Man... did this book send me on a roller coaster, and I don't mean that in a good way. If we had to map my reactions to this book it would look something like this: 
 yaaaaaaaay ghosts! --> she's spending an awful lot of time focusing on how dreamy this guy apparently is, this is odd for a ghost story --> oh, it's a romance I guess --> I really am disliking this book --> I don't want to hate the book for being a romance! GAH BUT I AM HATING IT --> oh, we got back on track with the ghost story? This is pretty great again and I'm no longer hating the male lead --> CONFLICTED EMOTIONS I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK ANYMORE DID I LIKE THIS BOOK OR NOT??? 
 I'm hoping that by the end of writing this review I'll know what star rating to give the book because right now I have no idea. Luckily for you, nameless reader, you have the power of the future and know what number of stars I gave it. How fortunate. 
 The Haunting of Maddy Clare follows Sarah Piper, an orphaned London woman who has gone to work for one Alistair Gellis and his assistant Matthew Ryder, who happen to be ghost hunters. The two of them have been summoned to investigate the haunting of, well, Maddy Clare, who worked as a maid for a nice family before hanging herself at 19. But there's a lot more about Maddy Clare's life than the townsfolk are telling, and small, quiet towns like this one are full of secrets of their own, and don't approve of potentially occult outsiders coming in claiming to be able to speak with spirits. 
 Oh, and there's a romance. That was not mentioned to me initially. 
 I shall do my best to not spoil any important plot points, but for me to properly explain why I was on such the emotional roller coaster with this book that I was, I will need to mention certain things. Such as, for example, who the man Sarah lusts after is, which I wouldn't consider a spoiler as it's revealed pretty much as soon as he is introduced. But some would, so please consider this your warning. 
 Firstly, the things I really enjoyed about this book: the ghost story. My goodness did I enjoy the ghostly parts of this book. Maddy is a force to be feared and Ms. St. James does an excellent job of making her threats feel real. When Sarah is apprehensive about going into the barn where Maddy haunts, you feel the apprehension with her, unsure of what might happen or what Maddy might do. Maddy's backstory was also really well done, albeit a tad predicable. The explanations and twists and turns of what may or may not have happened kept me very intrigued and if not for that, I would have quit on the book around the halfway mark. 
 It was around the halfway mark that I realized I had made an error in assumption as to what the plot of the book would be about. I had imagined it a straight up ghost story, nothing more, but it became quite clear that it was sharing the plot with a romantic subplot. Or half plot, since it wasn't really sub to the ghost story. And this I struggled with. I wasn't opposed to a romance happening in the middle of a ghost story. I was really into the ghost story, yes, but that doesn't mean I automatically had to hate the romance. However, it's difficult for me to be invested in a romance when I greatly dislike the male lead. And boy, did I really not like Matthew. 
 Upon first introduction, Matthew is incredibly rude. He wants Sarah gone, believing her a weak and fragile lady not fit for adventures like ghost hunting. He is overly harsh with her and seems to think not in the slightest about her and her feelings. (view spoiler)[their first sex scene was INCREDIBLY creepy and uncomfortable. Sarah wakes up in the middle of the night to find him in her room and sitting on her bed. He then undoes her nightgown, gropes her a bit, gets in and out right quick and then leaves. And Sarah apparently has no problem with this. This whole scene enraged me. (hide spoiler)] Large portions of their romance seem to be misunderstandings due to their joint lack of self-esteem. Sarah thinks herself wholly undesirable due to her curves and breasts, it being the 1920s and thin women with small breasts are the ideal image currently (as a woman who is basically a stick with zero curves, I find this amusing in a very cynical and bitter way). I don't have much patience for obvious misunderstandings like this and until it gets sorted, disliked a great part of their romance. 
 Eventually, however, the ghost story takes back over and the romance is delegated to the side. Ironically, I found myself enjoying the romance a lot more during this period and actually wouldn't have minded a couple more sex scenes, given that Matthew was no longer behaving like a stubborn jack-ass. But the reveal behind what happened with Maddy Clare was quite enjoyable albeit a tad overdone. But a trope becomes a trope for a reason and that doesn't mean you can't write one well or interestingly just because it's been done before. (view spoiler)[I will say that I found Sarah's objections to Maddy's murderous intent of the main baddy to be... rather odd. He literally just beat you and you KNOW what he did to Maddy and you're still trying to protect him? Why? Maybe Sarah is a more kindhearted person than I am but I would have shed NO TEARS over that man's fate. (hide spoiler)] 
 There are lots of things in this book that I wish wasn't in it. Sarah's frequent mention of her lack of self-esteem, her comparisons to the "muuuuch more beautiful Evangeline oh goodness who would EVER want someone like Sarah???", Allistair and the other men's dismissal of Sarah's ideas or objections due to her sex, all of this I could have happily done without. But the core story of the haunting of Maddy Clare was well done and I'm glad I read it. Would I read it again? No. Do I hate the romance genre? I still stubbornly say no, although my track record for liking romance novels has not been the best as of yet. But I shall prevail! This definitely wasn't as bad a book as I thought around 30% of the way in, but it also wasn't good enough for me to ignore the faults I had with it.