Romantic Suspense published by Berkley 03 Jan 23
The story starts with murder. Ambrose Drake is at a sleep clinic participating in a sleep study where he might have sleepwalked into a murder. The killing appears to be a dream that has derailed Ambrose’s successful career as a crime writer. Pallas and her friends run a Lost Night podcast that looks into cold cases and works to solve them. Ambrose and Pallas meet at the location of the now-abandoned sleep clinic. Did Ambrose actually witness a murder? If so, what happened to the body? Ambrose is hoping Pallas can help him get to the truth behind his lost night and possibly save him from being committed to the loony bin.
You can almost hear the scary music as Ambrose and Pallas meet and find that certainly something fishy is going on. The sleep clinic is abandoned, there are signs of a violent episode that Pallas can sense with her psychic senses, and suddenly the two of them are running for their lives. From the get-go readers are pulled into the story, and I, for one, started to look at each character the author introduces with suspicion. But Ms. Krentz is really canny and manages the suspense very well, steering her audience through the curves and blind corners, totally enthralling them with what happens next.
Pallas and Ambrose seem to fall into an easy relationship, as if they’ve known each other a long time and have had a romantic sexual relationship forever, despite the warnings from Pallas’s friends. While there may continue to be a mystery about the other person at the sleep clinic and what happened to Ambrose, a fresh new body count starts to pile up, foiling the pair’s ability to get to the bottom of things.
I really enjoyed this story, which is a layup and introduction to what appears for now to be a trilogy. I absolutely can’t wait to see what happens next.
Grade: B
Summary:
Seven months ago, Pallas Llewellyn, Talia March, and Amelia Rivers were strangers, until their fateful stay at the Lucent Springs Hotel. An earthquake and a fire partially destroyed the hotel, but the women have no memory of their time there. Now close friends, the three women co-host a podcast called the Lost Night Files, where they investigate cold cases and hope to connect with others who may have had a similar experience to theirs—an experience that has somehow enhanced the psychic abilities already present in each woman.
After receiving a tip for their podcast, Pallas travels to the small college town of Carnelian, California, to explore an abandoned asylum. Shaken by the dark energy she feels in the building, she is rushing out when she’s stopped by a dark figure—who turns out to be the women’s mysterious tipster.
Ambrose Drake is certain he’s a witness to a murder, but without a body, everyone thinks he’s having delusions caused by extreme sleep deprivation. But Ambrose is positive something terrible happened at the Carnelian Sleep Institute the night he was there. Unable to find proof on his own, he approaches Pallas for help, only for her to realize that Ambrose, too, has a lost night that he can’t remember—one that may be connected to Pallas. Pallas and Ambrose conduct their investigation using the podcast as a cover, and while the townsfolk are eager to share what they know, it turns out there are others who are not so happy about their questions—and someone is willing to kill to keep the truth from coming out.
No excerpt available.
