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From BN.com:
On a hot southern night, with a storm on the horizon, a family is shattered. Three beautiful daughters—Savannah, Samantha, and Sabrina Wilde—go on with their lives, each significantly changed, as they bear the memory of the murder-suicide that killed their parents. For years, they have stayed away from Midnight, Alabama. Until Midnight calls them home.? ?
Savannah is the first one back, when a grueling case in Nashville leads the young prosecutor to seek shelter in the quiet of the once grand Wilde mansion. But when she finds letters casting doubt on her family’s dark, shameful past, she realizes that peace in Midnight is a shallow façade and sinister secrets lurk beneath the surface. Zach Tanner, once the town’s bad boy, is now the new police chief and still has a wild hold over her. Zach can feel it, too, but he hurt Savannah once. As teenagers, they broke every rule together. Now it’s his job to keep her safe, even though he isn’t sure who her enemies are—or which ones might be his own.
So here is my biggest beef with this novel. The secret behind the murder-suicide of the parents is solved in the first book. Come again? That’s right. All three sisters have gone into a form of law enforcement – lawyer, private investigator, police detective – because of the tragedy, and what I would think should be the unifying theme throughout the trilogy is finished in this book. I’m still scratching my head over that one.
Ok, my second beef is the cover. I requested this book thinking military, special ops, something of that sort. I mean read that overview again, does it mention military? So why is the cover a guy wearing dog tags? Yes, Zach served and it had something to do with him breaking Savannah’s heart years ago, but he’s not associated with it anymore. He’s not in some spec ops unit, or undercover. He’s the local police chief. False advertising. I hate it when publishers do that!
My final beef is the plot. Like I said earlier, the parents should have been a running theme, not the main plot thrust. For goodness sake Savannah has a major baddie in Nashville threatening her and instead of that kind of danger following her, we get the “town has dark secrets” plot? I don’t know, maybe the author felt that using the “bad guys follow girl and try to kill her plot” wasn’t exciting enough. I don’t know. I’m all sorts of confused with this one. I don’t like it when I feel a good plot point is wasted. Why bring it up if you’re not going to use it?
Moving past those, I liked the book. The relationship between Zach and Savannah is nice, and you really want them to get past their 10 years of heartbreak. The are certain characters in town that are fun to read, and the small town life is described in a very familiar way. I also really like the relationship between the sisters and the fact that instead of being aloof with each other they rely on one another even if they are miles apart. I am interested in finding out what their “stories” are because the other two seem much more interesting to me. Maybe that’s why we got Savannah out of the way first.
I’d say this is a 3 out of 5 mostly because of the solid writing, sexual tension and relationships between people and not because of plot or scorching sex scenes.