Thank you Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the chance to read this book in return for my honest opinion.

This was the second book in a series, I did not read the first book, but I don't think it hampered my reading of this book. It was a slow starting book; but as I read, I found the characters more interesting and storyline more intriguing. I really enjoyed the character of Katie and it was because of my interest in this character that I found myself reading, I had to find out what happened. I feel that sometimes the story or characters reactions seemed disjointed with the storyline but overall it was a good read. I loved the setting of the book, most of all, so scenic and wonderfully described, almost felt like I could smell the fresh air.

It was an enjoyable book, not a great book and I'm not sure I honestly would read the next book in the series but I did enjoy this as a standalone book.

There may be a few reasons why I wasn't a fan of this book. It could be that by breaking my own rule about reading books in a series in order that this book never had a chance... but I dunno it feels like a larger failure than just not knowing the story and characters from book 1.
Eyes of Autumn, book 2 in The Marcel Experience is told primarily from the perspective of Katie. She is a new character, not from book 1 and is quite likeable at first. In fact most things are quite likeable about this book for the first 30%-40%. It reads like a nice little romance with a paranormal ghost story and a bit of future action alluded to but not come to fruition yet. Could almost be a Nora Roberts stand-alone book at first (with one major exception--the tactic to have a characters voice change significantly during our ghost story moments drove me insane, it felt unnecessary and like a gimmick).

But then at about the halfway mark things go all wrong.
Suddenly there is a chapter that reads like it's from the thriller genre. I don't mean just had things happen in it that are a bit horrific; no, no, I mean it was like the writing completely changed. If I didn't know any better I'd say another author wrote it or someone with multiple personalities. That's how much it doesn't fit in with the rest of the book. And things just go downwards from here.
We get overwhelmed from the four-ish important characters in the first half of the book to about 20 all at once (okay it was probably like 8 but it felt like a lot all at once). It appears that some of these 'new' characters are from book 1 and it's briefly mentioned what happened between them in book 1 but very little detail is given, and honestly it's not really relevant to the rest of the story anyways.
From our thriller moment with way more characters forward things just progress further into the void that is where paranormal romances go to be forgotten. The paranormal stuff ramps up about 100 times from our little, cute ghost story in the first half. Suddenly there are all kinds of paranormal 'people', magic, and clans. It felt very abrupt to me and overwhelming.

Overall I think that there is a cute ghosty love story in this book, but it's really too bad that it gets bogged down by too much plot all at once. It's funny because what is the original plot in the first half of the book is more or less irrelevant for the last half. The only important thing is that it brought a character into the mix.
Between feeling very disconnected and chapters that felt like I had jumped into another story I just didn't enjoy the last 50% at all. I do hope that Cynthia H. Wise finds a way to temper her desire to shove a lot of stuff into a book and step over the genre barrier so abruptly. You can have a lovely little romance with a murder and suspense story that feel like the same story. I know I've read ones that are brilliantly put together. I hope that this is something that Wise can work on as the book is actually great and the writing is pretty good for the first section (the entire reason it gets two stars is because of the first half of the book being quite enjoyable).
Needless to say I won't be carrying on with this series, nor will I be looking to read book 1.
But again, I can't help but have doubts that by breaking my own rule (don't read books out of order in a series) that I sabotaged the series and books. So if you think it sounds really fun then maybe give it a try but read book 1 first. I think it would help.