A rural New Zealand vacation turns poisonous.
Antiquities expert Annalisse Drury and tycoon Alec Zavos are at an impasse in their relationship when Alec refuses to clear up a paternity issue with an ex-lover.
Frustrated with his avoidance when their future is at stake, Annalisse accepts an invitation from an acquaintance to fly to New Zealand—hoping to escape the recent turbulence in her life.
But even Annalisse’s cottage idyll on thefamily sheep farm isn’t immune to intrigue.
Alec sends a mutual friend and detective, Bill Drake, to follow her, and a local resident who accompanies them from the Christchurch airport dies mysteriously soon after. A second violent death finds Annalisse and Bill at odds with the official investigations.
The local police want to close both cases as quickly as possible—without unearthing the town’s dirty secrets.
As she and Bill pursue their own leads at serious cost, the dual mysteries force Annalisse to question everything she thought she knew about family ties, politics, and the art of small-town betrayal.
JENNIE READS REVIEW
Dropping into a series in the middle can be intimidating, and this book is the fourth in the series so you can be assured that a lot has already happened with and to these characters. But don’t let the first few chapters intimidate you. The author spends a lot of time re-capping and giving background on characters and events. If you have not read the other books, this information comes in handy – just a little overwhelming at first until my brain could organize everyone and the various past experiences (and there are a lot!). Once I got to the halfway point, I was invested in it and ready to see where the plot was leading me.
The main character is Annalisse and I was surprised to find that she is 30 years old. Given the amount of dead bodies and situations this woman has gone through, I was sure she would be older but then as she vacillated between many distractions, and with her conversation skills at times seeming much younger, I had a bit of an issue getting a mental picture of this character.
For the first half of the book, Annalisse’s fiancé Alec is not fully developed and the reader only gets minor glimpses of him and his story. A lot of encounters are through short and disjointed telephone conversations. Instead, Alec’s friend Bill, who is hired to escort and be a semi-bodyguard/companion to Annalisse, is better developed through their scenes together. All of this changes about halfway through when Alec joins Annalisse in New Zealand. At this point the story really starts to blossom and the romance aspect is strong.
The author drops current events, details of sheep farming, and the beautiful country scenes of New Zealand into the mix to give an authentic feeling to this story.
If you enjoy a plethora of details and an excessively challenging web of characters, then this is the book for you.
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02/21/23 |
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Jennie Reads 
Definitely a lot going on between Annalisse’s past & present — and HA! I had forgotten she was only 30, too. I like that she’s maturing over the course of the series, but you are right that she’s had a lot of dead bodies in her short life! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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I appreciate your perceptive review and thank you for jumping in to the daunting task of reading this series beginning with book #4. I hope you’ll find your way back to book #1, Stolen Obsession, so that you might have a better understanding of Anna and Alec and why she finds it hard to commit to a man who has it all. It’s a complicated relationship, but a thrilling ride to other countries where murder mysteries seem to follow the couple at every turn.
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