I loved Sinara's first book, The Promise of Rain, and with every new title, I hope to encounter the same. Sadly, with every title I try, I find the story lags, even though, in this case, there was so much "going on" (and it had a GREAT opening line): disguises, villains, cute plot moppets, dogs! However, despite all this promise, and a very intriguing, likeable hero, too much time was spent in the heroine's head and what a confused, erratic place it was. I couldn't ever connect with her, and I know that much of the "stalling" on the hero and heroine being on the same page was to sustain suspense, it just didn't work for me. With apologies for yet another DNF of Sinara's titles, this will be the last one I try.

Faye is on the run with her niece after receiving a message from her twin sister. She lands in Turtle Back Beach a charming little down with the help of a friend to lay low until she hears of her sister or until the police comes for her kidnapping. She never expected to get close to the local sheriff Carlos to make her feel comfortable but its only a matter of time till everything comes crumbling down.

I really liked this book, I love a good mystery suspense type novel but this book wasn't it. At first when I found out about this book I though it would lean towards that but I was wrong. It was a nice little contemporary novel though seeing the charming town, getting to know its people. Clearly the town is close knit so it could either go two ways for Faye her being the newcomer and all but this book says sweet throughout the book there is that underlying worry of when things would go down but until then it was nice to see what Faye was doing in the meantime. Seeing her interact with her family and seeing how she was keeping her head above water supporting her self and her niece and seeing the relationship between Faye and Carlos form. Overall it was a nice story I enjoyed it.

I was pleasantly surprised by this new to me author and clean secular romantic novel. It's a fun story but there's also quite a lot of suspense as Faye hides from her powerful and psychotic brother-in-law. The setting is at the North Carolina coast and the leads are a dog walker/trainer and a local sheriff. I really liked the unusual setting and the strong dashes of suspense. The romance is believable without being too smushy for my tastes, which was really enjoyable. And there's a cute bonus romance with another couple! And a bookstore.

I'll definitely be reading more by this author.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required.