Summary:
Devereaux Sinclair is a financial hot-shot turned small town shop keeper living in her tiny home town, whose storied past gets her accused by a vindictive detective from nearby Kansas City of the murder of her high school boyfriend's fiancee. Dev hasn't even seen her ex for years, let alone cared that he was getting married to someone else. Her grandmother, whose health is okay but mind is failing, decides to get the neighbor's hot grandson to help Dev out. It helps that grandson Jake is an injured deputy U.S. Marshall, and has the time to spare helping Dev out. Sparks fly when Jake is around, and Dev can't help but love spending time with him, even if her life is on the line...
Thoughts:
If you've read this blog much, you'll know that my opinion of Ms. Swanson has fallen recently, thanks to her other series, with Skye Denison in Scumble River, drastically reducing in quality. This book was not much better. In fact, it borders on worse, if I'm being honest. It was plain from the start that Devereaux was going to fall in love with someone coming along soon within the book. At first, I expected her love interest to be Detective Woods, because it was the first man she was to encounter, but he turned out to be a crazy S.O.B. that no one would want around for any extended length of time (or pages), so as soon as Dev spotted Jake walk in her store, I knew it was going to be him. It didn't help that her best friends told her she should start dating some man to get the detective off her trail, and then in walks a very handsome man whose sole purpose was to help her get out of trouble. Who wouldn't fall for that mess?
It was very predictable, even the love scenes. I could tell when someone was about to walk in on them, because they were getting to into the idea of hooking up. Even the "other woman" scenario Swanson throws into the mix was easily figured. Jake gets a phone call- conveniently for Swanson, it comes right in the middle of their first make-out session- and Dev can hear it's a woman's voice, and who does it turn out to be? Jake's uninterested ex-wife. Predictable. Shamefully so.
The worst part of the whole book, though, was the fact that it didn't actually end. It had a resolution to the crime, sure. But it ended with a paragraph full of questions. Why would you even bother with that if you were an author? Two reasons that I can see, both equally heinous: The first is padding the word count so that your publisher doesn't bitch that your book was under 250 pages. The second is so your readers don't have to read between the lines to remember which plot holes you left open. I find this one offensive thanks to the fact that it makes us as readers seem like unobservant asses, and it shows that she knows damn well that she's going to be writing more in the series, so why bother ending it cleanly? I doubt I'll pick up the next book in the series, unless I can get my hands on it for free, or very cheap.
Book 44 of 50
Pages: 250
Genre: An even split between mystery and romance
Grade: C+ at most
Would I Recommend?: Meh. It's a light read, easily breezed through in a few hours' reading time, but it's not especially fantastic. If you like Swanson's work, go for it. If not, you don't need to go there.
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