Macy Howard returns to her old home in Copper Lake, Georgia, after spending over a year in a psychiatric hospital. (She had a breakdown after her husband died and she found out he was a serial killer.) She is packing her belongings and getting ready to move on with her life. She eventually meets a friendly neighbor that lives down the street, veterinarian and author Stephen Noble. He hasn't lived in Copper Lake long and doesn't know about Macy's painful and troubled past. As they get to know each other Macy starts to trust another man again.

I liked Macy, she was classy and vulnerable, she loved gardening and her cute three-year-old daughter Clary. I also liked Stephen, he was described as a bit geeky--he was tall and lanky and wore glasses and his hair was disheveled most of the time. I liked his adorable dog Scooter! I also liked how Stephen didn't pry into Macy's past and let her tell him about herself when the time was right. This book also had some mild suspense--while in her home Macy would smell her dead husband's cologne, notice papers she put in one place end up somewhere else. She starts questioning her sanity again.

This was an enjoyable read, it was a bit slow at the beginning but things started picking up as the story went on.

This book is part of a COPPER LAKE series by Marilyn Pappano. ( )

Very good book. This was more of a psychological suspense story than an action story and it worked very well. I loved both Macy and Stephen. Macy had spent months in a psychiatric hospital trying to recover from the trauma of her husband's life and death. She had loved him, never suspecting that he was a cold blooded serial killer. After his death and losing the baby she carried she went into a terrible depression along with panic attacks. Now she's ready to return to her home and move on. She meets Stephen, a veterinarian who has only been in town a few months and knows nothing of her past. He makes her feel things she hasn't felt in a long time and he also makes her feel safe. I loved seeing her open up with Stephen and start to lose the fear that had been haunting her. She showed a lot of strength in her ability to go through the house and make decisions on what to do with the things that were there. The descriptions of her thoughts and feelings were so well done that I could feel what she was going through. When odd things started happening that made her think she was backsliding she turned to Stephen for support. I loved the fact that she felt so comfortable with him that she was able to tell him everything that had happened to her.

I have to say that Stephen is one of my favorite heroes ever. Most of the time the heroes are big muscled guys who can physically take down the bad guys. And that's fine - I love those guys too. But it's nice to get a hero who is different, and Stephen is that. He's a man who is not athletic, wears glasses, and writes sci fi/fantasy on the side. His "superhero" ability is his brain and his heart. When he first meets Macy he is immediately drawn to her. I loved the way that he offered to help her with anything she needed and made her feel comfortable enough with him that she turned to him when she got scared. I also loved the fact that he didn't go searching into her past when he first met her, feeling that she deserved her privacy. I really liked the way that he and Clary bonded right away and that he was comfortable being around her. When Macy told him about her past she was so afraid that it would drive him away. I loved the way that he didn't say much, just reached out and hugged her. I loved his confidence that there was nothing wrong with her and that there was something else going on. He used that brain of his to figure out what was going on and relieve Macy of the worry about her sanity. The ending had a great twist to it. ( )