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Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Narrator: Devon O'Day
Published by Thomas Nelson on September 8, 2020
Genres: Romantic Suspense
Pages: 348
Length: 8 hours, 19 minutes
Format: eARC, Audiobook
Source: NetGalley
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Jane Hardy’s life has been utterly disrupted. Almost immediately after taking over as Chief of Police for Pelican Harbor, her department was rocked by scandal. For the first time in her adult life, Jane thought she was falling in love . . . until she discovered that Reid Bechtol had been hiding the truth about who he really was. And if that wasn’t enough, she learned that her father had been lying to her for the last fifteen years and that her son wasn’t really dead.
The silver lining is that her son, Will, is back in her life and she’s building a relationship with him for the first time.
When Reid embarks on filming a new documentary about the oil platforms in Mobile Bay, someone begins threatening Will to get Reid to stop his investigation. His informant’s body is found lashed to one of the supports under the platform, and Jane has to help Reid find out who is targeting him if she wants to make sure her son survives as well.
His deception and the current danger give Jane plenty of reasons to run from Reid. But are there more reasons to stay?
I’m really enjoying this Pelican Harbor series which follows some people who left a cult 15 years ago. Jane left with her father, Charles. Reed left with his son, Will. Jane is Chief of Police, following in her father’s footsteps. Reed is a photo journalist. In the previous book, One Little Lie Reed brought Will to town and eventually told Jane, Will was her son, who she had believed to be dead. The development of this world and its characters is progressing well.
Jane is a good person, and a strong and capable one. I love seeing that in law enforcement where they follow evidence and good strategies to solve a case. As a person, Jane is struggling with her father and Reed having lied to her, not knowing what happened to her mother, and working a case which may have dire consequences.
Reed knows he wants to spend more time with Jane. He has the complication of his ex-wife Lauren. And now in this case, Will is in danger. I thought Will was sometimes TSTL, but the young do think they are invincible.
This case was incredibly dangerous. Jane and Reed were both very lucky and appropriately cautious. There were enough flawed characters that I did not guess the instigator of all the trouble. I can’t figure out what to think about Charles, Jane’s father. For his work experience and life experience, he seems to be a very poor judge of character and rather clueless at times.
I liked how Reed and Jane were able to get away on a mini vacation and also re-connect with family. As difficult as some things are, they seem to have their heads on straight about what is important. I hope they will be able to work things out for a future. I appreciate getting both Jane and Reed’s points of view. I look forward to more of their story in Three Missing Days, projected for April 2021, as many facets are still left unresolved.
Narration:
This was a new narrator to me. I enjoyed the performance with male and female and even children’s voices felt comfortable. The main characters were distinct in voice with a bit of southern accents also. I listened comfortably at 1.25x speed. It was my first listen on the Netgalley platform and it went quite well.
Listen to a clip:
Excerpt:
Keith McDonald sat at the computer and glanced around the oil platform’s rec room, but the dozen or so workers were engrossed in watching the final game of a Ping-Pong match. He hesitated,
then hovered his cursor over the Send button. Clenching his teeth, he sent the emails. Maybe it was nothing, but if anyone could decipher the recording, it was Reid Dixon.
The back of his neck prickled, and Keith looked around again. The room felt stifling even with the AC cooling it from the May heat. He jumped up and headed for the door. He exited and darted into the shadows as two men strolled past. One was his suspect.
Keith stood on a grating suspended three thousand feet over the water and strained to hear past the noise of machinery. The scent of the sea enveloped him, and the stars glimmered on the water surrounding the oil platform that had been his home for two years now.
“Scheduled for late May—”
A clanging bell drowned out the rest of the man’s words.
“Devastation—”
The other fragment of conversation pumped up Keith’s heart rate. Were they talking about the sabotage he feared, or was he reading more into the words than were there? He couldn’t believe someone could be callous enough to sabotage the oil platform and destroy the coast on purpose. He’d seen firsthand the devastating effects from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. And what about the people living on the platform? Deepwater Horizon had killed eleven people and injured another seventeen.
He had to sound a warning and stop this, but he had no real evidence. If Reid Dixon blew him off, who would even listen? Maybe Homeland Security would pay attention, but who did he even call there? He could tell them about the pictures threatening Bonnie, but what did that prove? They might just say she had a stalker and he was chasing shadows.
He couldn’t say they were wrong.
He sidled along the railing, and the breeze lifted his hair. A boat bobbed in the waves far below, and in the moonlight, he spotted a diver aboard. Must be night diving the artificial reef created by the concrete supports below the platform. He’d done a bit of it himself over the years.
For an instant he wished he were gliding carefree through the waves without this crushing weight of conscience on his shoulders. When he was sixteen, life was so simple. School, girls, football, and good times. He’d gone to work at the platform when he was nineteen, after he’d decided college wasn’t for him.
It had been a safe place, a good place to work with fun companions and interesting work.
Until a few weeks ago when everything turned sinister and strange. He’d wanted to uncover more before he reported it, but every second he delayed could mean a stronger chance of an attack.
If an attack was coming. He still wasn’t sure, and he wanted a name or to identify the organization behind the threat. If there was a threat. Waffling back and forth had held him in place. Was this real, or was he reading something dangerous into something innocent?
Though he didn’t think he was overreacting.
He turned to head to his quarters. A bulky figure rushed him from the shadows and plowed into his chest, driving him back against the railing. The man grabbed Keith’s legs and tried to tip him over the edge.
Tour Giveaway:
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- COYER-20
Sounds like I missed out on a great series. I need to catch up and soon!
There are only the two books so far so it shouldn’t be too hard to catch up! I like the blend of action with case solving and the cautiously realistic character development.
This sounds good, and I’ve enjoyed this author previously.
She’s new to me with this series but I have enjoyed it.