This novella is book 2 in Kathy Ivan’s Texas Boudreaux Brotherhood series. These are low angst, small town, & closed door romantic suspense.

I enjoyed this more than book 1, but still had many of the same issues with it. The writing is very repetitive, especially for such a short book. This one also had no relationship development. Antonio & Serena don’t go on a single date or even hang out for any length of time. They’re both internally monologuing about being in love with nothing in the text to explain how they got there.

I kinda liked the mystery/suspense angle but there’s several times where Serena swings from intelligent, strong, and cautious to TSTL. Unfortunately the ending was somewhat anticlimactic with a surprise character giving an info dump to wrap it up. (Which included a lot of contradictory statements.).

I wish the author would spend more time on “showing” rather than “telling” and stop having characters repeat the same full-length conversation with multiple people.

I already own the first 6 books (Chirp sale) but I’m not sure I’m going to continue.

Narration:
I enjoyed Alex Knox and Tieran Wilder.