Jobless, flat broke and itching for some new scenery, disk jockey Maddie Smith figures a trip to Nebraska to see what’s going on with her flaky, estranged sister is as good a plan as any. It seems that after a brief encounter with sexy reclusive Eddie Berlin, baby sister vanished without a trace. Now it’s going to take every last one of Maddie’s wiles feminine and otherwise to get close enough to Eddie to find out what happened…and to resist his inexplicable allure, which may just be as dangerous as it is enticing.
I absolutely loved this book. It is a wonderfully told romance that won the RITA award for romantic suspense in 1998. I started reading it in the middle of the night last night and could not put it down. Did I mention that I loved this book?
Madison Smith is having a bad day. She gets fired from her job as a disc jockey for actually playing a song that has words. Then she hears that her estranged sister Enid has disappeared in Nebraska and the landlady wants her to come and get Enid’s belongings. So even though she is broke and her car is a piece of junk, she leaves Arizona with her cat Hemmingway to travel to Nebraska. Of course her car breaks down but she finally gets to Enid’s home and meets the eccentric landlady Evelyn. It doesn’t take long to realize that her sister is still not a good person and is in fact a prostitute. She finds her sisters diary which tells of her crush on Eddie Berlin. So with that one lead in hand, she sets out to find Eddie. And you could say, fireworks ensue. He thinks that SHE is the prostitute. All Maddie wants is information about her sister, and Eddie..well Eddie just wants Maddie. So she goes with the prostitute thing but really doesn’t think it through. Because she really is inexperienced. And because she takes one look at him and falls head over heels. The story takes off from there. The romance was really not a cookie cutter romance in any way, shape or form. Eddie has major problems of his own which I won’t go into here, other then to say that he has retired to the middle of nowhere after the rock star he managed, and had known since childhood, is murdered.
I loved the characters, I loved the story. I loved that it wasn’t a simple romance and had lots of drama and a major twist that I didn’t see coming when usually I do. It is definitely for adult readers due to sexual situations. I am still not sure why it won for romantic suspense instead of just romance. Not a lot of suspense unless you count the twist and I was okay with that. After I finished the book, I realized that Theresa Weir is also Anne Fraser. I have read a lot of Anne Fraser books and they ARE romantic suspense and really quite good as well. Most romance readers will like, if not love this book.I am so glad it was re-released in 2010 on Kindle. 5 definite stars!
