Heartbreaker

Julie Garwood

1/7/2007

Father Thomas Madden is hearing a confession that chills him to the bones. The supplicant is asking for absolution before committing a crime. The crime he confesses to planning is the torture and murder of a beautiful woman - Tom's sister. Tom tries to stop the man but is hit over the head when he charges out of his side of the confessional.

After he awakes the first person he contacts is his best friend, Nicholas Buchanan. Nick is an F.B.I specialist who works with "lost and found" children. But he and Tom have been friends since second grade. Instead of returning to Boston for a month long vacation, he goes to Kansas City where Tom is visiting for a week. He has to protect Tom's kid sister as well as Tom.

When Tom didn't call Laurant the night before the confession, she was worried. Rather than waiting for his call, she drives from their small Iowa town down to find check with him. She arrives after Nick, not knowing her life has been threatened. Suddenly her quiet small town life is disrupted. She had never met Nick before because of her and Tom's unusual upbringing. Now this man she had heard about for years but never met is gluing himself to her side until they catch the psychotic who has threatened her life. Tom has another FBI agent "glued" to him as well.

Nick wants Laurant to hide away. She refuses. She knows more women are in jeopardy besides herself. Instead, she sets herself up as bait. So Nick and Laurant return to Holy Oaks, Iowa. Tom and the other FBI agent return a day or so later. Now Laurant has to pretend to everyone that she is in love with and engaged to Nick. She has to be in her best friend's wedding. And she has to figure out how to get the town's go-getter from selling prime property and ruining the town. All this while there is a stalker out there watching her every move.

Garwood gives the reader a fast paced romance suspense novel. Nick's character comes to life, especially when his fear of airplanes comes to light early in the book. Laurant is a strong female who is deathly afraid on the inside but does what is needed anyway. The problems interfering in a romance between them is believable - especially the one where her brother is a priest as well as Nick's best friend.

While the plot gets twisted a little too much - too many coincidences, the reasoning for the choice of Laurant as the stalker's obsession is well thought through and carried out. The novel is formulaic for this type of tale, but it is well worth the read.

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Notice: Sexual situations

Heartbreaker
Mercy
Killjoy
Murder List
Slow Burn
Shadow Dance
Shadow Music