The Girl in the Moss by Loreth Anne White

Title: The Girl in the Moss 

Series: Angie Pallorino #3

Author: Loreth Anne White

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Release Date: June 12, 2018

Length: 398 pages

ISBN: 978-1503901636

Genre: Romantic Thriller

A shallow grave exposes deadly secrets as bestselling author Loreth Anne White brings her thrilling series of romantic suspense to its shocking conclusion…

Disgraced ex-cop Angie Pallorino is determined to make a new start for herself as a private investigator. But first, she and her lover, newly promoted homicide detective James Maddocks, attempt a quiet getaway to rekindle a romance struggling in the shadows of their careers. The peace doesn’t last long when human skeletal remains are found in a nearby mossy grove.

This decades-old mystery is just what Angie needs to establish her new career—even as it thrusts her and Maddocks back into the media spotlight, once again endangering their tenuous relationship.

Then, when Angie’s inquiry into the old crime intersects with a cold case from her own policing past—one that a detective on Maddocks’s new team is working—the investigation takes a startling twist. It puts more than Angie’s last shot at redemption and a future with Maddocks at risk. The mystery of the girl in the moss could kill her.

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"We all tell lies. We all have secrets. A secret can own a person. A secret is powerful. But only to the degree that the truth threatens someone."

And this is the way you end a trilogy!

It's not a secret I love everything Loreth Anne White writes. However, I was a tad upset with Angie for always running into a scary situation with all her guns blazing but without the right back up.

In The Girl In The Moss, everything is different. Angie appears to be more grounded. She shines as an excellent investigator and she's doing it all without breaking the law. Her current situation is hard for her. She still feels like a cop but she can't force people to talk to her. They have to agree to meet her and some people are not very nice to her. It's quite an adjustment for our Angie. 

"she was no longer a cop, defaulting to old police procedure at a potential crime scene was an easy coping mechanism, a way of guarding her emotions from others."

For those who can't remember, at the end of the Lullaby Girls, Angie is not a cop anymore. At present and months later, she's accumulating hours to officially become a P.I. Her new boss doesn't make it easy on her. He dislikes her recent notoriety which makes it hard for her to do her job. 

Angie and Maddocks have taken time off and are on a mini fly fishing vacation when they stumble upon the bones of Jasmine Gulati, a young woman who disappeared two decades ago. Angie is hired to investigate the case by Jasmine's grandmother, Jilly Monaghan. This is where Angie shines. She does a beautiful job at piecing it all together by following the clues she uncovers.

With respect to her personal life, things are moving at a much slower pace. Angie has a fear of commitment. She also has a fear of being left behind. Nonetheless, she's getting better at it too. She does so many positive things. Her scenes with Ginny and her father made me smile.

"I want your love. I want it honest and full, and I want acknowledgment that you know I’m there for you, that you trust me."

The Girl In The Moss has a great ending but my hope is that Loreth Anne White decides she's not done with Kjel Holgersen. The man is a mystery I want to unravel.

"Maybe at the heart of it all, at the heart of all that was human, even in the dark, was love."

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Montlake Romance via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Lullaby Girl by Loreth Anne White

Title: The Lullaby Girl 

Series: Angie Pallorino, #2

Author:  Loreth Anne White

Pulbisher: Montlake Romance

Release Date: November 14, 2017

Detective Angie Pallorino took down a serial killer permanently and, according to her superiors, with excessive force. Benched on a desk assignment for twelve months, Angie struggles to maintain her sense of identity—if she’s not a detective, who is she? Then a decades-old cold case washes ashore, pulling her into an investigation she recognizes as deeply personal.

Angie’s lover and partner, James Maddocks, sees it, too. But spearheading an ongoing probe into a sex-trafficking ring and keeping Angie’s increasing obsession with her case in check is taking its toll. However, as startling connections between the parallel investigations emerge, Maddocks realizes he has more than Angie’s emotional state to worry about.

Driven and desperate to solve her case, Angie goes rogue, risking her relationship, career, and very life in pursuit of answers. She’ll learn that some truths are too painful to bear, and some sacrifices include collateral damage.

But Angie Pallorino won’t let it go. She can’t. It’s not in her blood.

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"Sometimes we think we're keeping secrets"
"But really those secrets are keeping us."

Loreth Anne White has become one of my favorite suspense writers. Her stories are always interesting, emotional, dark and the suspense keeps me on my toes. 

I was ecstatic when I learned The Drowned Girls was becoming a series. Angie Pallorino is an amazing flawed character that needed more page time.

As we know (if you read the first book) Angie is in trouble at work. Her career as a detective is on the line. When she killed the serial killer known as the Baptist, she used too much force. An overkill, they say. In my opinion, the guy deserved to die and sometimes one bullet is not enough. Anyway, Angie's job is on thin air and a demotion is in the works.

As a reader, I was upset with Angie's demotion and the investigation against her. She catches a killer who was not going to stop and instead of getting a promotion, the opposite happens. Furthermore, her love interest, James Maddox takes over the investigation into the sex slave trafficking ring (which should have been Angie's). Worse, he joins an international task force while Angie's life keeps on spiraling out of control. 

