Customer Reviews

Sleep Softly

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

 

 

ER Nurse Ashlee Davenport Chadwick either makes or finds a home on her family farm for retired K-9 dogs. Currently besides her college student daughter Jas, Big Dog, Cheeks, and Cherry live with her. They bring to her a smelly child's red sneaker, which she is about to toss in a game of fetch only she knows the odor reeks of "old death". She looks inside and sees tissue. Although she knows it is dumb, she labels and protects the "evidence" as she has learned in her forensic courses. Hesitant as she does not want her peers at Dawkins County Rescue Squad nicknaming her, she still calls the Sheriff's Department. Afterward Cheeks, an experienced tracker dog, takes her to the sight where she finds a toe.

Over the objection of the locals, Ashlee's boyfriend, FBI Violent Crime Squad Coordinator Jim Ramsey of the nearby Columbia office, leads the investigation. He is already looking into a serial killer whose victims are young girls, which probably means Cheeks' find fits his case. Soon they discover several young buried on or just off Chadwick land; making the family including Ashlee the prime suspect.

SLEEP SOFTLY is a tense exciting police procedural that readers will devour in one sitting. The story line is fast-paced especially when the culprit targets the heroine. The romance is kept somewhat on the back burner so that subplot does not intrude on an engaging whodunit. Mostly told from Ashlee's perspective, sub-genre readers will enjoy this suspenseful thriller.

Harriet Klausner

I'm not sure where to begin with book. First I thought the main character was missing something. She just wasnt likeable and as the book went on, I found her down-right annoying. Also, The references the character makes about her grandmother (Nana) are total overkill. "Let's sic Nana on them. Nana is so big and bad. Don't mess with my Nana." On and on and on. We get it already. Im not kidding you. Nana's personality, the author feels, has to be defined for you at least 30 times.

Other than that, I found the story repetetive and predictable. I really didnt find no shocker ending. Also, the book seemed to have too much filler and you started saying "Get to the point already".

Lastly, I found the story itself very chaotic. It was extremely hard to establish timelines. I really couldnt tell you how much time the story covered, a week or month. Not a clue. It was all so jumbled. "Im at work. Im at home. Im at work again. Im at home."

Reading for me is a form of entertainment and this book just seemed to get on my nerves. Now go and tell Nana that!

Romantic suspense is not my normal forte', maybe that's why I enjoyed this book so much, as several other reviewers didn't seem to care for it. I enjoyed the story of Ashlee Davenport Chadwick, a forty something widow, who lives on her Rural South Carolina homestead farm with her matriarchal Nana, her biracial other grandmother and her college age daughter. Ashlee's already hectic life as a single mom and forensic nurse is turned upside down when one of her dogs brings her a child's red sneaker-and she's horrified to find a child's toe still in the shoe.

What follows is a fast paced suspense-part nursing/hospital drama, part Southern murder mystery, and a small part romance. I found the lead, Ashlee to be competent as well as caring, and I enjoyed reading a story set in the south as well.

While the book had flaws-they were minor in my opinion and didn't take away from the storyline. I'd recommend Sleep Softly to fans of Romantic Suspense and Woman Sleuths as well.
3.5 stars.

I can't recommend this book. It was so boring that I put it down before I was halfway through it.
Scruffysmom

Just what you've come to expect from Hunter--fun and thrills with a bit of medical stuff thrown in for good measure.