Sometimes you think you know the truth. Sometimes, it knows you better.
Ivie Davis’s seemingly perfect life is not quite so perfect thanks to a stalker who is determined to hurt her in every way possible. The guy she falls for is forbidden. Malicious intent is around every corner. She runs—for a while. When she returns home to piece together the puzzle of her past, she finds herself working painfully close to the one man she knows she can’t have. Her heart has other plans.
Sterling Brigg is a rancher by blood, detective by choice. He is driven by a need to find the truth. He fell in love with Ivie, even though he knew better. Years later, he still searches for the answers to her past. Now that she’s back in his life, he has no intention of letting her go again.
Together, they vow to find the truth, and in doing so, they will have to decide if the truth will bring them together or be the barrier that keeps them apart forever.
This is an intense tale of lost love and second chances with heavy tension thanks to dark secrets and dark suspense. Ivie and Sterling fell in love as teens but she was his best friend’s girl. Ivie knew that she and Dean weren’t right for one another so she was trying to figure out how to break it off but there’s no good way to leave your boyfriend for his best friend. In the midst of this struggle, her life came to a crashing halt when a terrifying stalker threatened everyone she loves. Ivie left town and cut contact with both men in the hopes of protecting them and it worked, at first. But then the stalker resurfaces years later and her world begins to fall apart again. Only this time, Sterling is the detective on the case so things get even more complicated.
Ivie and Sterling’s story is tragic because it’s so clear they truly love one another but some anonymous monster is keeping them apart. The stalker’s identity and another twist were really obvious pretty early on but the story held my interest because I wanted to see when and how Ivie and Sterling would figure things out. A bit more suspense and slightly less angst would have made this story perfect but I still enjoyed it very much as-is and look forward to more from this new author. I received an ARC from Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.
