| Series: | Hidden Sins #1 |
| Pub. Date: | Jan. 24, 2017 |
| Publisher: | Montlake |
| Length: | 316 pages |
| Source: | NetGalley |
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I have been wanting to try Katee Robert for a while now, and I'm so glad I finally got her on my calendar. I was in the mood for a good suspense read and this book really hit the spot. This one is more on the suspense end of the spectrum, but it has just enough romance to satisfy most romance fans.
Eden Collins escaped small town Montana when she was 18 years old, running far and fast from the controlling and somewhat sadistic cult run by her mother, Martha. Now Eden is an agent on the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit, specializing in cults. She definitely has the experience to be good at her job. When murders draw her back to the town she never expected to revisit, Eden discovers that while she survived her childhood, she will never get over what she suffered at the hands of her mother and her followers. For being a federal agent, Eden was more vulnerable that I would have expected... but that could have been the environment she found herself in. She definitely didn't have a kickass agent vibe, and she seemed more careless than I would expect of an FBI Agent. But I liked her all the same. It definitely took courage for her to face her fears and go back to the town that haunts her nightmares.
Zach Owens returned home from war to the sleepy small town of Crystal Springs, hoping to escape the horror he saw as a Marine in the Middle East. Taking over the family legacy of being the town sheriff, Zach's life has been pretty uneventful. Until girls start going missing, and the prodigal daughter returns home with information about his case. Zach tried very hard to stay focused on the case, but there was chemistry between he and Eden that he couldn't quite ignore. It seemed like their wounded souls were reaching out for one another.
As I mentioned above, the romance in this first installment of the series played a back seat to the suspense. That suited me fine for my current reading mood and I enjoyed trying to unravel the case with our main characters. I can tell you that I never quite figured out the villain, and I was surprised at the big reveal. I love it when that happens - it makes me so greedy for the story and pretty much guarantees I am going to finish reading with little delay. I am still feeling like cults are the new trend, as I read so much of this trope last year... but Robert did a good job making this cult stand out from the others. While it had the same structure as most cults (a leader and his/her inner circle), the beliefs of the "mother" and her followers were unexpected.
I think I will really enjoy this new series. I do wish we would have had a little more character development for Zach, and some additional explanation of the cult's belief system... but that could be coming in future books so I wasn't overly bothered by it in this first book.
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced copy of this book that I received from the publisher, Montlake Romance.
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