REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY: A Shadow On the Ground by Rebecca Lee Smith

Blurb: Morgan Maguire is afraid to believe in second chances. The family orchard is failing, her twin brother is being framed for murder, and the sharks are circling. The tough exterior she's spent years hiding behind is beginning to crumble, just as the man who shattered her heart is back in her life. Gage Kirkland is as compelling and magnetic as ever, and he's offering the kind of help she may not be able to refuse. But can she trust him?

To finance his troubled son's therapy, Gage, a former investigator, takes one last job--recovering a stolen Civil War artifact. Unfortunately, it's in the possession of the woman he left behind, the woman who's haunted his dreams ever since. The electricity between them still crackles, but unless he helps exonerate her brother and finds a way to confess his true reason for returning, how will he ever recover Morgan's heart?



Excerpt: Gage leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. The words weren’t exactly pouring out.

He took a deep breath and clasped his hands in front of him, like a preacher signaling for the congregation to bow their heads. Then he took another breath and plowed ahead.

“Jeremy lost his mother two months ago, and he's a mess right now. He keeps lashing out at me, hoping to make me hurt as much as he does. I'm sure you've figured that out. But I want you to know I did not kill my ex-wife—his mother.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Morgan said.

“It was an accident. There were extenuating circumstances which Jeremy blames me for. But I did not—I could never—” He lifted his eyes and looked at her. “I don't want you to think badly of me.”

“That's why you came back here tonight? So I won't think badly of you?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I just—”

“Well, I do think badly of you. I'll always think badly of you.”

“You don't mean  that.”

“Why not? I can think badly of you  if I want to. Most girls have a guy in their past they wish they'd never met. You're mine. Of course, most girls don't get to experience the thrill of having the guy show up out of the blue twelve years later. With his kid. On the worst day of their lives.”

“If I'd known you were going to find a dead body today, I would have waited until tomorrow to show up.”

She leveled her gaze at him. “I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel.”





Author Bio: Rebecca lives with her husband in the beautiful, misty mountains of East Tennessee, where the people are charming, soulful, and just a little bit crazy. She's been everything from a tax collector to a stay-at-home mom to a house painter to a professional actress and director. When she's not churning out sensual romantic mysteries with snappy dialogue and happy endings, she likes to travel, go to the Outer Banks for her ocean fix, watch old movies, hang out at the local pub, and make her day complete by correctly answering the Final Jeopardy! question.


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WRITING ROMANCE AND THE MEN IN MY LIFE

The men in my life who mean the most to me have all read my books. At least most of my books. I’ve had two published, A Dance to Die For and my current book, A Shadow on the Ground, both romantic mysteries and suspense. My husband hasn’t read the second one yet. Ditto, my youngest son. And it looks like I’m going to have to be okay with that.
This isn’t school. My books aren’t on the required summer reading list for AP English. I know romantic suspense isn’t their cup, even though they dutifully read the first one. But for them, reading romance is right up there with reading icky love poetry, and I’ve never heard either of them read poetry unless it began with, “There was a young man from Nantucket.” My husband reads for pleasure occasionally, but he chooses books by Patterson and Grisham and Koontz. I can’t fault him for that. While he’s reading those guys, I’m across the room reading Robb and Higgins and Shalvis.
My oldest son is a reader like me. He’s always asked to read my books, and he’s had some thoughtful observations about them. In A Shadow on the Ground, I write about a man whose twelve-year-old son blames him for the death of his mother. My oldest had some wonderful insights into that relationship that I might not have thought of on my own and helped me identify what had been missing from the ending. But he’s a reader. And he’ll read anything.
My brother is an excellent proofreader. He catches mistakes I would never spot on my own like word usage, story inconsistencies (who knew what, when), and technical things like using the wrong gun. He’d never read any romantic suspense before I started writing it, and gave me high praise for the action packed scenes in the last third of the book. He also asked me how many glasses of wine I had to drink to type the word, “nipple.”
Another guy friend said my book was a lot less boring than he thought it would be. Two others said they liked it, even though they’re gay. Several other guy friends bought the book but will probably never read it, much less open it. But that’s all right. They came through for me, and it’s the thought that counts.
I don’t think I’ve converted any of the men in my life to the wonderful world of romance novels. If they do continue to read romantic mysteries and suspense, it will be because I wrote them. I doubt if they’ll ever truly love them, but that’s all right, too. I have no doubt that they love me.



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Erin's Review: I love romantic suspense, love it! And this book met every expectation I had. Just the right amount of intrigue, the right amount of romance and the ending I was hoping against hope for! Morgan is an amazing woman. She takes on too much, loves too much and is loyal to a hilt to her family, even going as far as coming back home when the only thing she wants to do is run. Her conflicted emotions are conveyed very clearly and you feel for her even the times you want to shake her for being naive.
Gage is the one she could never forget and the last man she thought she would cross paths with again. Gage took this job hoping to reconnect with Morgan because after that one day with her, he fell in love. Circumstances held him to where he was and he could not leave but oh how he wanted to.
  Gage's son, Jeremy, is a quick witted, smart little guy that will capture your heart and amaze you at how smart he really is.
 The death of Morgan's neighbor sets off a series of events that have you guessing until the very end. The supporting characters are quite the eclectic mix, from the neighbor's son, to Peach-the always looking for love gold digger, to Morgan's sweet twin, Sean.
Rebecca Lee Smith is right up there with Lisa Jackson and Lisa Gardner in my opinion. Now if we can just get a sequel to see just how well those grapes grow on the other side of the mountain...........

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