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"small town secrets"
Reviewed by Barb Hicks
Posted December 27, 2005

Seventeen years ago Irene Stenson's world came apart after the brutal deaths of her parents. Although it was considered murder/suicide by authorities, Irene has never accepted that either one of her parents would take the others life. Now it is seventeen years later and Irene comes back to the Read more...

"Strong mystery"
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted December 27, 2005

In the small Northern California town of Dunsley, Irene Stenson missed curfew because her best friend Pamela Webb deliberately kept her out late. When she finally arrives home she sees the murdered bodies of her parents on the kitchen floor. Their deaths were deemed murder-suicide and Irene left Read more...

"Twisting plot, humor and sensual romance. This book has it all."
Reviewed by Judith Saul
Posted January 16, 2006

Irene Stenson receives an email from Pamela Webb. She hadn't heard from Pamela for seventeen years. Pamela's email contained a code they had used as teenagers for urgency and secrecy. Irene didn't know why or what Pamela had summoned her back for. But Irene was sure it had Read more...

Summary

The smaller the town, the darker the secrets...

Shy, studious Irene Stenson and wild, privileged Pamela Webb had been the best of friends for one short high school summer. Their friendship ended the night Pamela dropped Irene off at home—and Irene walked in to discover her parents' bodies on the kitchen floor. It was ruled a murder-suicide, and Irene fled the northern California town of Dunsley. But seventeen years later, when Pamela sends a cryptic e-mail asking for help, Irene returns to her hometown to find her old friend has died suddenly, leaving behind a lot of ugly, unanswered questions.

Caught up in a firestorm of desperate deceit and long-buried secrets, Irene knows it would probably be smarter to just pack up and leave Dunsley behind again, but her reporter's instinct—and her own hunger to know the truth—compel her to extend her stay at the local lodge. Even more compelling is the man who runs the place—a hazel-eyed ex-Marine who's as used to giving orders as Irene is to ignoring them. Luke Danner can see the terror beneath Irene Stenson's confident exterior—and he is intent on protecting her. But he is also driven by passions of his own, and together they will risk far more than local gossip to sort out what happened to Pamela Webb, and what really happened on that long-ago summer night. . . .