“Dr. Meredith Quinn always planned to return to Gossamer Falls to practice dentistry. Now that she's back home, she's made it a point to offer clinics to children and adults in nearby underserved areas. Unfortunately, those same areas are known to harbor drug traffickers, and Police Chief Grayson Ward suspects that local law enforcement is looking the other way.
After too many losses, Grayson has closed off his heart. But when Meredith enters his life, his walls crumble, and he's left exposed and vulnerable. To keep her alive, he must keep her close, but that makes it impossible for him to retreat and rebuild. Will she be the one who finally helps him emerge from isolation? Or will this force of nature leave him shattered?”
Series: Book #2 in the “Gossamer Falls” series. Review of Book #1, Here!
Spiritual Content- Psalm 19:14 in the Acknowledgments; A Scripture is remembered; Prayers & a Blessing over food; A few talks about God & His plans; ‘H’s are capital when referring to God; Mentions of God, Jesus, & His plans; Mentions of prayers, praying, thanking God, & blessings over food; Mentions of churches, church going, pastors, services, & Sunday School classes; A few mentions of miracles (including using it flippantly, like Meredith and Gray saying that them kissing each other was a miracle); A couple mentions of Christians; A couple mentions of a Christian music station & worship music; A couple mentions of “better/holier-than-thou” attitudes; A couple mentions of people calling Meredith a saint; A mention of an event in the Bible; A mention of being Blessed; A mention of Gray having a hard time focusing on a sermon at church because of Meredith; A mention of a character thinking they have died, but that heaven isn’t wet with the rain they are feeling; A mention of a place smelling like heaven (good); A mention of a man who partakes in criminal actions still going to church and giving to missions for the sake of his appearance in town;
*Note: Someone says that two brothers are evil (literally, not teasing); Mentions of curses or someone being cursed (or acting like they are; *Spoiler* Meredith calls Gray out for acting like he is cursed where all the women he loves die horrifically *End of Spoiler*); A couple mentions of devilish grins; A couple mentions of luck; A mention of generational curses; A mention of a little girl thinking her dad has magical abilities; A mention of Meredith being told not to take everything out of a toddler’s mouth as gospel (condescending); A mention of Cupid; A mention of Pandora’s box; A mention of an alien abduction.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘crummy’, a ‘crud’, a ‘daggum’, a ‘hot as blazes’, a ‘load of horse manure’, a ‘moron’, a ‘sucking up, a ‘shoot’, a ‘shove off’, two ‘blasted’s, two forms of ‘ticked off’, three ‘dumb’s, three ‘shut up’s, ten forms of ‘idiot’, and thirteen forms of ‘stupid’; A couple mentions of curses (said, not written); Some Sarcasm & Eye rolling; Being chased, Being shot at, Gunfire, an Explosion, Hypothermia, Being shoved into a street and almost being ran over, Shock, Injuries, Pain, Blood/Bleeding, & Passing out (up to semi-detailed); Seeing dead bodies & what is left of them (border-line barely-above-not-detailed // semi-detailed); Meredith’s brother makes she she isn’t going to hurt herself “or worse” when she’s upset (she figures out what he means and says she would never do that); Meredith loses traction when driving in the rain for a moment; All about many mentions of crimes, criminals, drugs, drug trafficking, people making illegal drugs (meth, cocaine, and marijuana) and selling it, drug dealers, drug addicts, & crooked police officers (and them trying to turn others to their side); Many mentions of murders, murderers, attempted murders and possible deaths, & bodies being found (border-line barely-above-not-detailed // semi-detailed); Mentions of the death of a sibling (younger sister) & grief (*Spoilers* Gray’s younger sister was killed by a drive-by shooting and he held her in his arms until their mom got home from work *Spoilers*); Mentions of car accidents, deaths, & major injuries (up to semi-detailed); Mentions of gang violence, drive-by shootings, and a death (*Spoiler* Gray’s sister was shot and killed when she was eleven and died in his arms *Spoilers*); Mentions of fires, deaths, & two bodies being found in a burning car; Mentions of human trafficking of girls (particularly teens, who have ended up dead; barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of domestic violence, physical abuse, wives being bruised and badly injured (including one by her law enforcement officer husband), & another lady being beaten to death (*Spoiler* Gray’s mother *End of Spoiler*); Mentions of those in domestic violence situations feeling stuck & Meredith offering to help them; Mentions of a young man going missing, being found beaten, and having serve brain damage because of the assault; Mentions of guns/weapons, gunfire, bullets, being shot at, & people being shot and killed (barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of injuries, pain, blood/bleeding (up to semi-detailed); Mentions of someone pushed into a street, almost ran over by a car, being in shock, & passing out (up to semi-detailed); Mentions of abductions, possibly planned abductions, & ones where women were abducted and killed (barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of a stalker (Book #1); Mentions of tracking and listening devices; Mentions of arrests & jails/prisons; Mentions of