I really like this author’s Texas Murder Files series, so I thought I’d give one of her stand-alones a shot. A lot of her books take place in Texas, and they really do feel like they’re in the same world, even if they aren’t the same series, which I find cool.

Rowan has quit police work, and is trying to get her fledgling company off the ground. As a forensic genealogist, she’s worked with the police, but she hit burn out and is instead working with adoptees to help find their birth families. Until Jack. He’s been hunting a serial rapist for almost a decade. He wants Rowan to look at the data to see if she can find anything new. He’s heard that she’s the best, and he thinks this guy has struck again. Rowan isn’t ready to dive back into police work, but something about Jack tugs to her. So she does, and she does some amazing work. They get their first solid lead in years.

I realize that a lot of detective work is boring, and I realize that stakeouts are long and uninteresting. But writing it as long and drawn out as this book had made you feel like you were on that stakeout, and not in a good way. The pacing of this book was different than her others. This book is really a lot of police stakeouts, police work, and less romance than normal. I’m kind of bummed out about that. But it’s not a bad book, it’s just not my favorite by this author.

One thing I really struggled with was Rowan’s constant hot/cold with Jack. The other thing was the ending of the mystery. It was so easy, especially since this author tends to have an intense mystery with good police work, and a solid collar at the end. This time around it felt like, oh. that’s it? It’s really done? We still have a lot of pages left, though. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t. That’s not a bad thing, but with the pacing of the book, it did feel abrupt. The romance was fine. It was okay. Usually there’s more sexual tension, more romance, and more intense mysteries.

This book was a solid 3 for me. I liked it. I will definitely read more by this author, and I look forward to her next Texas Murder Files story.

***ARC courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley