From Booklist Readers who like "hot and nasty" romantic suspense will relish Barton's contemporary and sexually explicit Southern gothic. For a judge, Ella Porter, the adopted daughter of a wealthy senator and his invalid wife, is pretty naive. She believes her parents' lies about their happy marriage and at 30 is still living at home, waiting for undying love like theirs, until good-looking bad boy Reed Conway is released from prison after serving 15 years for the murder of his violently abusive stepfather. Reed is obsessed with finding out who framed him for killing the man who had made his family's life hell; meanwhile the real murderer, intent on sending Reed back to jail, starts a campaign of terror against Ella, making it look like Reed is at fault. When she confronts him, they discover that the unvoiced attraction they had for each other as teenagers has not abated. They also realize that they have to find the real killer, and events escalate steadily toward an exciting climax. Diana Tixier Herald Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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