Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Siren's Secret-Debbie Herbert

Siren's Secret

Debbie Herbert

Harlequin Nocturne, Nov 5 2013, $5.75

ISBN: 9780373885825



Because of her hybrid human-mer DNA, with the exceptions of her cousins (Jet and Lily who adore her), her purebred sea-living compatriots treat Shelley Connor with disdainful superiority. A physical therapist, she enjoys late nocturnal swims. While on a midnight swim, Shelley sees someone disposing of a corpse several miles at sea; the killer sees her and knifes her before she escapes.



Shelly fears the culprit will come after her, but conceals part of the truth from Sheriff Tillman Angier, who recently returned to the Bayou to help his widow mom care for his autistic brother. Attracted to Tillman, Shelley instead turns to Jet and Lily as to what to do. Jet says kill the predator and poetical justice dump his body in the ocean while Lily and Shelley insist they plant evidence so that Tillman can arrest the psychopath. However Tillman knows Shelley hides something from him and the three cousins are suspects due to their tampering; while the murderer plays chess with the half-mermaid and her two relatives.



Rotating first person accounts between Shelly, Tillman and Melkie the killer, Siren’s Secret is an engaging romantic police procedural urban fantasy. The lead couple and her cousins are three-dimensional flaws and all; on the other hand Melkie is one dimensional and the Mer race underdeveloped. Still readers will relish this taut thriller as the Three Musketeers battle a stalking maniac at the same time the sheriff and the mixed race siren fall in love.



Harriet Klausner

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