Thick as Thieves by Sandra Brown

The only thing to get thieves to rat on one another is the woman, no matter what the consequences to themselves.

Arden Maxwell returns to her home town and deserted childhood home.  Her mother passed when she was a child, and her father has been missing since the great heist of Caddo Lake, Texas.  Her father is blamed for the murder during the robbery, and she wants answers.

The small town immediately becomes on alert when she arrives.  Two co-conspirators of the heist remain in town, the corrupt district attorney, Rusty Dyle, and Ledge Burnet whom owns the local bar.  Not a word has been whispered between the thieves in the last twenty years.

They are both watching her closely.

Against Arden's sisters wishes, she immediately sets out to fix the dilapidated home.  No one will do the work except Ledge.  Grudgingly he agrees to be the contractor.  At least he can keep an eye on her.  

Although, Ledge loves what he sees and is afraid of bringing trouble her way.  Rusty has connections and gets rid of anyone he finds disagreeable.  

Arden and Ledge mutually fight their attraction, yet some things are too big to battle.

Sandra Brown masters the surprise in her story.  Whatever you think comes next, think again and you'll still be amazed.  Mystery, romance, deception, and death create the headline for this novel.

Happy reading,

Dawn 

 

Outfox by Sandra Brown

 When I found a new book by Sandra Brown, I had to get it!  And the read delivered just what I needed.

Drex Easton, an FBI agent not in good standing with his boss, takes a pretend break from his office and sets out on his own.  His mission is to surveil and arrest the man he is sure marries rich woman that eventually disappear.  That includes his mom from many years ago.

Talia Shafer is married to the man, Jasper, that Drex is after.  Talia is rich and beautiful and just what Jasper looks for no matter what alias he's using.  

Which brings Drex to one of the most complicated parts of his mission.  Is Talia Jasper's next victim, or is she in cahoots with him? 

Drex rents an apartment across the street from the two and disguises himself as a writer.  Getting to know the "neighbors", Drex is repulsed by Jasper.  Talia is another story. She's standoffish, yet alluring.  Hard for Drex to figure her out between kisses and rebuttals, but when more women die it becomes time to end the mystery.

Never assume the next page of the story because it will be different!

Happy reading,

Dawn  

Seeing Red by Sandra Brown

What a journalist won’t do for a story.
 

Kerra Bailey gets an exclusive interview with The Major, an American hero who’s gone silent for several years.

She has a surprise for The Major, yet the surprise after the interview for both of them isn’t pleasant.  Bullets and blood.

Former ATF agent, John Trapper, who’s also The Major’s son, wants to keep Kerra silent and out of the picture.  For her safety and just because she makes Trapper pitch a tent, he convinces her to stay with him.

Business before pleasure when Trapper needs to find the people who shot his father and have a target on Kerra and himself.  Granted, he’d rather mix the two, but something always interrupts any thoughts or actions!

Not only that Kerra may have seen the shooters, but they’re connected to a decades old bombing that she was present for.  Talk about a mess of circumstantial evidence and a mess of bad guys fooling the cops.

It might be easier for Trapper to convince law enforcement who the assassins are than to get Kerra close enough to keep.  We all know how adept Sandra Brown is at layering the evidence and turning your thoughts on where the story will go, so read with caution because the ending will be a surprise!

Happy reading,

Dawn  

Sting by Sandra Brown

Typically, I love novels by Sandra Brown.  Here comes the “but.” 

The format was typical for a romantic suspense, but I had no compassion for the heroine, Jordie Bennet.  She was too much of a bitch, and when it came to softening her up for the romantic feelings and “good person” feel, I didn’t fall for it.

Shaw Kinnard is a gun for hire and captures Jordie for a sum of two million.  Jordie has to figure out why he doesn’t kill her right away back in the Louisiana swamp and how she can get away before it does happen.

Shaw has his reason for holding off on the kill.  Jordie’s brother is working for Shaw’s boss and the brother might know where a grand sum of thirty million is stashed.  Shaw claims to be holding Jordie hostage for the jackpot. 

Well, I can see the “bad man,” Shaw, wanting to get it on with his beautiful and rich captive, but the fact that Jordie has unwanted feelings for the man she still believes will kill her and possibly go after her brother, too, is a touch too unbelievable.

