Duchess Nicole's Reviews > In the Waning Light

My second book by Loreth Anne White, and a new go-to for Suspense with a dash of romance. The romance is always intermingled with some pretty heavy subject matter, so it's definitely not the light and fluffy sort.

In this book, the heroine is a true crime writer with her own true crime story waiting for her to tell. When her fear of commitment leads her fiancee to step back from their relationship, she feels led to close that chapter of her life. She goes back to her small harbor town where she grew up, where her sister was brutally raped and murdered, where her father killed the suspect, and her mother eventually committed suicide. So yeah...there's some baggage that this woman carries around. Her high school boyfriend still lives there, and the two still have an intense attraction. But the focus of the story is definitely on the whodunnit. A whirlwind of characters with intertwining lives constantly leads the reader in different directions. In the end, it wasn't even a question of who committed the crime, but why they did it, and why they let the aftermath destroy so many different families.

I felt like the end wrapped up very quickly. There were a lot of people touched by the senseless tragedy that happened over twenty years ago, and each of them is brought into the fold; however, they don't really get any closure. And in fact, their lives are torn apart, but after all is said and done, the author chose not to really give the reader any more from them.

White definitely doesn't shy away from brutal details. But she's not overbearing with them either. It's enough to horrify me but not haunt me. A great read.

Advance Copy provided by the publisher for review.