Customer Reviews

Home Before Midnight (Berkley Sensation)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Virginia Kantra is definitely an author to watch!

Bailey Wells left her hometown of Stokesville, North Carolina to hit it big in the literary world. She returns several years later, not as a successful author, but as an assistant to a true crime writer. Paul Ellis has returned to his wife's hometown to write a book about a gruesome crime that happened over 20 years ago when a 16 year old boy killed his grandmother, his mother, and his sister. They never could have guessed the lengths someone would go to keep the secret of what really happened that night.

When Paul's wife, Helen, turns up dead in their pool, Detective Steve Burke immediately suspects Bailey. He can see that there is something going on between Bailey and Paul and he is surprised by the dissapointment he feels. The more Burke interviews Bailey and Paul, the more he likes Bailey and the less he likes Paul. Soon it becomes clear that there is more at play than just the murder of Helen Stokes-Ellis.

While I absolutely loved the book, the reason I gave it four stars was because it was never made clear who actually killed Helen. I felt like the author killed Helen off specifically so Burke and Bailey could meet, then just let that storyline dribble away with no real resolution to what happened. Aside from that, the relationship between Bailey and Burke and Burke and his daughter, Gabrielle was fabulous.

I definitely recommend this book!

Bailey Wells is the personal assistant to bestselling true crime author Paul Ellis. She left her small town behind to go work for him, but now his work is taking her right back home. When Bailey finds Paul's wife murdered in their new home, suspicions arise.

Police detective Steve Burke is called in to investigate the case. Bailey makes an easy suspect. She found the body, and there are those who say her relationship with her boss isn't so professional. Steve isn't sure what to believe just yet, but he knows that he needs to curb his attraction to her before it clouds his judgement.

Clues start falling into Steve's lap, a little too easily. It soon becomes apparent that someone is setting Bailey up for the fall. Trying to find the reason behind Mrs. Ellis' murder will drudge up a mystery from the past and someone who's willing to kill to keep the secret safe.

HOME BEFORE MIDNIGHT is wonderful work of romantic suspense from author Virginia Kantra. I love the edge-of-your-seat action as you're trying to figure out who did it and why. The sexual tension between Bailey and Steve is excellent. They're drawn to each other, but they know they must keep their distance. The double mystery aspect of this mystery makes it all the more exciting. Be sure to get a copy of this one today.

This review was originally posted on The Internet Book Database. [...]

Virginia Kantra's HOME BEFORE MIDNIGHT kept me up past midnight. It is a can't-put-down novel--smart, sexy, suspenseful and satisfying. Kantra skillfully intertwines a decades-old mystery with a shocking present-day murder in a small Southern town and creates an appealing, multi-dimensional hero and heroine to lead the reader through the twists and turns. Definitely one of her best.

SYNOPSIS:
The dream Bailey Wells had for becoming a writer was put on hold when she took a job with the famous true crime author Paul Ellis. Bailey does her job as a research assistant and editor for Paul so well that Paul insists that Bailey live with him and his wife Helen when they move from New York City back to Stokesville, North Carolina. Bailey and Helen Stokes Ellis are both from this small town in North Carolina but were separated by social position and their age difference. When Helen's body is found in her swimming pool, suspicion becomes directed to Bailey because her relationship with Paul Ellis appears to be more than employer/employee.

OPINION:
This book falls smack dab in the middle of the Romantic Suspense genre and deservedly so. The suspense is very well written. Paul is trying to gather information to show that a twenty year old triple homicide was not handled properly by the local investigators. He has already visited the convicted murderer who is in prison for the murders and Paul just might be on the verge of getting information from Billy Ray to prove whether he acted alone in the murders. The romantic aspect is written just as well.

Once the body of Helen Ellis is found in the pool the emphasis of the story turns to whether her death was an accident. The investigating detective, Steve Burke, finds himself first intrigued by Bailey, then attracted to her, much against his training as a police officer. Steve is a widower with a nine year old daughter who has been written every well by Virginia Kantra. Gabrielle actually sounds like a nine year old, she asks the same questions a nine year old would ask, she was a very realistic character for me. This author didn't give over too much of the attention to this child but neither did she mention her once and then have her cease to exist. Issues such as child care came into play and were presented as a very normal consideration.

This was a very good mystery set within a mystery. There is the question of what really happened twenty years ago but also what happened in the death of Helen. Are the two cases connected?

RECOMMENDATION:
I can highly recommend this book for readers who prefer that an author treat them as if they have intelligence and the ability to follow lines of investigation while having the characters form a serious relationship. The two mysteries are very good, very well thought out and interesting. As a reader I enjoyed the puzzle even though I think the hints about the mystery person were a little too transparent to result in a surprise ending. Bailey and Steve were really good characters for me. I just wish I knew what decision they made in the ending. That's okay. This way I get to make the choice for them.

Bailey Wells left her small hometown of Stokesville, North Carolina hoping to become a success in the literary world, but for the past two years she has served as the research and editorial assistant to renowned mystery author Paul Ellis. Now her boss is leaving New York City to relocate in the hometown of his wife Helen, also Stokesville. Half in love with her employer, Bailey agrees to accompany them when they move to the south.

However, instead of a welcome homecoming, Bailey finds the murdered body of Helen floating in the pool of their new home. Local police detective, widower and single father of a preadolescent daughter Gabrielle, Steve Burke heads the investigation, but he immediately notices that Bailey is attracted to her employer as she tries to protect him. Though he wants Bailey, Steven remains professional as she is one of the two prime suspects, the spouse being the other, in what looks increasingly like a crime of passion. Unbeknownst to either of the pair someone wants the truth involving a 1987 homicide to remain buried and if more must die so be it.

HOME BEFORE MIDNIGHT is an entertaining small town police procedural amateur sleuth tale though some might quiver that Bailey is a pro with her research into criminology. The story line is filled with action, but is driven by the triangular relationship between the author, the cop, and the researcher. The whodunit is cleverly developed to insure that Bailey and Paul are the prime suspects, which leads to Steve struggling to control his desire for the woman. Fans will enjoy Virginia Kantra's fine regional romantic mystery.

Harriet Klausner

Bailey Wells hasn't really chosen to return to her hometown, however--she's returned in the company of her employer, Paul Ellis, a true-crime writer who's working on a book about a teenager who killed his family 20 years ago.

When Bailey discovers Paul's wife Helen's body floating in the pool, she becomes the number one suspect: she has a crush on Paul, didn't get along well with Helen, and was living in the house with them.

Police detective Steve Burke initially suspects Bailey, but finds himself drawn to her anyway. The more he gets to know her, the more he believes in her innocence, but it looks increasingly as if she's guilty, or as if she's being set up--by the employer she's in love with.

The stars in this story are really the characters. Bailey is utterly convincing as a frustrated would-be writer who's more or less exchanged her dream for helping Paul achieve his. In the hands of a less gifted author, she might have come off as weak or grasping, but instead, she's understandable and sympathetic, and a character I could root for.

Steve is also very real. A widower with a young daughter, struggling to find that parental balance on his own, and then he meets Bailey, and he's in the position of falling in love with someone who may be a murderer or an accomplice, and at the very least is in love with someone else, and a married man at that. His conflicting emotions are evident, realistic, and understandable.

Normally, I subscribe to the No Kids In Romance Novels camp, but Steve's daughter didn't push my buttons. Gabrielle acts age-appropriately, and doesn't conveniently disappear.