Angie Pallorino is not someone who can stay at a desk job. She craves the adrenaline. To keep herself from going crazy, she starts her own investigation into the cold case of the baby left at a church in 1986.  However, the closer she comes to the truth, the more dangerous it becomes. Her life is on the line. 

I wasn't happy with some of the decisions Angie was taking. Angie's self-destructive behavior didn't seem to have an end. She jeopardized her career, her relationship, and most importantly her life. I wanted to shake her and scream at her more than once. She had a good thing going and she was messing everything up. Her craziness only made me turn the pages faster. I NEEDED TO KNOW!

There was only one situation that made me mad at Maddox but since it's a spoiler, I'll keep it to myself. (but if you want to know, just comment below). 

The Lullaby Girls is an excellent suspense novel. It had me in a race to follow Angie's crusade. 

I do believe it's important to read The Drowned Girls not only because it's great but because it makes Angie's train wreck behavior more meaningful.

Cliffhanger: No

4.5/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Montlake via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Drowned Girls by Loreth Anne White

Title: The Drowned Girls

Author: Loreth Anne White

Series: Angie Pallorino #1

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Release Date: June 20, 2017

He surfaced two years ago. Then he disappeared ... 

But Detective Angie Pallorino never forgot the violent rapist who left a distinctive calling card—crosses etched into the flesh of his victim’s foreheads. 

When a comatose Jane Doe is found in a local cemetery, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and nearly drowned, Angie is struck by the eerie similarities to her earlier unsolved rapes. Could he be back?
​
Then the body of a drowned young woman floats up in the Gorge, also bearing the marks of the serial rapist, and the hunt for a predator becomes a hunt for a killer. Assigned to the joint investigative task force, Angie is more than ready to prove that she has what it takes to break into the all-male homicide division. But her private life collides with her professional ambitions when she’s introduced to her temporary partner, James Maddocks—a man she’d met the night before in an intense, anonymous encounter.

Together, Angie and Maddocks agree to put that night behind them. But as their search for the killer intensifies so does their mutual desire. And Angie’s forays into the mind of a monster shake lose some unsettling secrets about her own past . . . 

How can she fight for the truth when it turns out her whole life is a lie? 

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I didn't even need to read the blurb to know that I want to read a Loreth Anne White's book. 

As soon as I saw this cover and saw her name, my finger was requesting the book. 

The Drowned Girls is everything I have come to expect from Loreth Anne White. Her characters are always well developed and interesting. Usually, they are damaged and trying to find their way. 

Our main characters are Detective Angie Pallorino and James Maddocks.

Detective Angie Pallorino is trying her best to get a promotion into Homicide. However, her personal and professional life are both in turmoil. Her mother suffers from early dementia and schizophrenia. She was recently placed in a long term facility. When Angie starts seeing a little girl with red hair, she wonders if she's getting sick like her mother did. In regards to her job, months ago, she lost her partner and a small child and she blames herself for it. Some of her co-workers also seem to think she's to blame and she is confronted with multiple cold shoulders. Furthermore, Angie has some control issues and she constantly has to fight her anger issues. Starting a relationship is the last thing she wants especially when her new sex crime case involves a teenager who has been raped and almost drowned. She also has been marked with a cross on her face. This reminds Angie of a couple of cold cases from years past.

James Maddocks has relocated to Victoria to be closer to his daughter. His job destroyed his marriage and he's trying to salvage his relationship with Ginny. He believes he has time to repair the damage until he's called to the scene of a homicide. A girl has been found floating in the water. His job is to find the killer. The more they learn about Jane Doe, the more similarities they find with a recent sex crime victim.

When Angie and James's path cross for the second time, they know they are in trouble. They are thrown together as temporary partners as part of the same task force to capture this serial killer. Yet, no one must know they met the night before and had a hot interlude. 

The Drowned Girls is a fantastic thriller with amazing characters. I couldn't put this book down. The narrative demands your attention. It's impossible not to become involved with the characters. I liked the twists in the story as well as the addition of the killer's POV.

As I realized this was turning into a series, I couldn't wait to find out what happens next. I need the second book now. I do hope we learn more about Angie's past and also everything about Kjel, the celibate cop. 

Cliffhanger: No

4.5/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Montlake Romance via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

In the Waning Light by Loreth Anne White

Title: In the Waning Light

Author: Loreth Anne White

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Release Date: November 3, 2015

Two decades after her sister’s brutal attack and murder, Meg Brogan has finally found happiness…or so it appears. A bestselling true-crime writer, Meg has money, fame, and a wealthy fiancé. But when a television-show host presses her to tackle the one story everyone claims she cannot write—the story of her own family’s destruction—her perfect life shatters.