I figured out the twist in the plot (I won’t give that up) easily in the first seventy pages or so.  That didn’t faze me, but …Jordie’s such a B.  I liked Shaw better than her and it’s too bad he got hurt!  I wanted him to find another woman (he does reveal redeeming qualities).  Oh, well, they’re both happy…

 

Happy reading,

Dawn

Mean Streak by Sandra Brown

What better place to find romance than in the mountains of North Carolina?  But when you travel through treacherous ice and snow and fog, get lost and injured, it doesn’t have the same appeal.  At first.

Dr. Emory Charbonneau decided to train for a marathon on the trails of the beautiful mountains.  While she went by herself, her husband had time to spend with his girlfriend, a colleague of Emory’s.  I say that with a bit of sarcasm, as her husband is less than ideal.

Emory starts her run in the morning, but the next thing she knows is it’s dark outside.  It’s dark with a snow storm whistling around and dark inside a small cabin.  The man leaning over her checks her injuries.

The cabin belongs to a man who won’t tell her his name.  Many reasons for that.  He tells her he won’t hurt her and he’s keeping her attacker at bay.  Whoever that may be.  She wonders if he’s telling the truth or if he abducted her.

He’s so hot and tasty on cold winter day.  Emory wants him, and he has a hard time admitting he wants her.  Emory’s leery, though.  Can she trust him?

Once again, Sandra Brown hits her mark with a novel of true suspense and a taste for the lust.  Too bad her stories have an end.

Happy reading,

Dawn

Low Pressure by Sandra Brown

 

When an eighteen-year-old messed-up murder case is depicted as a fiction novel, of course the nerves of those involved are rattled.  The family, the police and the investigators, and the suspects all have a bone to pick with Bellamy Lyston, the little rich-bitch author and sister of the dead.

Bellamy uses a pen name, but is soon uncovered.  She leaves New York and returns to her hometown, Austin, mainly to make amends with Dent Carter, a former suspect.

He’s not happy to see her, even if his Levi’s rise when she wants him to help her find out who really killed her sister, Susan.  

The mysterious element common in Brown’s novels is that the criminal is hard to find among all the players. 

With only circumstantial evidence, the paperwork neatly disposed of, the family, the attorney, the detectives, and the local low-life all had a chance, motive, and desire to put Susan underground.  Anyone who might be able to ferret out the real murderer will be on the criminal’s hit list.

In other words, Bellamy, Dent, and anyone else in the way have a dagger pointed at their vitals. 

Constant tension will leave you shocked at the outcome of the investigation and whether Bellamy and Dent can secure a future together.  It makes me tingle at how it’s all wrapped up.

 

Happy reading,

Dawn

Review: CHILL FACTOR by Sandra Brown

Even though Sandra Brown picks a mountainous town in North Carolina during the season’s biggest memorable blizzard, the manner in which she depicts the fiery heat of the hunt for a serial killer keeps the pages burning hot.

Lilly Martin returns to Cleary, NC to finalize the sale of her cabin only to be stranded for days during the white-out.  This happens after she attempts to leave, strikes a hiker on an icy road, and insists he outride the storm with her back at the cabin.

Ben Tierney accepts her offer, feeling dizzy from a gash behind his head. 

Lilly can’t help but be attracted to the gorgeous and rugged man until his actions, his backpack’s contents, and his incomplete answers depict him as the serial killer.

The leading townsfolk of Cleary want the killer abducted and with a bullet through his head.  As we discover the duplicity and secrets of those hunting the killer, everyone becomes a suspect and it’s impossible to stop turning the pages to try to figure out which suspect is worse than the next.

 

Brown twists her simple plot into a macabre of suspects, all having motive and opportunity to have killed five women. 

And ultimately, how can Lilly fall for the top suspect?  How is it possible to undo the evidence against Tierney and make him the angel she wants him to be?        

Enjoy,

Dawn

Review: LETHAL by Sandra Brown

Okay, so Honor Gillette’s young daughter informs her that a man is lying in their Louisiana backyard.  He looks sick.

