A killer plays cat and mouse with a young widow against the snowy backdrop of an Alaskan winter. Branded a black widow after the suspicious death of her millionaire husband, Sarah Palmer flees Seattle for Anchorage. But the peace and quiet she hoped to enjoy in her hometown is soon shattered: The killer is murdering Sarah look-alikes on the fourteenth of each month, taunting Sarah with a valentine of evidence. After her experiences in Seattle, Sarah is slow to go to the police. When she finally does, she finds Detective Steven Quaid, who is called on to protect the beautiful widow from a stalker intent on her destruction. Steven is not entirely sure she is not behind the scheme herself, and before long Sarah has him wound up tighter than barbed wire. Is Sarah a victim or a very skilled manipulator? With a killer on the loose and a climbing body count, Steven can’t afford to hedge his bets-or his life.
Three stars for a good effort but…. In the beginning I thought this book was going to be a winner but then suddenly the main characters would have an abrupt change of emotions. This seemed contrived to make the story more suspensful but failed to make the characters/circumstances believable.
More Romance Than Mystery This is a well-written novel and if you like a lot of romance, you might enjoy this. The book got off to a very good start but then the pace slowed considerably. The emotions of the characters changed rapidly from passion to dislike and back during a single encounter. To me, the characters just weren’t believable. Although, I wanted to see the mystery solved, I just couldn’t wade through the whole book and stopped about half-way through. It’s rare that I don’t finish a book, but this one did…
Almost good This book almost worked. I applaud the author for this first effort.Â