#COYER Review: Wake to Darkness (Brown and De Luca #2) – Maggie Shayne

Wake to Darkness by Maggie Shayne
Series: Brown and De Luca #2
Published by Harlequin MIRA on 26 November 2013
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Suspense, Thriller
Pages: 368
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley

Stranded with a murderer…

Rachel de Luca's uncanny sense of perception is the key to her success as a self-help celebrity. Even before she regained her sight, she had a gift for seeing people's most carefully hidden secrets. But the secret she shares with Detective Mason Brown is one she has promised to keep. As for Mason, he sees Rachel more clearly than she'd like to admit.

After a single night of adrenaline-fueled passion, they have agreed to keep their distance—until a string of murders brings them together again. Mason thinks that he can protect everyone he loves, including Rachel, by taking them to a winter hideaway, but danger follows them up the mountain.

As guests disappear from the snowbound resort, the race to find the murderer intensifies. Rachel knows she's a target. Will acknowledging her feelings for Mason destroy her—or save them both and stop a killer?

*I received a free ARC of Wake to Darkness from Harlequin MIRA via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review*

Wake to Darkness picks up a few months after the ending of Sleep with the Lights On, and the readers are brought right into the action, as Mason comes to see Rachel mere seconds before she goes live on television to talk about her newest self-help book. Mason needs Rachel’s help once more, and she needs him! But she will not let him know how much he affects her even after a while apart with no contact at all.

Fast paced, Wake to Darkness is still dealing with a mysterious serial killer, but this time, the killer is going after the people who received an organ from Mason’s brother. At first, Rachel wants no part of this new mystery, that is until she has a horrible nightmare about being killed in a horrendous way, where she can feel someone cutting her open to steal a kidney. When she tells Mason, he has just been to a crime scene where the police finally found a woman who had been missing for weeks. She had a donated kidney before she died… now, it seemed it had been cut out of her while she was still alive.

From then on, Rachel knows there is no way she can stay away, and she tries the best she can to help Mason, until it becomes obvious that she might be a target as well. Filled with suspense and terror, Wake to Darkness is even more thrilling than Sleep with the Lights on, and I could hardly put the book down to eat. In between the mystery, and trying to stay one step ahead of the killer, there is an obvious attraction between Mason and Rachel, and that just made the whole story even better.

To help Rachel and her niece stay safe, Mason wants them to go to a mountain resort over Christmas, without letting anyone know where they are. But as Rachel is on her way to pick up a few things she needs, she suddenly sees someone in a ski-mask in the back seat of her car! And that someone has a syringe in their hand – ready to jab her in the neck. Only her quick reaction saves her, but the culprit is on the lose when Rachel comes to. After Rachel is released from the hospital, Mason finds his sister-in-law unconscious on her living-room floor, also with a syringe nearby, and she has been beaten badly.

Without spoiling anything, I can say that Wake to Darkness has a very ominous title, and the excitement never ends during the whole story. There is enough romance for my heart to be happy, and so much suspense I was practically shaking at times! If you enjoy romantic thrillers, the Brown and De Luca series is the perfect one for you! I’m sure some of you have the same one-click addiction I have… and I promise you’ll put it to good use for this one!

 Mason sighed. Maybe in disappointment that I didn’t seem as glad to see him as he’d seemed to see me. A lot he knew. My inner idiot was doing cartwheels.

Everything had been brown and barren when I’d left to hit the talk show circuit, but now there was a fluffy blanket of snow on everything. I’d never had eyesight in the winter before. Not since I was twelve, anyway.

Damn, maybe I was already into him deeper than I’d known. I picked up a brownie and shoved it into his mouth, then dragged my focus back to my laptop.

She pulled out my brand-new ski outfit, black and white, and very much what a seasoned and competent skier would wear. It would look ridiculous tumbling down the hill with me inside it. It would probably go on strike after day one, if it had any self-respect.

 

 

 

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