Determined to finally face her past, Meg returns to her hometown of Shelter Bay. Shrouded in cold, brooding fog, the close-knit coastal town harbors dark secrets and suspicious residents. One of the few people to welcome Meg back is Blake Sutton, her high-school sweetheart and the marina’s new owner. Desperate for clues, Meg digs through her family’s files. As Pacific storms brew outside, her passion for Blake reignites.

But someone doesn’t want Meg digging up the past. And that person will go to deadly lengths to prevent the writer from revealing a terrible truth.

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The ways in which we deceive ourselves . . . the stories we tell others to hide from our own truths . . .

In the Waning Light is another great book by Loreth Anne White. She has a way of making the story exciting while making me doubt my suspects a bunch of times. Every time I was sure I knew who was the culprit, some twist made me look in a different direction. 

The book starts with Meg Brogan, a famous author who writes true-crimes, going back to her home in Shelter Bay. She wants to write about the murder and rape of her older sister which happened twenty years ago. Meg's fiancée recently broke up with her because he believed she wasn't able to commit. Meg wants to prove him wrong. 

Blake Sutton has never forgotten his first love, Meg. He is now a widower and he's starting to learn to be a parent. Before his wife got sick, he was touring in Afghanistan as a medic. He left the military to take care of his son and his family's business. Seeing Meg again brings all the good memories to life. It also brings guilty feelings. Blake is hiding something but he's not the only one.

"She’d cut them all out of her life, excised this place like a cancerous tumor in order to survive. And he’d been too close to the lesion she’d needed to separate out. Collateral damage."

I felt bad for Meg. The town was so full of secrets and no one really wanted to talk to her about the case. Meg deserved to know the truth. Due to her sister's murder, Meg also loses her parents. The worst part is that Meg probably knows who killed her sister but she has no recollection of the events that night. She only knows Blake found her and saved her from drowning.

"The choices we make, the secrets we keep for those we love, the ripple effect down the years, the prices we pay . . ."

I was happy Blake was there to help Meg and protect her once he got over seeing her again. It was easy to adore Blake. He truly loved her and he was hoping for his second chance at happiness.  The scenes with him and his kid were sweet too!

I can strongly recommend this book if your like suspense and thrillers. The end nearly killed me. 

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

In the Barren Ground by Loreth Anne White

Title: In the Barren Ground

Author: Loreth Anne White

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Release Date: August 16, 2016 

In the Barrens, a vast wilderness in northern Canada bordering the Arctic Circle, night consumes every hour of the winter. Humans are scarce; ferocious predators roam freely. Locals say spirits do, too.

Rookie cop Tana Larsson doesn’t mind the dark and quiet. Five months pregnant and hoping to escape the mistakes of her past, she takes a post in Twin Rivers, population 320. Maybe here she can find peace and community for her child.

But with her superior out of commission, Tana becomes the sole police officer in 17,500 square miles. One bitter night, she gets a call about the fatal wolf mauling of two students, and the only way to reach the remote scene is to enlist the help of the arrogant, irritatingly handsome Cameron “Crash” O’Halloran, a local bush pilot with a shady reputation for smuggling and a past cloaked in shadow.

When the macabre scene they uncover suggests violence much more sinister than animal, Tana must trust Crash if she wants to protect the town—and herself—from the evil that lurks in the frozen dark.

IN THE BARREN GROUND, a dark, atmospheric romance and police procedural with gothic/horror overtones set in a remote fly-in community just south of the arctic circle .

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"For, in the Barrens of the soul monsters take toll"

Excellent story!! Nail bitting to the very last page! I'm so happy I was approved for it early.

When Tana Larsson is sent to Twin Rivers as her new police post, she welcomes the change. She needed a new start for her and her unborn child. But, she is having a hard time making the population warm up to her. After all, she is a stranger. Tana's past is full of mistakes and pain. The last mistake she made is in her belly now. Yet, Tana knows this could be the place she can settle down with her baby to change her future. Her life gets complicated when some animals attacked and killed a couple of young researchers Selena Apodaca and Raj Sanjit. Her job is to document what's going on but soon she discovers that those deaths might be related to other similar deaths occurring every year in November. Tana wonders if she has a serial killer on the loose. 

"A feeling of cognizance hung in its wake, a sense of being watched by unseen eyes."

Cameron "Crash" O'Halloran is the local booze dealer. He's also a well known pilot and when Tara knocks on his door asking for help to take her to a crime scene, he can't seem to say no. He wants to say no. He's intrigued by this cop and by her sudden dislike towards him. Later on, when he finds out she's pregnant, protecting her becomes his sole purpose. 

In the Barren Ground is the perfect creepy read. A pregnant woman in the wilderness with no friends and being stalked by a serial killer. What a perfect combination of suspense and drama. Loreth Anne White carried me all over the place, I had no idea who the serial killer was to almost the big reveal. So many twists had my head in a constant whiplash. 

I enjoyed this book to the very last page and I can't wait to read another book by this author. So I'm starting The Dark Lure next.

"Everyone needs a tribe. Man is not strong without tribe. "

Cliffhanger: No

4.5/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.