Dangerous Affairs by Diana Miller ~ A Review & Spotlight!

 

When soap opera star Abby Langford leaves Los Angeles for her Minnesota hometown,she’s hoping to give her nine-year-old daughter the peaceful childhood she never knew. But instead of tranquility, Abby finds an old knife hidden between the walls of her new house. Then the nightmares start: a blood-soaked victim and a killer’s arm slicing through the air, again and again.

Abby wonders if she’s having the nervous breakdown the tabloids claim she already had, especially when sexy, skeptical police chief Josh Kincaid questions her story. When menacing hate mail arrives, Josh’s professional concern for Abby soon evolves into an intense attraction, and the feeling is mutual. And now Josh wonders if her psychic visions are of crimes past—or a premonition of terrors to come.

To survive, Abby and Josh must uncover the truth and stop a killer . . . before Abby’s worst nightmares come true.


An Excerpt from Dangerous Affairs ~~

Abby rolled back the carpet, exposing the stain. “What do you think? Is this blood or just paint?”

 

Josh squatted beside the stain and studied it for several seconds, scratching it with his fingernail. Then he rolled the carpet back over the stain and stood. “Have you ripped up the carpet in the rest of the bedrooms?”

 

“I started here. This carpet’s the ugliest,” Abby said. “I also spend a lot of time writing in here.” None of that was a lie.

           

He nodded slowly. “So yesterday you pulled out a door, vacuumed behind it, and found a knife flecked with what could be blood. Then this morning you decide to rip up the carpet in one bedroom and coincidentally find more blood?”

           

It did sound a little fantastic, but Abby certainly wasn’t telling him about the dream. “You think I dumped it there myself?”

           

“Makes it seem more like you’ve got a mystery in your own house, doesn’t it? It looks like paint to me, but I guess it could be real blood. I’m sure it’s easy to buy the stuff in LA.”

           

She threw up her hands. “Do you honestly think I brought blood out here with me? Just stuck it in a carton with my dishes and had the movers load it up?”

           

“Or you could have ordered it on the Internet.”

 

“Or stolen it from the Red Cross. Look, I didn’t pretend to find the knife for publicity, and I didn’t plant this stain for publicity. I told you, I don’t want any more publicity.”

           

When Josh didn’t respond, Abby massaged her temples and concentrated on taking calming breaths. If she’d been able to hold her tongue the entire six weeks Vanessa Mason had guest starred on Private Affairs, she could do it now. “I was simply trying to do my civic duty by reporting it.”

           

“Next time don’t bother.”

My Review ~~

 

Abby returns to her small home town in Minnesota, hoping to resolve some of the painful memories that have begun to resurface of her childhood as her marriage crumbled around her, and hoping to build the idyllic childhood for her daughter Maddie that she always dreamed of ~ and pretended that she had.  That pretending lead to the supression of some of Abby's memories...bad memories of her parents.  Lucky for her she'd always had her best friend Laura & her parents Bill & Mary, who were always there for her when she was growing up, and were still there for her & Maddie through this tough time.  To get sole custody of Maddie, Abby had let quite a bit of mud be slung on her reputation ~ but she didn't mind, since her only concern was getting her daughter, and getting away from her ex husband and his cheating ways.  However, someone is holding those nasty tabloid stories against her ~ they think there is truth in them, and Abby has gained a stalker...

 

Chief of Police Josh Kincaid is certain that Soap star Abby Langford is just manufacturing these stories he's getting called out on for press ~ after all, she's not in Hollywood anymore, and she IS trying to write a book, so she needs the press, right?  And who finds a knife BEHIND a wall?  Or a stain UNDER a carpet?  Josh does his job, but he's convinced she's stirring up smoke where there's no fire...too bad she's so sexy.  But high maintenance women like that aren't his cuppa, anyway. 

 

I really, really liked the whole premise of this book ~ the idea that Abby is trying to leave her LA life behind, but it's chasing her down, and won't let go.  That she's a down to earth kind of person, and meets a man she finds attractive ~ Josh ~ and is instantly spurned because of her reputation from Hollywood.  (Even here in KY we know you don't believe everything you see on TV or read in the tabloids!)  So I was kind of pissed off at Josh from the get go ~ first because he too everything he thought he knew about Abby at face value, and 2nd, because he was dating a MUCH younger girl ~ and YAY Abby for taking him down a peg on that one! ~ but he redeemed himself, thankfully. 

 

I really enjoyed the story of the stalker, although I wanted to smack Josh's ass a few times for not taking it serious enough...The cast of supporting characters was really good, and I enjoyed Abby's daughter Maddie, she was true to life, lol.  I found the younger woman and her friend who worked at the Police office pretty irritating, just enough to keep constant friction between Josh & Abby where they didn't need it. 

I have to mention how very much I DID enjoy the banter between Abby and Josh ~ it was just plain fun most of the time.  You could FEEL the sexual tension building from the momment they met,

even though the words they spewed at each other said otherwise.   

 

All in all, it was good read with a great whodunnit ~

I'd definently recommend to Suspense fans!

When she was eight, Diana Miller decided she wanted to be Nancy Drew. But no matter how many garbage cans she dug through, conversations she “accidentally” overheard, and attics she searched, she never found a single cryptic letter, hidden staircase, or anything else even remotely mysterious. She worked as a lawyer, a soda jerk, a stay-at-home mom, a hospital admitting clerk, and a conference host before deciding that the best way to inject suspense into her otherwise satisfying life was by writing about it.

 

Diana is a five-time nominee for the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award and winner of a Golden Heart for Dangerous Affairs—a romantic suspense novel that shows not everyone in her home state is Minnesota Nice. She lives in the Twin Cities with her family.

 

My website link is dianamillerwriter.com. I have buy buttons for both Amazon and Kindle on my website, but have no idea what you have to do to insert them since my web designer did it.

 

The URL for my Amazon page  is: http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Affairs-Diana-Miller/dp/1612186017/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339532353&sr=8

The author will be awarding one $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour,

so be sure to stop by all the blogs on the tour!!

 

November 5: BadBarbsPlace
November 6: House Millar
November 7: Queen of the Night Reviews
November 8: Kerrific
November 9: Kaisy Daisy's Corner
November 12: Musings From An Addicted Reader
November 12: STOP 2 A Writer's Life
November 14: Donna's Blog Home
November 15: The Bunny's Review
November 16: Mimmi's Musings
November 16: STOP 2 WV Stitcher

 

 

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