NEW RELEASE REVIEW: The Passenger – Joie Lesin

Burdened with her empathic gift, Elizabeth Reilly wants to be free of it and fit in with normal people. Nevertheless, when the spirit of an old man asks for her help, she travels across the country to help him return home. Gio Clemente is still angry with his father who abandoned him as a child. To help the father pass on, Elizabeth must persuade Gio to let go of his anger. Though he resents her intrusion, they are both stunned to find themselves fighting a profound attraction. Elizabeth can accept his headstrong brand of love, but can Gio accept her gift-and believe in her?

Reviewed by Linda Tonis

Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team

Elizabeth Reilly can see dead people and when she sees an old man on the streetcar, she senses he is not long for the world. She helps him off the streetcar and he dies in her arms. Paolo Clemente has spent the last thirty years existing since the death of his wife and son and now he asks Elizabeth to go to California where his vineyard and some of his relatives live.

He needed to find closure before he moved on and Elizabeth began to really like him and agrees. She will be met by a man named Marco, but it is Paolo’s son Giovanni (Gio) who Paolo thought was dead that meets her. Paolo disappears for a while and Elizabeth finds herself alone to deal with Paolo’s wife and son and to tell them about Paolo.

When Elizabeth reveals why she has come Gio refuses to allow her to say anything to his mother about her husband forcing Elizabeth to keep quiet and lie. Gio’s mother, Adriana, believes that Elizabeth is there for Gio and that they have a relationship they are keeping secret from her.

Gio doesn’t trust Elizabeth and anything she tells him about his father, a father he has hated all his life. Gio can’t get over the fact that his father abandoned him and his mother and trusting Elizabeth’s tale of his father believing they were dead falls on deaf ears. Paolo is devastated to discover his family was alive all these years and blames himself for not returning to the vineyard when he would have found the tale of their deaths was not true.

It is 1945 and Gio is still dealing with civilian life and Elizabeth is dealing with the news that her husband was missing in action. Since his ghost paid her a visit, she knows he is dead.
The vineyard that Paolo walked away from is a success thanks to his wife and cousin Marco and Elizabeth has learned why he walked away from the family vineyard in Italy.
When she reveals that information to Gio he goes to Marco for proof and is shocked when he gets it.

Elizabeth is desperate to tell Adriana everything she knows but Gio stands in her way. In the meantime, Elizabeth and Gio begin to have feelings for each other, but he doesn’t want a relationship, and she can’t be with anyone who doesn’t accept her gift which he won’t.

What happens when Elizabeth reveals everything to Adriana since Gio can’t keep it a secret anymore is not something I will mention in this review, but it is definitely something to find out for yourself. Paolo’s quest for closure is the heart of the story and whether he gets it or not is another thing I won’t reveal.

Secrets, lies, romance and a woman with a gift inherited from her mother who is always feeling alone. Gio and Elizabeth want each other but Gio stands in the way of that ever happening.