Afterglow (Lodestone)
Former movie stuntman, now security expert Rand Maguire has a nightmare on his hands when a powerful aphrodisiac is unleashed at a celebrity wedding in the first of Adair’s Lodestone books after Hush (2011). Rapture in small doses completely loosens inhibitions and in large doses kills almost instantly. Only Dr. Dakota North, a chemist who helped develop the drug for manic depressives and the woman Rand almost married, can help him find the drug’s source. As they grudgingly work together, they stumble on a death scene in a bank, caused by a larger, airborne dose of Rapture. Dakota and Rand’s father, now in prison for killing his wife, are the only known survivors after the lab where Rapture was developed blew up. So who can be causing these incidents, and why? As Rand and Dakota grapple with their romantic past and deadly present, Adair, the mistress of adrenalin, pours on complications and setbacks in action-packed European locales and steamy hotel bedrooms. Readers looking for quintessential romantic suspense can never go wrong with Adair. --Pat Henshaw