Goodreads|Amazon|Author Website
Release date: November 29, 2016

Publisher: Berkley Publishing 

Genre: Romantic Suspense 

Blurb: 

Jayne Ann Krentz, the New York Times bestselling author of Secret Sisters, delivers a thrilling novel of the deceptions we hide behind, the passions we surrender to, and the lengths we’ll go to for the truth…

When Charlotte Sawyer is unable to contact her step-sister, Jocelyn, to tell her that one her closest friends was found dead, she discovers that Jocelyn has vanished.

Beautiful, brilliant—and reckless—Jocelyn has gone off the grid before, but never like this. In a desperate effort to find her, Charlotte joins forces with Max Cutler, a struggling PI who recently moved to Seattle after his previous career as a criminal profiler went down in flames—literally. Burned out, divorced and almost broke, Max needs the job.

After surviving a near-fatal attack, Charlotte and Max turn to Jocelyn’s closest friends, women in a Seattle-based online investment club, for answers. But what they find is chilling…

When her uneasy alliance with Max turns into a full-blown affair, Charlotte has no choice but to trust him with her life. For the shadows of Jocelyn’s past are threatening to consume her—and anyone else who gets in their way… 

Review: 

This was a total cover request for me, it’s so gorgeous! I think I may have even clicked request on NetGalley before I properly read the blurb. Whoops. But when I did read the description fully, I was even more interested. I like a little bit of romance mixed in with my mysteries occasionally and Krentz definitely nailed that aspect. Unfortunately the mystery aspect was lacking for me and overall I was feeling underwhelmed in the end.

Charlotte finds herself entangled in a web of secrets and lies when her step sister, Jocelyn cannot be reached. Max is a PI looking into the murder of Jocelyn’s best friend, Louise, and she begins to help him as the two incidents seem to be related. 

As I’m feeling pretty lackluster about this book, I’m going to try and keep things brief. I’ll start with what I liked, because there were definitely some parts of the story that were solid. I did keep reading it after all. Krentz is a polished writer and I enjoyed her approach and style. It was obvious from the blurb alone that Charlotte and Max would wind up together, but I still liked seeing it play out. They didn’t have sizzling chemistry, but they did have a spark. 

My biggest problem was with the mystery itself. For a book labeled a romantic suspense, I was suspecting more…well, suspense. There were no big surprises here, everything was a bit predictable and easy to figure out. While I liked the relationship between Charlotte and Max, she was actually quite boring. I was never all that invested in her, but I didn’t dislike her either. Max was definitely more interesting to me, his past was fascinating and if Krentz writes a sequel focusing on him, I would read it. 

Overall this was just an ok read for me. There was nothing noteworthy or anything that would make this stand out. I can’t wholeheartedly endorse it either, as I’m feeling pretty indifferent about the book.

Overall rating: 3/5

Thanks to Berkley Publishing for my review copy.