Hour of Need (Scarlet Falls)
By: Melinda Leigh
Rating: 4.5 of 5
“Hour of Need” is the first full length novel I have read by Melinda Leigh. I have read her Rogue River novellas so I knew what to expect as far as the genre was concerned. I read mostly mysteries and some romances, so reading a romance suspense novel was new to me when I first read Ms. Leigh’s novellas. She is able to blend the romance and the suspense very well in this current book. You could easily drop the romance portions into a straight romance story and be successful or you could cut those portions out and have a straight suspenseful mystery. I think blending the two and keeping the readers interest piqued shows a skillful author’s hand.
In this story, attorney Lee Barrett and his wife Kate are brutally murdered as they are coming home from their anniversary dinner out. Their family members gather back home to take care of the children who are now orphans. The focus of this story is on the oldest sibling, Major Grant Barrett, a lifelong member of the Army who aspires to become a general (or rather is following his father’s aspirations) who has to return from Afghanistan as soon as he hears that the children have been left alone and are in Child Protective Services. Added to the story is the lovely woman next door and single mother, Ellie Grant as well as her teenage daughter Jessica and her grandmother Nan. Ellie and Grant have met during Grant’s last visit home. Ellis worked with Lee and was good friends with Kate. Daughter Jessica was actually babysitting when the murder occurred.The story of Grant and Ellie makes up the romance portion of the book while the entire cast tries to figure out who killed Lee and Kate and why they are still trying to hunt down and hurt or even kill some of the other family members and family next door.
I must admit that I did not figure out the whodunnit in the story but, in the end, especially with the clues that the author left behind (that I missed), the ending made good sense. The romance (which did include a couple of more explicit sex scenes that seemed a tad out of character with Ellie) showed believable growth and attraction. It seems that this book is the first of a series and will probably focus on the Barrett siblings. There are two others besides the late Lee and Major Grant. Those two are Hannah, a high power workaholic attorney and Mac, a biologist with a checkered past. There are a few clues given as to what Hannah’s story might be, so I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series to see if I am correct.