MIDNIGHT SECRETS – Ella Grace
Wildefire Series , Book 1
Ballantine Books
ISBN: 978-0-345-53836-9
May 2013
Romantic Suspense

Midnight, Alabama; Past and Present

Eighteen years ago a tragedy left ten-year-old triplets, Savannah, Samantha, and Sabrina Wilde, without their mother and father. Fortunately, they still had a gracious home and a loving grandfather in Daniel Wilde. Eight years later, as the girls were graduating high school, Savannah fell in love, but had too few weeks of bliss before her heart was grievously broken. Now twenty-eight, as an assistant district attorney in Nashville, Tennessee, she wins a case against a man with evil friends, and receives threats. Her boss orders her to leave town for two months for her own safety. All the sisters had left home years ago, and now that their grandfather is gone, Savannah had planned to return to Midnight to empty out and sell the Wilde mansion with all its memories. It might as well be now; she only hopes she can avoid meeting the man who broke her heart.

Zach Tanner was the “bad boy” of Midnight, Alabama, though he didn't really deserve that appellation. As the older son of a self-centered and needy single mother with a bad reputation, he had the responsibility for the little family from an early age. If sometimes he couldn't afford to buy food, what was a boy to do? When he saved Samantha Wilde from assault at her senior prom, something sweet and innocent entered his life. Then it seemed a happy-ever-after for them was not to be. Zach served several tours in the Middle East before leaving the army and returning to Midnight where he is now the chief of police.

Savannah and Zach do meet of course, and though she has reason to hate him and for him to hate himself, the old feelings are still alive on both sides.

Secrets are a recurring theme in MIDNIGHT SECRETS. Both Savannah and Zach have them, and so, apparently, do others in town who will do anything to keep them from being uncovered. What is the truth about the deaths of the sisters' parents?

Combining a hot romance with an old murder-suicide incident that's not as open and shut as it once seemed, MIDNIGHT SECRETS makes for excellent reading. The characters are well drawn with enough fodder to build a series on. The sisters may look alike, but their personalities are diverse and all need their stories to be told. An upcoming sequel, MIDNIGHT LIES coming in late September, will star Samantha. Then there are a few more interesting potential heroes, including Zach's younger brother Josh who never appears on stage.

I readily recommend MIDNIGHT SECRETS by this new-to-me author. While Googling her name, I learned that only the name is brand new. Ella Grace has written other romantic suspense novels as Christy Reece.

Jane Bowers