Keeping Guard by Christy Barritt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Loved this suspense book that keep me reading from page one. She thought she was getting a reprieve when she left her home to get temporary refuge with her brother's friend but it seems like the stalker has found her? I had no idea who the stalker was until the end.


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One Little Lie by Colleen Coble

I always find Colleen Coble books suspenseful and jump on the chance to read one of hers and this one fits the bill. It starts off with Button, a young girl in a cult giving birth to a baby boy. Almost immediately her baby is snatched from her arms and she is later told the baby died. The story jumps 15 years in a small town, Pelican Harbor which is in the Mobile, Alabama area.. Jane Hardy has been recently appointed as sheriff there. Almost immediately a gruesome torso is found on a boat, Another woman in the town is found shortly after that. Jane has her hands full trying to solve the murder. Reid Bechtol, a well-know journalist breezes into town with his son but Reid is harboring a secret. Does the secret have to do with the recent murders or does it have to do with the events that had happened 15 years prior? I figured out Reid's secret pretty early in the book but I had no idea who the murderer was. I never did figure out the mystery until the end. I had no clue. This murder was solved but the repercussions of Reid's secrets will continue in the next book which will be released in the summer of 2020. I can't wait to read this book! One Little Lie is to be released on March 3, 2020.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Echoes Among the Stones by Jaime Jo Wright

Echoes Among the Stones is a dual timeline story. In 1946 Imogene loses her beloved sister is murdered in the home. There are plenty of suspects but who did it? Aggie lives in the modern day and is going through grief of her home.  She has lost her own mother to cancer but she still has her grandmother who she calls Mumsie.  Mumsie is quite elderly but still has a sharp mind. Aggie has a job working at a cemetery. Strange things start happening to Aggie and I am wondering where is the connection between the present and the past?. After all that murder was over 70 years ago.  At times I felt the storyline dragged a little but it did pick up and kept me engaged. I could not put this novel down until I knew who the murderer was and who was doing the strange things in the present. There were many twists in the story and I was quite surprised to find out who the murderer was and who was responsible for things happening in the present.  If you are looking for a book with a strong emphasis on romance this is not it although it is touched on lightly.  

Thanks to Netgalley and Bethany house for providing me a copy of this ebook to read and review. All the opinions are my own.

Smoke Screen by Terri Blackstock

Smoke Screen is different for the usual suspense novel that Terri Blackstock usually write. There was still some suspense toward the end but not the heart pounding danger that the heroine is usually in. This story is told from the viewpoint of two characters. Brenna Strickland Hertzog has been through a lot in her 30 yeas of life. When she was 16 her minister father was supposedly murdered by her boyfriend's father. Years go by and she marries Jack Hertzog.  Jack is a jerk and dumps her to marry a much younger wife.  He doesn't really want to spend time with his kids but under the pressure from his  father, William Hertzog  who takes every opportunity to make Brenna's life a living hell. The children don't really want to spend time with their father but she really has no choice. She didn't handle it too well when she was separated from her children and took to drinking too much when they were away from them. The other viewpoint is Nate Beckett. He was the one who was involved with Brenna when she was a teen and her father died. They broke up when this happened. He moved to another town and became a smoke jumper. He has injuries on the job and returns to his home town to recuperate. His father is paroled from prison and maintains that he is innocent.  Meanwhile Nate reconnects with the divorced Brenna much to the chagrin of his father.  Most of the book dealt with Breena spiral into alcoholism with Nate trying to help her.  The the mystery was not really addressed until the last 10 percent of the book. I had a good suspicion on who the real murderer and it was confirmed toward the end but I had no idea of the motive.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Lake Season by Denise Hunter

Lake Season is the first in the Bluebell Inn Romance series. I usually don't enjoy a first book in a series a lot because I am getting to know the characters and am not connected to them very much. In this book I got connected to the characters from the get go. I enjoyed this story and hated for it to end but with a series I will get to see the characters again in subsequent books. I enjoyed the friendship of Molly and Adam that grew into love. Molly with her family are running an inn that was formerly a post office and a home. It was a dream of Molly's parents to open this inn in this small town once the father retired from his career as a physician but they were tragically killed in an auto accident before the dream could be fulfilled. Adam shows up at the inn and rents a room. Molly and Adam quickly become friends when they get involved solving a mystery. What Molly does not know is that Adam is keeping a secret. She does not know that Adam is her favorite author. What will she think when she realizes Adam has been hiding who he is? I also loved the time slip storyline. There are some twists that I did not see coming. I can't wait to read the next book in the series. The next one will be centered around Molly's brother Levi. I was hoping it would be her baby sister but I guess she has some more growing up to do. I am so enjoying this series!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Lake Season will be released on November 12. Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas Nelson for providing me a digital copy to read and review.

The Loyal One by Shelley Shepard Gray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is second full length book in the Walnut Creek series. I loved reading Katie and Harley's story. Reading about Katie's secret of her hoarder mother makes me want to seriously clean out my house so I don't leave a mess to my kids to clean up. I am far from being a hoarder but do have the tendency to hold on to things longer than I should. I loved the characters in this story. At first I thought Harley's family would be standoffish but I grew to love them. I thought I would dislike the father but learned he would just a man of few words, a quiet man. There is a secondary storyline of Harley's younger brother Kyle and an English girl he has befriended. I wish that story had been resolved in this book but it will be resolved in another book. I an curious on the direction that story will take. Will she turn Amish or will Kyle jump the fence?


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Vow of Justice by Lynette Eason

Lynette Eason takes us on a wild ride with this finale to the Blue Justice series. Each book in this series focused on one of the St. John siblings. In this book Linc gets his story. In this story he at first believes that Alison has died and he vows to find her murderer. He does not know that she is indeed alive and has to stay "dead" to protect the people she cares about. Of course he is irritated with her at first but it soon comes a battle of trying to keep her alive. She comes close to being murdered for real many times. There are more than one evil men in this story. There was one I suspected early on but I did not know his motives  until the very end and I did not know the extent of his evil ways that he was going to manifest. This book will keep you up late reading but all Lynette Eason books tend to do that. You won't regret reading this one. I suggest you read the others in the series.  Thanks to Revell and LibraryThing for providing me an ARC of this book to read. This book is due for release on August 6, 2019.