This was a pretty good book. It's closer to a Karen Rose type of romantic suspense than say a Nora Roberts romantic suspense. I enjoyed the characters a lot, and the storyline was fairly good. With a few tweaks, I would have probably loved this book.
Series Note: this book is part of the Powell Agency/Griffin Powell universe. There are sections of this book that relate directly to past storylines and if you haven't read those, you're going to be confused.
Eighteen months ago, Cathy Cantrell's preacher husband went to answer the doorbell and died because of it when gasoline was thrown on him and he was set on fire. Cathy watched her husband burn to death. After six months of trying to hold it together, she suffers a nervous breakdown when another religious figure is murdered. A year after that she is finally returning home to restart her life. But she's not the same person she once was.
Jackson Perdue has just returned to his hometown after a devastating war injury. He's taken a job with the sheriff's department and is given the task of looking into cold cases - which includes Mark Cantrell and another man's death. Jack planned to stay away from Cathy; they'd had a youthful romance nearly 17 years ago that broke both their hearts. But the chemistry is still there and the two can't stay away from each other. Then another religious man is killed and Cathy must find the strength to keep herself together. And Jack must help figure out who is murdered men who seemed above reproach.
My favorite thing about this book were the two lead characters, Cathy and Jack. I thought Cathy was a fantastic heroine. She'd been a bit meek and subservient for most of her life, but the tragedy she went through helped her find her true self. It was great to read about her taking charge of her life and not letting people walk all over her anymore. She made a great heroine. And I enjoyed Jack as well. He's a little bit dark and broody in some ways, but mostly just a nice guy.
The romance between them was great. There was instant chemistry between them the moment they saw each other again for the first time in seventeen years. And even though both told themselves they couldn't go back, they just couldn't stay apart. Their romance had a nice sweet edge to it.
So those two things were my favorite part of the book. There were a couple things I didn't quite like, or like as much. One was that there were a freakin' ton of characters in this book. Normally that doesn't bother me too much in other books, but in this one, the author gave POV sections to more than a few characters...the hero, the heroine, the heroine's son, the antagonist, potential victims, supporting characters (Maleah, Nic, Griffin, etc). The POV's kept jumping around and it got annoying. Plus it also took away time from the H/H.
There were also some POV scenes that I just thought were unnecessary or ill-fitting. For one thing, the POV scenes with Nic and Griff (an H/H from previous books) seemed completely extraneous to the story. I understand that the author was trying to convey that all is not well with them and that more of Griffin's secret past is coming to haunt him, but those part of this book just did not fit. At least in my opinion. I mean, you're reading the book...about the H/H and the plot then suddenly you jump to a different setting and different characters and read randomly about Nic being upset with Griffin. It was so out of place because that issue had nothing at all to do with this specific book. It was kind of obvious the author just plopped it in to further the Nic/Griffin storyline and set up upcoming turmoil. Which I get the need to do, but there had to be a better way to fit it in.
Also - and I've had this issue with Barton before - I hate it that she gives POV's for a secondary characters, letting us know all about them, how good they are, how much they've overcome, etc...and then they get whacked. It's such a total downer to think 'oh, what a nice guy!...damn, now he's dead'. What's the need for doing that?
Aside from that, the plot was fairly good. Might not have been the most original I've read. It's a theme I've read more than once before. I thought the suspense aspect could have been a bit stronger if the police procedural part was stronger (Karen Rose's books are much better in this aspect). Considering the hero was a cop, I didn't think the police aspect was played up enough.
I can't really comment on the whodunnit part because I cheated and peeked at the end of the book to see who it was. So sue me ;) I wanted to know. Even so, I did think that at a certain part of the book it because obvious who the antagonist was. I did wish Barton had included a scene at the end where the antagonist reveals to his/her hostages why each person was killed. I don't think Cathy ever got to know why Mark was murdered.
Anyway, this was still a good book even though some things bugged me. They mostly just kept the book from being really great but didn't make me dislike it in any way. It was still a pretty engaging read and I definitely look forward to the next book from Barton which will continue some storyline's from this book (Maleah, Jack's sister; Lorie, Cathy's best friend; and Nic and Griffin).