Customer Reviews

Someone Knows (Zebra Romantic Suspense)

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A few years ago college student Charlie Case got his girl friend Sara Long pregnant. The couple talked of marriage, but his father Jordan interceded and said no. Unable to buck his father, the twenty-one year old Charlie acquiesced. Not long afterward, teenage Sara miscarried. Her mother Valerie blamed Jordan for the tragedy.

Valerie is delighted abouther promotion to editor-in-chief of Manhattan's Panache magazine until her boss drops the other shoe. The drawback is that Jordan has also been hired by the holding company Kurtz-Whitman to oversee the directions of all the magazines including Panache. Valerie will work for the person she hates most in the world.

However, Valerie soon has a more dangerous problem to cope with. Someone knows her New Orleans street kid roots and is methodically ripping her present life asunder. With Jordan at her side, Valerie must face a shocker from her past if she is to have any future.

Karen Young furbishes readers with a strong romantic suspense that is filled with varying causes of tensions that tie back together. The story line emphasizes the suspense as Valerie struggles with the resurfacing of her demons that could cost her everything she cherishes in life. The growing love between Jordan and Valerie as well as that between their children is cleverly designed to enable the audience to better understand the lead couple and appreciate Valerie's peril. SOMEONE KNOWS will lead to everyone knows how good an author Ms. Young is.

Harriet Klausner

Valerie Olivier-Long has held a secret. As a teen in Chicago, she witnessed her stepfather murder someone in his den. Fearing that no one will believe her, she flees and winds up on the streets of New Orleans. She befriends other teen runaways, including a pregnant hooker named Amy who dies in childbirth. Valerie flees with the baby Sarah and begins her new life.

In college, daughter Sarah becomes pregnant by her beau, Charlie, but his father Jordan is staunchly opposed to the two marrying, since he himself was a teen father. After Sarah has a miscarriage, Valerie blames Jordan for the tragedy.

Valerie is promoted as editor in chief of Panache magazine, you'd think that she's sitting pretty, but Jordan has been hired by the company in an advisory position, making him her boss. Suddenly, someone from Valerie's past with knowledge of her days in New Orleans has surfaced and is making her life a living hell. And a rival writer on the staff wants to write a story on her estranged stepfather who is now a judge. As Jordan and Valerie become closer, she is trying to outrun her past to keep her family together. Can her daughter and new lover forgive the sins of her past?

Young pens a taut, suspenseful tale that provides plenty of twists along the way. The identity of the killer is a neat surprise in this tense thriller.

Young manages to give us two books in one. Unfortunately, it is not a smooth blend of Romance and Suspense. In fact, during the early part of the book the transition between the two is quite jarring. Throughout the entire novel I was sure that I had read it years before, perhaps as a series romance. Is it possible that Young took an earlier book and added meatier suspense to bring it to Mass-market? I definitely remember reading a book where the details of the characters Charlie and Sara were exactly the same. There were many other parallels and I am going to spend the next few months trying to track down that earlier book. The suspense was interesting, though somewhat predictable - but that may be because of the earlier book I read. How frustrating!

This book has a great plot, but it does not have the "edge of your seat" suspense that I enjoy in a book. The killer (stalker) is pretty easy to figure out. The romance is mediocre. But,I may try this author again. Like I said, this is not a bad story, just not terribly exciting.

Karen Young always creates interesting situations to power her novels. This book is no exception.