terrorists (teasingly, calling a group of kids or an elderly woman driving this name); Mentions of bombs/explosions; Mentions of trespassing; Mentions of mudslides; Mentions of lies, lying, & liars; Mentions of gossip & rumors; Mentions of (breast) cancer, it rapidly growing, & aggressive treatments (Meredith’s mother); Mentions of poop; A few mentions of a warning sign being written in blood; A few mentions of bombs & explosions; A few mentions of stolen cars; A few mentions of threats & blackmail; A few mentions of drunks, alcoholics, & a mean drunk; A few mentions of people being buzzed, stoned, high, drunk, or all of the above; A few mentions of hypothermia; A few mentions of vomit; A few mentions of jealousy; A few mentions of hatred; A couple mentions of nightmares (particularly Gray’s being when he is awake and fears something will happen to Meredith); A mention of a firing squad; A mention of something not being poisoned; A mention of drinking moonshine at a young age; A mention of playing poker; A mention of MMA fighting; A mention of a divorce;
Sexual Content- A hand kiss, four head/forehead kisses, two cheek kisses, two chin/jaw kisses, an ear kiss, two nose kisses, two not-detailed kisses, four barely-above-not-detailed kisses, four border-line barely-above-not-detailed // semi-detailed kisses, and four semi-detailed kisses; Remembering kisses (up to semi-detailed); Touches, Embraces, Snuggling, Hand holding, Warmth, Swooning, Flutters, Nearness, & Smelling (up to semi-detailed); Wanting to touch, embrace, & hold hands (including Gray wanting to pull Meredith into his lap to comfort her, up to semi-detailed); Noticing (up to semi-detailed); Jealousy; Flirting & Winks; Talks about kisses & kissing (barely-above-not-detailed); Seeing other couples kiss (up to semi-detailed); Gray never knew his dad and isn’t sure his mom even knew him; Meredith comments that guys need hugs too, but Gray comments that they usually prefer those hugs to come from women; Meredith fell hard for Gray shortly after meeting him and her interest morphed into something that “bordered in an unhealthy obsession” and continued to throw herself at him and in his path; Meredith teases her brother about him not wanting to think about her wanting to know a man “better”; Gray thinks that his feelings towards Meredith are the kind that would “get a man punched in the face by a big brother”; Meredith thinks about how “delicious” Gray’s voice sounds early in the morning; Meredith needs Gray’s help unzipping her dress & when he yanks it over her head, he closes his eyes; Meredith’s grandmother fusses at Gray for thinking that old people are clueless (about romance) and adds “How do you think you got here in the first place?” (which her husband overhears and gives her a look that isn’t “sultry or steamy”, but one that is “intimate and powerful”); A ‘baby’ and a ‘harpy’; Mentions of human trafficking (usually of teen girls, including one who ended up dead on the “first night” and the others who died later, barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of illegitimate children & a man giving the baby mamas money (while not acknowledging the children, but not letting them starve because of his appearance in town); Mentions of kisses & kissing; Mentions of couples kissing in front of others & giving “lingering looks” that “left little to the imagination”; Mentions of PDA; Mentions of flirting; Mentions of dates, dating, & girlfriends/boyfriends; Mentions of love, falling in love fast, & broken hearts; A few mentions of breakups; A few mentions of jealousy; A couple mentions of a single mom and her son moving into a man’s house that was romantically interested in her (because of hard circumstances; *Spoilers* Gray and his mother; Later, the man beat his mother to death *End of Spoilers*); A couple mentions of snuggling; A couple mentions of sparks & tension between two people; A couple mentions of blushes; A couple mentions of young couples “canoodling”; A mention of a woman being assaulted (not said if sexually or just physically); A mention of the best case scenario being that a man is having an affair (the worst case could be that he is trafficking drugs and people); A mention of cheating; A mention of someone’s husky voice after a kiss; A mention of a woman sitting on her fiancé’s lap; A mention of jealousy; A mention of crushes; Love, falling/being in love, trying not to be in love, heartbreak, & the emotions;
*Note: Meredith threats to harm the “tenderest parts” of a Gray’s body when upset despite knowing that he doesn’t have to have children and might not care; Gray decided as a teen that he wasn’t going to be a husband or father & feels some grief at times over that decision (see spoilers in Negative Section for more information); Meredith’s brother wonders if the two of them have a curse that detained them to love someone who doesn’t love them back; When Meredith says she has plenty of extra weight to lose, Gray interrupts and says to never let him hear her say that again as her “body is perfection, and it houses [her] beautiful soul”; A few mentions of a nineteen-year-old girl being forced into an arranged marriage with someone twenty years older; A few mentions of Meredith’s arrival ten months after her brother was born being a shock to her family and the town; A mention of being unsure if two boys have the same father or not; A mention of some women liking (unpractical) shoes because of how they make their legs look; A mention of a bikini; A mention of butting out of a conversation.
