Dangerous Affairs by Diana Miller ~ review with giveaway

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Montlake Romance (October 30, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1612186017
• ISBN-13: 978-1612186016

This book is also available as an e-book as well as an audio-book.

To purchase a copy of "Dangerous Affairs click here.

Release Date: October 30, 2012

When soap opera star Abby Langford leaves Los Angeles for her Minnesota hometown, she’s hoping to give her nine-year-old daughter the peaceful childhood she never knew. But instead of tranquility, Abby finds an old knife hidden behind a wall of her new house. Then the nightmares start: a blood-soaked victim and a killer’s arm slicing through the air, again and again. 

Abby wonders if she’s having the nervous breakdown the tabloids claim she already had, especially when sexy, skeptical police chief Josh Kincaid questions her story. When menacing hate mail arrives, Josh’s professional concern for Abby soon evolves into an intense attraction, and the feeling is mutual. But as Abby’s visions grow more graphic and gripping, so does her fear. 

Somewhere in the shadows of Abby’s memory lies the key to a very present danger. But she’ll have to stay alive long enough to find it…

My take on this book:

Abby Langford played Samantha Cartwright a lying,cheating,character on the soap opera "Private Affair" for seventeen years. While she played the character on TV turns out it was her husband Colin who was actually the cheater, and after one to many affairs Abby decides to quit her soap opera and take her nine year old daughter Maddie and move back to her hometown of  Harrington, Minnesota, hoping to give her a better life. When she finds an old knife that appears to have blood on it wedged behind a pocket door in the wall she calls the police.Josh Kincaid shows up and is skeptical that Abby may just be making the story up to go along with the mystery novel she is writing. But when she has a dream that leads her to an old bloodstain hidden under the carpeting in one of the bedrooms, she can't understand why she is having the dreams, which continue to happen. As if this isn't enough she has started getting some pretty intense hate mail. What's going on? Is someone out to get Abby, and what about the mystery that surrounds her home? Will Josh be able to keep her safe and figure out what is going on?

I really enjoyed this book! The author provides a multi dimensional story that moves along at a very brisk pace. I found myself immediately drawn in. I loved the mystery of what was going on at the house. My interest was piqued and I couldn't wait to find out why Abby was having dreams about events that she never witnessed. I liked the angle of a soap star going home to try and create a normal life for her young daughter. The threatening mail just ramped it up and added another level to an already very interesting story. While this alone would make for a page turning read, the author also creates a believable relationship to develop between Josh and Abby, which was electric!  Romantic suspense with more than a few twists that kept me guessing. I would caution there is a bit of sexual content included in the story, but overall, I felt like it was tastefully done and enhanced the story.

Diana Miller is a new to me author, but after reading "Dangerous Affairs"I'm hooked, and will be reading anything that she writes!

Here's an excerpt of the book for your enjoyment:

The knife had obviously been there a long time, nestled in the dust bunnies and wood shavings between the walls, in the space one of the two mahogany doors that separated the Victorian-style living room from the Brady Bunch décor of the family room usually slid back into. And it was covered with blood. 

Abby Langford leaned the broom she’d used to fish out the knife against the wall, then picked the knife off the floor and studied it. Despite the day’s warmth and the sunlight streaming through the picture window, a gloomy chill engulfed the room. She could almost feel the steel blade scraping down her spine, raising goose bumps on her shoulders and arms. 

This knife had killed someone. 

Then she shook herself, dispelling most of the prickly cold. As usual, she was letting her imagination run wild. This wasn’t some menacing murder weapon, but an ordinary kitchen knife, with a nine-inch steel blade and a wood handle that looked parched enough to absorb a cup of mineral oil. The blood consisted of a few reddish-brown splotches on the blade, splotches that to her looked too smeared to be rust. It could be old food, though, something like dehydrated ketchup or oxidized chocolate. Or even blood, but from a rare steak, not a human. 

Another shiver slithered across Abby’s shoulder blades. Because if this were an innocuous kitchen knife, why had someone hidden it so carefully?

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About the author:

When she was eight, Diana Miller decided she wanted to be Nancy Drew. But no matter how many garbage cans she dug through, conversations she “accidentally” overheard, and attics she searched, she never found a single cryptic letter, hidden staircase, or anything else even remotely mysterious. She worked as a lawyer, a soda jerk, a stay-at-home mom, a hospital admitting clerk, and a conference host before deciding that the best way to inject suspense into her otherwise satisfying life was by writing about it.

Diana is a five-time nominee for the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award and winner of a Golden Heart for Dangerous Affairs—a romantic suspense novel that shows not everyone in her home state is Minnesota Nice. She lives in the Twin Cities with her family.

To learn more about the author be sure and visit her website here. You can also check out her Amazon.com page here.

Be sure and get your comments and questions in for your chance to win a $25.00 Amazon gift card!