Heroes Are My Weakness / Susan Elizabeth Phillips 367 p. 5 Gold Rings Dec. Challenge

Annie Hewitt moves into her late mother's place on a Maine Island.  She arrives during a snow storm.  She's broke.  She needs a place to recuperate from an illness.  She aspires to be an actress.  At 33 that looks like it won't happen.  She is working as a children's ventriloquist.  Even though her puppets are packed in their red suitcases, they pepper her with advice, comments, and taunts.  She returns to the island where Theo Harp lives; the same Theo once tried to kill her.  And the girl who saved her, Jaycie Mills, works as his housekeeper.  All Annie wants is to find her mother's legacy and leave without meeting anyone.  She is drawn into the island life and especially to a very young mute child.  She realizes that the teen Theo Harp is different from the adult Theo.    This is a contemporary romance that sparkles with humor.  It has shades of the Gothic novels like Whitney, Stewart, and  Du Maurier, the villain lives alone and secluded in a castle atop a hill; and who's sister died sailing.  The puppets are characters in themselves.  They take on helping the mute girl.  They, through Annie, convince Theo that he isn't the villain but a hero in disguise.