Scarlet Nights-Jude Deveraux

Scarlet Nights
Jude Deveraux
Pocket, May 31 2011, $7.99
ISBN: 9781439107997

In Edilean, Virginia, twenty-six years old Sara Shaw and Greg Anders are to marry in three weeks. After receiving a late night call Greg leaves without notifying his fiancée.

Two days after Greg vanished; worried about the safety of his sibling undercover Fort Lauderdale Police Detective Mike Newland enters a still reeling Sara’s apartment. He explains he is the brother of her BFF Tess and is staying with her. He conceals that he is there to catch Greg’s mother Mizelli Vandlo while the FBI wants to nab con artist Anders. As she helps them set up a sting to catch a thief, in his wildest imagination, Mike never expected to fall in love with his hostess while Sara wonders if she is fickle as she reciprocates his deepest regard.

The third Edilean romantic suspense (see Days of Gold and Lavender Morning) moves the town into the present with an engaging police procedural romance. Readers will root for Sara although wonder why an intelligent young woman rebounding from her fiancé’s desertion allows a stranger to bully her. Still Jude Deveraux fans will enjoy the commitment phobic Florida cop and the jilted Virginian falling in love.

Harriet Klausner