Title: Secrets Exposed
Author: Lisa Renee Jones
Publisher/Year: EverAfter Romance 6/4/12
Length:   260 Pages
Series:  Tall, Dark, and Deadly #0.5

Overview

Her enemy is her passion, her passion is her enemy…

Lindsey Paxton was once the number one defense attorney in New York. She fought for those who were innocent, but charged. Her instincts were her lifeline, never failing her, as they guided her in her choices of who to defend. Or so she thought. Until she won a case she would forever wish to have lost. Her client, an accused rapist, kills and rapes a woman only a day after being set free. Destroyed by her role in the woman’s death, Lindsey blames her father’s controlling ways for what she has become, and runs from her career and life. Years later – the past becomes the present . . . Her father has cancer, and Lindsey is forced to leave her career with the Washington branch of the FBI. She finds herself facing the responsibility of running her father’s law firm with the reluctant help of hotshot attorney Mark Reeves, a man who sparks her temper while also managing to tempt her heart, while setting her body on fire! With his help she finds herself fighting the emotional battles of the past, tempted to trust both him and her instincts. Now, faced with a case inherited from her father so similar to her career-ending one, she now must decide if her instincts will lead her down the path to saving an innocent man or setting free another killer. But while she fights her own battles, someone watches, wanting from the past what he had failed to get the first time . . . Lindsey.

My Thoughts

I don’t know why i didn’t read this one a while back, but at least i’ve fixed that.  We have the prelude to the series here, where we’re just meeting Royce Walker who’s the eldest of the Walker brothers.  In this first installment (or what should have been the first) we are focused on Lindsey who is a successful attorney yes, but who now works for the FBI in DC and has to come back to new york to take over her father’s law firm – the same one that she worked for and felt almost killed her from the inside out after she won a case that turned out to possibly be the wrong judgement.

So Lindsey has now been forced to take on a case at her father’s firm that’s quite similar (eerily so) to the Hudson case, the on that ended her desire to be in the courtroom, and with that comes the idea that she needs Mark Reeves to come back to the firm and take it over since he would have been groomed for the spot instead of Lindsey.  Of course, if that aggrivation weren’t enough (the issues between Mark and Lindsey’s father), you know that the sexual tension between leading characters will make it all that more interesting.

So throughout this story, we have the issues of the case to deal with – figuring out who’s behind the rapes and murders, while both Lindsey and Mark draw so many similarities between cases that it gets to be far more complicated than anyone expected.  Add on top of that the fact that they decide that they are super attracted to one another and act on it – which is nice – they don’t fight it for too long.  Add in an ex fiance who won’t take the hint that things are over, and has also found himself inserting himself into a situation that made the case that much more complicated.  And then there’s the ex partner and his new partner that cause a bit of calm but do they really?

I spent the entire time wondering who the killer was.  If Williams was the guy or not, and if not, who was it.  How safe was Lindsey since she looks exactly like all the victims and will Mark be able to protect her when she doesn’t want to be protected.  The twist at the end is one i didn’t expect and i think that’s impressive since i’m usually able to solve these things quickly.  Regardless, we have a nice story here that keeps you interested.

In True form of our author, we get some of the steamiest scenes between our leads – it’s so hot that you know exactly where these two stand and i couldn’t help but read more and more and more.  I love the way that this series was designed and i can’t wait to see what else comes of the Walker clan and the other guys. Enjoy!