Forbidden

Victoria Taylor Murray

Review by Molly

Nouri St. Charles Sommers is distressed that her husband Ethan has been gone for days and now suddenly his attorney Clint Chamberlain seems to have disappeared as well. Nouri and Clint have carried the torch for one another since before her marriage to Ethan. To top it all off Becka Chamberlain and another young woman have been murdered.

Clint is hunting for Ethan. The attorney is convinced Ethan is again taking drugs and must have murdered a young woman he does not know. Before long Clint must come to grips with the fact that Ethan is involved in much more than being hooked on drugs.

Nouri would like to divorce her billionaire husband, hires a detective to find the man, she receives a death threat and decides she wants nothing more to do with Clint. Gabe Baldwin the detective who is supposed to be guarding Nouri soon believes himself in love with her.

Forbidden is the second in Writer Taylor’s Lambert Series. Taylor’s narrative is filled with pithy dialogue along with lusty and determined characters set against a backdrop of machination, conniving and intrigue. The narrative travels from Boston to Lambert up in New England to Connecticut, then to France and China before returning to the Eastern Bay near Cape Cod. We are offered a peek into the seamier side of life as the story surrounding Ethan Sommers unfolds. That Ethan Sommers is a man who is little satisfied with his wealth, his wife, or anything else is revealed in explicit manner.

Forbidden is as much a tale of the dissolution wrought by wealth without principle as it is a glimpse into the yearnings of a group of desperate, lonely people who are not always certain what they want even when it is before them. Each of the major characters has a yen for someone who may not be well suited or available to them. The reader is caught up in the tale from the outset as Nouri ponders where her husband may be.

I look forward to reviewing another in the series. There are some small areas where editing might be in order to tighten up the –ly endings, however on the whole Forbidden moves right along, the story is plausible and the writing does hold the interest of the reader.

True to the Genre. Not for everyone, some graphic sex, some profanity.

Masquerade by Janet Dailey
Wildest Hearts by Jayne Ann Krentz