Alicia Thomas’s review of Secret Obsession by Leigh Wyndfield
Contemporary romance released 4 Feb 08 by Samhain

I picked up Secret Obsession because I enjoyed another book of hers I read (True Seeing which has been re-released in a revised version as Hot Visions). I enjoy Leigh Wyndfield’s writing so I read her when I can.

This story is a clan/feud story. It is set on a fishing community island in the northeast where the people have governed themselves for generations and have their own way of doing things. They’ve been getting along for a couple of generations but about 70 years ago there was a feud that hasn’t been forgotten. Someone is trying to start trouble, again, and Wade and Clem are working together to stop it.

Clemant Taylor is a good strong character. She wasn’t actually raised on the island. Her grandmother had left before her mother was born and Clem grew up on the mainland, spending her summers and holidays on Blue Island. She knows the way the outside world works but Blue has always felt like home. She is a complex character who felt real to me, not contradictory. She had strengths and weaknesses that I could buy into.

Wade Tawes is an islander. He’s not knowledgeable in the ways of the world but he’s smart and he’s got rock-solid, do-right character. He is ready to do whatever he has to do to stop the feud and to keep Clem with him. If he can’t do both, though, he’s going to keep Clem. They’ve hidden their relationship for sixteen years and he’s had enough. I loved the way Wade was presented as having had a simple life without making him less than smart and capable. I adored the way he loved Clem.

This story is basically a mystery and pretty well done. It’s not a grip-your-seat, type or one where you are stopping to speculate who-done-it, but it is enjoyable and never seemed to drag. Also, it is erotic, so it has content appropriate for the genre, but the story doesn’t rely on it. It’s a good light mystery romance where the love scenes happen to be more explicit.

Grade: B

From the back cover:

     Running from his bed might save her sanity, but he won’t let her go without a fight.

     Three years ago, Clemant Taylor left Blue Island to escape her secret obsession with Wade Tawes, the son of her clan’s greatest enemy. But when the head of her family becomes ill, she is forced to return to Blue-at the risk of succumbing once more to Wade’s irresistible sexual lure.

     Promising herself she won’t be enticed again into having mind-blowing sex with him, she vows to focus only on stopping the escalating violence between their clans and the collapse of the island’s way of life.

     Wade Tawes, now the head of a family that has long sworn to seek retribution against the Taylors, is stuck between loyalty to his clan and his love for Clemant. He doesn’t know how he’ll do it, but he plans to force his family to accept his choice, after he finds out who’s really behind the vandalism that is ripping the island apart. And after he convinces Clemant that she really does love him.

     But the feud heats up, blood is spilled, and pressure for revenge mounts on both sides. Wade and Clemant must find a way to heal the rift between their clans-or their world will implode, leaving them both empty and alone.

     Read an excerpt.