Review: A good old fashioned southern mystery with a twist
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 17, 2011
Shane Alexander, against his better judgment, allowed his ex-girlfriend to spend her honeymoon on his exclusive island retreat and she repaid the favor by running to tabloids with tales of ghosts and supernatural happenings. Now he has to try to salvage both his and Leigh Island's reputation by allowing one reporter, who he will hand pick, to spend a week on his island and write a story about it. Cassie Edwards is a reporter with Coastal Signal and is supposed to go on the junket with other reporters to the island so Mr. Alexander can decide which reporter will stay, but at the last minute she hurts her ankle and can't attend. In desperation she asks her roommate, Lila Fitzpatrick to go in her stead. Lila, under pressure agrees, and before she knows it, finds herself on a small boat heading toward Leigh Island. Little do Shane and Lila realize that what starts out as, what they both hope is a plan to move their lives forward, will change the course of both their lives. Will they be able to bridge the gap between time and solve the centuries old mystery of Leigh Island?Island of Secrets is a hard book to categorize. Yes - it's about time travel, yes - it's a mystery, yes - it's a romance, but amongst all this there are dark and strange happenings mingled in with breathtakingly beautiful moments. You are pulled into the story, and are able to see and feel all the beauty of the old south in the 1700's, and then back you come to present. The transitions from present day to past flow well enough, though there are a few places where it could have been refined. The mystery is kept going throughout the book, and just when you think you may have solved it, another riddle is thrown your way. Lila is written with a bit of humor, and her reactions to the situations she finds herself in at times are funny, and are at other times heart breaking. Shane will make your heart flutter, no matter which period he is in. The secondary characters occur in both time periods, which I have to admit, confused me at times. The romance is intense but tastefully written. There are sex scenes but they lean toward the fade to black of the old historical romances of the past, instead of the blow by blow detail of most current novels, which works well with the story line.I enjoyed this book and read it in an afternoon. The mystery kept me interested, the descriptions of the characters and scenes made it easy to picture all in my mind. The romance was at times intense, and at other times bittersweet. As I mentioned before, some of the time transitions were a bit difficult and I found a few places where I had to re-read a paragraph or two because I thought I had missed something. The first chapters of the book seemed to have more of these issues than the later ones. As a southerner myself, I enjoyed escaping to our rich past. All in all a good read for a lazy spring afternoon, I would recommend to anyone who likes a good time travel/mystery/romance to pick up this book and escape.reviewer for Paranormal Romance Guild