Lauren Dawes

Just when Jaymee Ballard’s life seems to be on track, a massive derecho attacks the Delta Crossroads sowing destruction in its path. Her boyfriend, investigative journalist Nick Samuels, comes up missing, and she fears the worst.

Nick’s abandoned car contains evidence of his involvement uncovering a controversial case mired in political power and greed. While her friend and local detective, Cage Foster, heads up the inquiry into Nick’s kidnapping, Jaymee finds it impossible to sit back and do nothing.

Enlisting the help of her best friend, Dani Evans, Jaymee discovers a trail leading to the dangerous and secretive Dixie Mafia. Facing a fraudulent Confederate artifact scheme, dark local history, and a powerful enemy lurking in the shadows, the two friends find themselves holding the key to not only Nick’s disappearance, but a shameful town secret someone will kill to protect.

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Length: 306 pages

This is the final book in Green’s Delta Crossroads Trilogy, and just like the first two books, Ashes and Bone doesn’t disappoint. Right from the beginning, the reader is sucked into the world Green has created. In this story, all the main players are brought back into play, working together to follow the trail of breadcrumbs left behind by Jaymee’s boyfriend, Nick Samuals. His disappearance may have seemed random at first, but the more Jaymee digs, the more she finds out about the story Nick had been chasing.

As always, Green’s love of history and the south comes through in her books. The amount of detail and dedication to getting all those little features historically correct means that the reader can see just how much research she has put into her book. I found that the more I read, the more I was trying to guess which suspects were guilty and which were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Green weaves a seamless tale, and it’s her characters that carry it forward and help it to develop, help it to become believable. The only thing that detracted from the story for me was the number of characters. Sometimes I found it difficult keeping up with who’s who as the tangled web of intrigued slowly unravels. 

The plot is really well-paced, with no part of it that could be considered either too fast or too slow. Green keeps the reader in suspense, letting more and more details of the backstory trickle into the storyline, keeping you guessing with clues and red herrings to lead you to draw one conclusion when it’s really another.

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who loves suspense novels with just a hint of love and romance thrown in. Green’s characters are well-rounded, the world she creates is enchanting and the overall plotlines of all three books will keep you guessing.

Piper Atkinson uses the truth as a weapon, but her latest interview candidate is more than just a headline.​

Piper wants to be the kind of journalist who makes people sit up and take notice of the issues, and in Houston, Texas, there are plenty to go around. In the city's high-end restaurant world, reclusive Native American chef Taima Woods is discussed in reverential whispers, so when the opportunity to interview him arrives, Piper jumps at it.​

But getting to Tai is tougher than she expected. He has a deep mistrust of reporters, and a private life he'd prefer to keep hidden. There are two passions in Tai's life – his cooking and his tribe – and he means to keep it that way. But the closer Tai gets to Piper, the closer he comes to conceding a third.

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Through Tai, Piper discovers a world she knew nothing about – a damaged and ostracized community in need of a voice. But the more Piper wants to help them, the more Tai understands that to love Piper is to turn his back on his people. ​

Will Tai reject the one woman who's ever understood him? Or can Piper show him that hardening his heart helps no one?​

This was the first book I’ve read by Claire Boston, and when I finished it, I wondered why I’d been hiding under that rock for so long. “Into the Fire” is a contemporary romance with substance, with a message and it is delivered beautifully.

It’s told from the point of view of Piper—a truth-seeking force of nature determined to make the world a better place through her writing—and Tai—a reclusive chef who works tirelessly both in and out of the kitchen. Although they come from completely different worlds, their story—their love—comes from their mutual desire to make the world a better place. 

Both of these characters, along with their long-standing supporting characters, were well-rounded, likeable and insightful. They aren’t your cookie-cutter characters that could be found in any number of contemporary romance books; rather they had their flaws and their baggage, and they have their struggles to overcome preconceived notions and prejudices. 

Boston’s writing style is very easy to read, and I found that I didn’t want to put my kindle down at all. If I’d been able, I would have stayed up and read the whole thing in one hit. It was clear from the story that Boston has done a lot of research into the culture she was focusing on, and she touched on the sensitive issues carefully and respectfully. 

I’m the kind of reader who likes to have a little more detail when it comes to the more intimate scenes so that was one thing that I found lacking in Into the Fire, but in saying that, there are plenty of people out there who don’t want to read every detail, but rather want to use their imaginations instead. 

After I finished reading, I decided that I would have to get the first three books in the series and catch up on what I’ve been missing. This really is a story that grabs you by the lapels of your leather jacket and pulls you onto the back of Tai’s motorcycle.

“Into the Fire” is a great read, especially if you like authors like Brandi Kennedy and Colleen Hoover.