Sounds like a typical start to a romantic suspense novel.  Don’t be fooled when you pick up one of Sandra Brown’s novels because she never stops with the twists and irony made from the most “normal” scenes.

Honor runs out to check who’s taking a break in her yard.  He’s covered in blood.  And he’s alive.

Lee Coburn is more alive than she suspected.  At his earliest convenience he takes Honor and her daughter hostage.   He claims Honor has something left behind by her dead husband, a former police officer.

Honor finds out that Coburn is accused of murdering seven men the night before.  She’s even more horrified as the plot swells to include her much loved father-in-law, two police officer friends, and an unknown crime boss and his “employees.”

Not knowing who to trust as the murder investigation unfolds, she turns to trusting her gut instinct, seasoned with unwanted feelings from her heart.  But which man can she really trust?  Is it any of the men she’s trusted for years?  Who won’t make her a target?

The bullets will fly in the story as fast as the pages will turn when you pick up Lethal.    

Enjoy 

Dawn

On My Christmas List One Year

Christmas is almost here (how did that happen? Wasn’t it just Thanksgiving?). Do you make a list? Do you have any books on your list?

           

I don’t put books on my wish list anymore, not after what happened a couple years ago (actually, we no longer make wish lists at all). My husband, who’d run out of ideas, asked me for a list of what I wanted so I thought long and hard and did as he asked. It wasn’t a long list (a pair of slippers, a sweater and something else I can’t remember now), but I very specifically asked for Sandra Brown’s Exclusive.

             

You must understand, I never expected my husband to actually look at the list and get me what I asked for so when a friend of mine finished reading said book, she loaned it to me (knowing what a huge Sandra Brown fan I am). I came home from work that day and immediately sat on the corner of the couch (my favorite place to cuddle up with a good story), opened the book and began to read. And I was enjoying myself. Until my husband came home.

 “Whatcha readin’?” he asked. 

I closed the cover and showed him.

           

In all the years we’d been married, I never saw that expression cross his face (and I haven’t seen it since).

             

“Where’d you get that?” he asked (with that suspicious look in his eye, thinking I’d gone out and bought it for myself).

           

“A friend lent it to me. Why?”

           

He was upset. More than upset. He was mad.  “Why did you put it on your wish list if you were going to get it from a friend?” (That’s not how he said it, but this is a family friendly blog and I can’t put his actual words here.)

That’s when I knew, he’d followed my list to the letter and got me the book.  I felt bad so I gave the book back to my friend and promised I wouldn’t read it until he gave it to me. Christmas morning, I unwrapped the book and spent most of the day reading. I was done by that night. The next day, he asked, “Where’s the book?”

“I finished it.”

             

Oh, the look on his face! And the things he said (again, I can’t repeat them here). Needless to say, my husband has never ever bought me another book. And I don’t think he ever will.

             

Do you have books on your wish list this year?

Happy Reading!

Marie

Review: Rainwater by Sandra Brown

I must say that I have been choosing the best books to read lately. Sandra Brown’s Rainwater reminded me how incredibly powerful characters are. The plot is very touching also, set in Texas during the Dust bowl.

A proclaimed widow, Ella, has little time for herself as she manages a boarding house and dotes on her young, autistic son. During the early twentieth century, her son, Solly, was labeled an idiot savant, a harsh stigma as the medical field knew little about his condition. Ella does her best to care for him, manage his outbursts, and avoid sending him to the suggested asylum.

Dr. Kincaid, friend and medical advisor for the town, requests a room at the boarding house for Mr. Rainwater. Ella accepts the plea under duress as she worries how much of her time Mr. Rainwater will need considering he’s terminally afflicted with a disease she prides herself with not asking about.

During this time of economic disaster, there’s little to depend on except yourself and the helpful hand of your neighbor. Mr. Rainwater unobtrusively assists Ella and begins a communication with Solly. An action here and a comment there, Ella finds it unacceptable to admit the slight electric reactions she feels between herself and her new boarder.

The desperate conditions and sincerity of Ella and Mr. Rainwater simmer throughout, as I find myself urging them to allow their deserved happiness. This is a must read to rediscover the pure intentions of love and how it can wipe away problems, even for a brief time.

Dawn