Blood Money
Pepper SmithRomantic suspense
Available from Mundania Press
ISBN: 978-1-60659-220-5
March 2010
| American transplant Patty O'Donnell works as a racehorse trainer in her father-in-law's Irish stables. Late one night when she and her husband Michael arrive home they see a light in a window and discover they've had an uninvited guest for over a week. A local teenager who is desperate to get his mother away from her abusive husband shows the O'Donnells proof of ownership in cargo from a ship lost at sea more than a century ago. Wanting to help the young man and his mother get away from his dangerous step-father they set up a salvage mission. Patty travels to the beautiful coast of Catania and becomes part of the retrieval team and a target for kidnappers and other criminals.
This was an enjoyable, cozy mystery. The romance was already firmly in place leaving the suspense to take center stage but I'm a sucker for romance and would have liked to see Michael play a bigger role in this caper. The descriptions are fantastic; I felt transported halfway across the world. I could almost smell the water of both coastlines. I loved being conveyed to two foreign locations, it was like taking a vacation without the outrageous airfare. Sometimes things seemed a little convoluted and Patty came across as rather unemotional. She definitely doesn't seem to have the luck of the Irish when it comes to getting on the wrong side of some nasty people; how many crooks can one woman aggravate. I felt like I not only enjoyed this book but that I got some knowledge as well on various subjects including, horses and training, underwater archaeology and diving as well as volcanoes. There were some wonderful and unexpected twists that I thoroughly enjoyed. Aunt Liz is an interesting lady and I'm looking forward to future adventures where she can play a bigger part.
Overall rating:
Reviewer: Theresa Joseph |
