legendarylighthouses/html/calgl.html