Savannah Wilde is an assistant prosecuting attorney who has
been forced by her boss to take some time off after a soon
to be sentenced felon's gang threatens her. She uses the
free time to return to her home town of Midnight to close up
her family home and get it ready to sell. One of the first
people she runs into when she hits town is Police Chief Zach
Tanner, who had been the love of her life when she was
younger. As she goes through her late grandfather's
belongings, she discovers that he believed his son and
daughter-in-law were murdered. Savannah, along with Zach's
assistance, begins to dredge up old wounds in the town as
she looks for the truth of what happened to her parents so
many years ago. Some of the old wounds she opens up are her
own and Zach's. As they reconnect and search for the
murderer, they find that the killer is fighting back against
being discovered.
The story is a bit slow to get started. Much of the early
part of the book takes place 10 years previously, when
Savannah and Zach were young and in love, and then broke up.
A lot of back-story and world building for the series has to
be set up. When it gets to present day, a rash of vandalism
which
threatens Zach's job as Police Chief dominates the
story; as do the ins-and-outs of small town life. Although
all of the story is quite interesting, it isn't until well
over halfway through the book that the investigation into
the murder of her parents really kicks in; and that is when
the story really takes off and begins to shine. Fortunately,
the murder is solved in this book, and is not to be dragged
out through the trilogy.
MIDNIGHT SECRETS is a nice story, and I think there is a lot of
potential for the series. As with many first books in a new
series, the main storyline gets a little weakened as the
world building for the entire series is set up; but MIDNIGHT
SECRETS holds its own as a separate story well. The author
is a pseudonym for the wonderful Romantic Suspense author
Christy Reece. She has gone in a bit of a different
direction for this series; but it is still good, solid
romantic suspense as written by one of the best in the business.
On a hot southern night, with a storm on the horizon, a
family is shattered. Three beautiful daughters—Savannah,
Samantha, and Sabrina Wilde—go on with their lives, each
significantly changed, as they bear the memory of the
murder-suicide that killed their parents. For years, they
have stayed away from Midnight, Alabama. Until Midnight
calls them home.
Savannah is the first one back, when a grueling case in
Nashville leads the young prosecutor to seek shelter in the
quiet of the once grand Wilde mansion. But when she finds
letters casting doubt on her family’s dark, shameful past,
she realizes that peace in Midnight is a shallow façade and
sinister secrets lurk beneath the surface. Zach Tanner,
once the town’s bad boy, is now the new police chief and
still has a wild hold over her. Zach can feel it, too, but
he hurt Savannah once. As teenagers, they broke every rule
together. Now it’s his job to keep her safe, even though he
isn’t sure who her enemies are—or which ones might be his
own.