Stone Cold Heart

The first skeletal remains are found at White Falls Park, just outside San Marcos, Texas. Detective Nolan Hess calls in top forensic anthropologist, Sara Lockhart, for help. They find more remains farther upstream:  another young woman. Sara quickly notices similarities between these two cases and a case from Tennessee that she worked on years ago that was never solved. It looks like they have a serial killer in their midst. And they're afraid he's taken a new victim because another young college student just went missing.

Stone Cold Heart is the first Laura Griffin novel I've read, but it won't be my last. It's well-written and it reads fast; once I started, I didn't want to put it down. The forensic aspect of the investigation was interesting. The mystery is engrossing and suspenseful. And that spark of attraction between Sara and Nolan? It sizzles. I liked the two of them together, but I also liked that their romance didn't overshadow the mystery. For me, Stone Cold Heart is that perfect combination of suspense and romance.

What Laura Griffin novel do you think I should read next?

Happy Reading!

An Inquiry Into Love and Death by Simone St. James

3 Reasons to Read This Book:
The Time Period: The 1920s
The Setting:  The secretive coastal village of Rothewell in Devonshire, England
The Characters:

• Jillian Leigh -- a smart and unconventional heroine who "did not believe in ghosts.  Of course I didn't - no sane person believed in ghosts.  I believed in Oxford, and cobblestoned squares, and old bricks thick with ivy, and rainy days curled up reading books."
• Drew Merriken -- the tall, dark and handsome Scotland Yard Inspector and former RAF pilot who is in Rothewell to investigate the death of Jillian's murdered ghost-hunter uncle.
• Walking John -- the ghost of John Barrow who has haunted the woods and residents of Rothewell for years.

This book is full of secrets, mystery and supernatural suspense, with just the right amount of romance; one of my definite must-reads for 2013!

(Simone St. James' first novel, The Haunting of Maddy Clare, is also a great read.)