October 28, 2013
In the second of Davis’s Sugarland Blue romantic suspense series (after Sworn to Protect), Det. Taylor Kayne has taken refuge in the Tennessee town of Sugarland after a brutal, bloody hostage situation in Los Angeles left him haunted by nightmares and guilt. Purple-tressed, take-no-nonsense rocker Cara Evans considers Taylor responsible for the death of her sister, who was one of the hostages, so she takes her band to Sugarland, seeking revenge. Happily for a book heavy on scorching-hot erotic scenes, Cara soon decides she would rather bed Taylor than destroy him. Taylor finds it hard to trust her, however, when an old friend of hers is killed and he discovers the dead man’s phone in Cara’s closet. The book rapidly shifts from steamy sex to suspense and action, distracting from prose that’s occasionally as purple (“The kiss of a starving man, too long denied”) as Cara’s hair. Agent: Roberta Brown, Brown Literary Agency.