Ripe For Reader: WAKE TO DARKNESS by Maggie Shayne

Friday, November 22, 2013

WAKE TO DARKNESS by Maggie Shayne

WAKE TO DARKNESS
(A Brown and DeLuca novel)
by Maggie Shayne

ARC Review

Published: November 25, 2013, Harlequin MIRA

My rating: 5 of 5 ⭐️

~ 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? ~

***

YIKES!!! Absolutely everything I had hoped it would be!!! This is the second full novel in the series, first one was SLEEP WITH THE LIGHTS ON, for which you can read my review HERE, next a short novella DREAM OF DANGER, was released just last month and as far as I know, still available free of charge. And now this stunner of a story!!!

After having decided to get used to living with sight, before embarking on any personal entanglements with Mason, Rachel had had mixed feelings about contacting him to help her find her assistant back during Thanksgiving. But that automatic connection that they immediately seemed to be able to pick up again, did cause her to think. I think it was then, that her general attitude actually started mellowing out a little already. Where before she was a (mostly self-proclaimed) cynic, at least on the outside, she now starts catching herself getting 'soft'. Of course the moment that happens, her hilariously grouchy inner bitch pipes up, and while her outer persona struggles to stay appropriately in role, her inner bitch is ranting and raving.
Rachel is an oyster!!! You have to about kill yourself with sharp knives to get to the beauty that lies within!!

It's not just her blind bulldog, or Mason anymore who can soften her up! it's also Mason's two nephews, who once again are getting tangled up in something kids that age shouldn't even be exposed to. Not to mention Rachel's own niece, who has become part of the never-ending circus.
This is also the first Christmas coming up that Rachel will be able to see since she was little, so expectations are high. And although she has to admit that Mason is a welcome addition, as are the boys, she could do without the rest of his family....or the next creep that seems intent on haunting her returning dreams. But Rachel wouldn't be Rachel if she didn't roll with the punches and put herself forward and in front of everyone, ready to take on whatever comes her way.

Although it may not have been Mason's idea NOT to pursue a relationship with Rachel initially, he can't deny that her points made then were valid ones. But as time has gone on and he tried to resume dating, there is just no getting around the fact that there is something special there, an unspoken connection that demands to be explored......aside from the fact that he can barely keep his hands to himself when Rachel is near. Still, his focus has to be on his brother's family, helping them get through what now seems to be yet another strange murder case that is somehow connected to his brother's organ donations. His guilt still weighs on him heavily, but the only thing he can do is keep the people he cares for safe. The way to do that is isolate them all together in one place. Yes, and that would put him right next to Rachel and temptation.

What they hadn't counted on was the force of nature doing its thing, a blizzard cutting off communications. Nor had it ever occurred to Mason OR Rachel, they might have to start looking a bit closer to home for answers...

I feel this time the greys are coming out..... The harsh lines, and whoever drew them in the sand, are softening. And the irony is that in terms of Mason and Rachel, what they start recognizing in themselves, is something the other has seen all along. Go figure. A deep connection, those two share, so much so that words are becoming less necessary. They seem to be able to communicate by gestures, looks, posture, touch or even just energy. Without even being in a long term physical relationship, they have a level of attachment that is almost........ cellular.

The writing by Maggie Shayne is sublime, her characters are intricate and complex. The plot line is like a Celtic knot, twisting in on itself, to a point where you become so paranoid reading, you think everyone is a suspect!! I absolutely adore Maggie's sense of humor! the way she brings Rachel off the pages as this slightly ascerbic, a tad cantankerous and a whole lot of opinionated hard-nose.

.......but I'm telling you.....I still don't trust that mother of his!!!!

I swear I hardly breathed...... I inhaled this book from beginning to end as I would a tray of chocolate eclairs!! I also seriously taxed the flexibility of my bladder because I was too afraid to leave my bed...... Yea..... The heat was getting turned on a little more in this book!!! That is, until the cold bucket of water was tossed, but man, the build up is nice and juicy! But there is nothing, nothing better than the hair-raising chills running down my spine reading a high quality thriller !!