When The Smoke Clears Book Review

Deadly Reunions series

Book #1

SUMMARY:  After a brush with death due to equipment failure, smokejumper Alexia Allen is ordered to take time off while the incident is under investigation.  She makes a last-minute decision to recuperate at her mother's home and attend her high school reunion.  Yet trouble seems to be following her, and within hours of arriving home she is confronted with murder, arson - and a handsome detective.
     But the conflicts ahead are nothing compared to the ghosts of her past.  As she struggles to accept and forgive her family's past, she must also decide if the secret she's been guarding for the last ten years must finally come to light.
     Chock-full of the suspense and romantic tension you've come to expect from Lynette Eason, When The Smoke Clears is the explosive first book in the Deadly Reunions series.

REVIEW:  This book is a page-turner from the get-go.  Alexia hasn't been home in ten years, since graduation night, and has only talked to her family a handful of times.  While she is on leave after a nearly fatal accident at work, she decided to attend her ten-year class reunion and recuperate from her injuries.  Whoever caused Alexia's accident on her job seems to be intent on getting rid of her because trouble follows her across the country to her childhood home.  Hunter is the detective trying to figure out who is after Alexia while trying to keep her safe from harm.  He is also an old school friend who had a crush on her while they were in school.  Together they try to solve both the mystery surrounding her accident at work and whoever her stalker/attempted murderer is.
     There is also a sub-story (I guess you would call it that) that started when Alexia's friend, Jillian Carter, saw something she wasn't suppose to graduation night.  Frantic, Jillian leaves town and disappears off the grid after talking with Alexia and Serena, her best friends, but not telling them anything about what happened.  Whoever she saw now wants her dead along with her high school friends, who he thinks knows what happened.  Both stories are intertwined.
     This is the first book in the series, Deadly Reunions.  This book was awesome.  I would love to see what the big mystery is Jillian holds on to with her life and if anything happens to Serena.

This book was provided by Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, for review without compensation.

Available February 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Lynette Eason is the author of several romantic suspense novels, including Too Close to Home, Don't Look Back, and A Killer Among Us.  She is a member of American Fiction Christian Writers and Romance Writers of America.  Lynette graduated from the University of South Carolina and went on to earn her master's degree in education from Converse College.  She lives in South Carolina with her husband and two children.