Customer Reviews

Dangerous Season (Harbor Intrigue, Book 1) (Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense #47)

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In Dangerous Season, Keir and Audra both have pasts. So do most of the people in this town. When a string of fires begins, Keir must catch the arsonist with evidence while many residents are very ready to cast blame on the easiest suspect. Does someone's past make him always guilty? How does a Christian take seriously the idea of redemption while also hunting down the culprit, especially when all clues keep leading to the easiest suspect? Audra is afraid to trust Keir with her secrets. Can the two of them learn to trust God and each other, especially with the whole town watching their every move, before the escalating arson becomes dangerous?

Dangerous Season is the first book in the Harbor Intrigue series. As inspirational romantic suspense, Harbor Intrigue can be read as a thoroughly enjoyable light suspense read set within a Christian community, but read with a more focused attention, this book would make a great book club or church book club choice. Dangerous Season sets up the three book series well, providing the reader with the background of the resort harbor town and its residents. This first book also sets up the characterization and even the style with which Lyn Cote provides Scriptural meditations here and in the following two books. Lyn Cote builds suspense by writing of the emotional lives and experiences of her characters and all the intersections of relationships past and present. In terms of the inspirational tone, Dangerous Season, creates a scene where past reputations haunt and distort one's vision. For Christians characters who believe in forgiveness, facing the past can be a challenge to faith and a call to expand one's vision and faith. A nice narrative technique for suspense and inspiration!

Lyn Cote makes a bold move to wrestle with the theme of anger, often a problematic issue for people of faith. Is anger a sin? Can Christians be angry and not sin (see her Ephesians quote at the beginning)? How? Some anger is righteous anger, and other anger is self-righteous and perhaps the key is knowing a difference. Lyn Cote glosses the first Ephesians inscription with another, "Speak the truth in love" and perhaps that is the key --- love --- and that gets us back to romance element developed by Lyn Cote in this book.

Sheriff Keir Harding, with a past as a troubled youth, is looking for an arsonist who has struck the town during its tourist season. His attraction for Audra Blair leads him to enlist her help with a troubled teen who is the prime suspect. Audra wants to help and finds she is attracted to Keir, but she has emotionally crippling self-doubt and self-condemnation because she's had a child out-of-wedlock. Keir mistakes Audra's low selfesteem for rejection and figures it's because of his checkered past. As the author develops these characters they both grow in the love of the Lord and begin to see themselves as worthy of being loved.

Audra's uncle, who blames Keir for the death of his daughter when she and Keir were dating many years ago, starts a "no-confidence" petition against the sheriff when his business is torched. Keir has changed a lot since his wild youth. He's now a committed Christian. Audra, a single mom, who also foud Christ after the one night stand that left her pregnant, stands against her uncle in his effort to force Keir to step down.

The book falls into the Christian suspens/romance genre. I liked it a lot. I thought Audra and Keir were written with depth and complexity. These are two characters who are mature in their Christian faith as the plot twists carry them along. It's an interesting book, as the reader turns the pages wanting to find out who the arsonist is.

This is the first of three books in her suspense series. Lyn Cote definitely doesn't gloss over hard issues of having a child out of wedlock, dealing with anger, and how to handle your past in the midst of a town in turmoil with fires starting all over. Who the arsonist is, is yet to be determine. Audra has just opened up her own business in town and Keir must find out who is messing with this town and it's residents and for what reason. When the arsonist sets his sights on Audra, it becomes even more person with Keir. Their love story weaves throughout the novel in a great way. Dealing with a past you aren't proud of is something that seems to become a running thread throughout this series. Your past doesn't dictate who you are, it's your relationship with Christ that does and that is what we see through Keir's character. He has tried to leave his troubled past behind has well, but when things get tough he is challenged. But, we also see a godly man who puts Christ at the center of his life and Audra is drawn to that. Once they start working together to find out who is starting all the trouble in the town is when thing really pick up! Lyn leaves you on the edge of your seat and introduces you to characters and a town that will worm it's way into your heart.

Finally Found (Bountiful Blessings Series #2) (Love Inspired #162) You will love this series. You must read all three
books.