-Meredith Quinn, age 31
-Grayson “Gray” Ward, age 35
P.O.V. switches between them
352 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
Older High School Teens-
My personal Rating-
After enjoying the first book in this series, I have mixed feelings on this second book. The romance had some really cute and sweet parts, but also frustrated me a bit at their reactions to different things/confessions. The suspense elements were unsettling—as they should be as it’s evil—but have also left me feeling heavy after finishing this book and it overshadowed the cute ending.
As expected, I didn’t love all the dentist parts, but that’s not shocking at all if you know me.
This one picked up pretty close to the first book and similar to Lynette Eason’s current series, I’m thinking that this series as well is going to be one to either reread the prior books before the newest one comes out or binge read them all together once all are released. Because it’s been about a year since the first book released and I’ve read a lot of books since then, it did take some time for me to remember the events and characters in that book. On that note, though, despite some info-dumping at times, there were a few things about characters or “inside information”, if you will, that were either explained later on or not explained at all and you would be lost if you haven’t read the first book before this one.
I haven’t read the novella that could be considered Book #1.5 that was in the novella collection titled “Cornered”, so I was a wee bit lost with that couple and mentions of their story. Unfortunately, this book totally gives away the villain of that book—though, to be fair, I don’t know if it was a secret or if the person is pretty obvious.
We see a glimpse of Faith from the author’s other series and characters from her prior series as well, which was kind of like a fun Easter egg.
Gray has a heartbreaking past and is partially very protective of Meredith because of it—but also because of the feelings he refuses to admit he has for her. Most tragic backstories of main characters don’t affect me too much because I’ve read so many over the years, but I did really feel for Gray. That’s not to say I didn’t want to smack him to get his act together about Meredith, but I could honestly see his struggle and if this wasn’t a fictional story where I knew it would eventually end with a pretty little bow, I didn’t think it would end with them together and him working/worked through his past. That said, there were some points I felt he was dragging his feet too much and then when that 180 happened, it felt a little stark because there wasn’t much build up to it in his POV and just happened.
A lot of the lines/things Gray said definitely felt like they were written by a woman, but it was usually when he was groveling or confessing his feels to Meredith, so I suppose that makes sense. It felt a little jarring to me, though, I suppose because he is this hardened police chief, but then sharing his emotions with her in depth and being all eloquent. It made me roll my eyes a few times, I’ll admit.
This book hit me harder than I was expecting and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s hormones (we can always blame those, right?) but the human trafficking, domestic violence, and drug trafficking mentions—and even though they were kept lighter than most suspense books I’ve read—still hit me while I was reading it. Which, I suppose in a way is good because I don’t want to ever become desensitized to evil, but at the same time, it left me with a heaviness while reading. The author kept it light enough on the details that I think avid suspense readers that are 16+ would probably be fine with it, but it felt different to me. Perhaps it is partially a me issue as I read this book when I wasn’t really in the mood for a suspense story and all of the elements that come with it, but perhaps it was also partially the fact that these awful things are happening in that next county over and it’s gutting to the main characters, so we feel their emotions about it. The ending was rough on this especially and was unsettling to me.
Like the first book in the series, I did like all the family relationships of the Quinn family and how close-knit they are. They have each other’s backs in a great way and it’s honestly refreshing to see a healthy multi-generational family in a fiction series because most are broken, toxic, and/or a mess in many ways. This series is standing out to me because of this element, and I appreciate it.
Whew. That was a lot of thoughts, but I hope you can tell my mixed feelings on this book. It was a hard one to rate, in all honestly, because of all the different elements. All of that said, I’ll definitely be reading the next book because this one hinted way too much about Mo and Bronwyn’s past without giving us any true information—which is just a mean tease!
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
*I received this book for free from the Publisher (Revell) for this honest review.
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