Scarlet Nights

June 21, 2010
Deveraux (Days of Gold) returns to Edilean, Va., to tie up some loose ends, return to familiar characters, and introduce a few new ones. Sara Shaw is happily preparing for her marriage to Greg Anders, and though her family doesn't like him very much, she sees his good nature. That is, until he disappears three weeks before the wedding, and Mike Newland crawls through the trapdoor in the floor of her apartment. As it turns out, Mike is her friend Tess's brother and a cop investigating Greg, who is actually a criminal with a fiendish plan that Mike doesn't yet fully understand. As Mike and Sara fall in love, they remain at risk until they can figure out what Greg wants. Readers familiar with the series will delight in immersing themselves back in the comfortable world of Edilean, and new readers should enjoy exploring it with Mike and Sara. While the threat presented by the villains is minimal, Deveraux's colorful cast and easy way with words shine, even if the story's thin on plot.

June 15, 2010

The third in bestselling Deveraux's Edilean series (Days of Gold, 2009, etc.) offers a dashing detective, a spunky heroine and a town with old secrets.

Sara Shaw is about to marry outsider Greg Anders, even though the whole town of Edilean, Va., distrusts the man. Luckily the FBI and Florida undercover detective Mike Newland is on the case. It happens that the townspeople are right in their suspicions: Greg Anders, aka Stefan Vandlo, is a murderous con man who works with his equally notorious mother Mitzi. Law enforcement knows that Greg/Stefan is marrying Sara for some large monetary gain, but no one can figure out what it could be. Mike's baby sister Tess is best friends with Sara, and while Tess is honeymooning in Italy, Mike arranges to stay at Tess' apartment with Sara, while Greg is "away" (actually the Feds threw him in the slammer on trumped-up charges so Mike can begin the investigation). Initially Sara despises Mike, but he soon charms her, as he's charmed the rest of the town. There is danger, and a lot of romance; Sara favors ladylike dresses and Mike swings down from ropes to save her. Mike eventually reveals to Sara the truth of his presence in Edilean, but by the time she learns Greg is really murdering Stefan, she's fallen for Mike. Sara and Mike begin to realize that everything points to the ownership of Brewster Lang's farm. Greg had desperately wanted it, but Tess has instead (through her husband's estate) gotten Mike a lifetime lease on the place. What is it about the farm? It's not the few pot plants old man Lang grows, it's not the historic buildings—could it be the Federalist tea set? Mike convinces Sara they need to marry for her protection (but could the hardened Mike also be in love with Sara?). In wedded bliss they are ready for the return of sociopathic Greg.

Bodice-ripping romance is coupled with all the suspense of a Scooby-Doo episode. 

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)