Title: The Warning Sign
Series:
Author: Mia Marlowe
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Romance
Published: August 14, 2014
Publisher:
My Rating: 4 stars
Source: Owned, Kindle edition
Cover Description:
Sara’s been hurt. Badly. Her cheating ex has her doubting everything about herself. But after graduating from Boston College, she’s trying to start fresh with a new job. A new guy in her life seems more complicated than she needs right now.
But Ryan’s too hot, too insistent and too tempting to pass up. Too bad he has some pretty dark secrets as well. Which is something Sara totally doesn’t need–especially after she figures out an accidental drowning wasn’t so accidental and ends up on a mob hitman’s “to do” list.
And the only cop who’ll believe her is her cheating ex.
Read on for my thoughts on The Warning Sign. No true spoilers, promise.
Sara O’Brien Kelley is hearing impaired. She lost most of her hearing as a result of meningitis a few years ago. While Sara has always been a strong, independent woman she now seems to push away any kind of help for fear of seeming imperfect – even the help of Matthew Kelley, her now ex-husband. Matthew is a police detective and foolishly made one mistake, he cheated on Sara with a bimbo who now lays claim to Sara’s former husband. To hear Matt tell it, he never would have cheated of Sara hadn’t pushed him away, to hear Sara’s side well, let’s just say that she wasn’t happy with his need to overly serve and protect – her, from life now that she couldn’t hear. Really, divorce happens all the time and often for less reasons than these two had – but there will always be affection between them, if also deep hurt on Sara’s part as well.
On her way to an appointment with a hearing specialist, Sara is caught in traffic. She is not moving anywhere fast, despite the constant honking of the horn of the car behind her. With nothing to do but wait out the traffic jam, Sara begins practicing her speech reading (or lip reading if that makes more sense to you) abilities by watching her rear view mirror at the angry man talking on his cell phone in the car behind her. What she is reading doesn’t make sense because he keeps moving his head in and out of her limited sight in her rear view mirror – but… it “looks” like the guy is talking about making a murder look like an accident and assuring the person on the other end of the call that he’ll take care of it, no problem. But that can’t be right, can it? When traffic begins to move again this jerk rams into the back of her car, then takes off weaving through the clearing traffic – making her even later for her appointment, today of all days to have forgotten her cell phone to text for help.
Since she is so late for her appointment she is left with seeing the specialist’s intern instead – and this is where she first meets Ryan Knight. Ryan goes through the appointment with her using a combination of signing and speech reading. She is comfortable with the handsome doctor, but does little about the interest she sees in his eyes and body language.
That night on the evening news, Sara learns of an accident where a man was killed, assumedly from drowning when his car had run off the road into the water. And that sixth sense we all have reared up it’s ugly, helpful head — wasn’t that jerk talking about accident and drowning earlier. Could this be related. Even though she didn’t want to – she texted Matt with her suspicions and went in to the station to see him the next day. Of course the trouble making bimbo was there, and always out to make trouble – hung around long enough to overhear Sara’s story. In a coffee shop across the street waiting for Ryan to meet her the bimbo (alright Brittany – who is a first class bimbo) overhears (she eavesdrops a lot) a reporter complaining about no news — so she gives him a tip about Sara’s tale… and now the news is out – and the killer knows that Sara knows exactly what he did.
And this is where I stop because I’ve already told you so much more than I normally would have – but that damned blurb is nothing like the beginning of this story and it is a story that you should know enough about to want to pick it up and read it.
The Warning Sign is a very good, detailed and intense mystery-thriller novel, with romance as well. The romance is good and engaging, the murder mystery is even better. But they go together as Sara begins to see life beyond Matthew as Ryan and she began to get to know and care about each other. I don’t read a lot of murder mystery novels, but I definitely enjoyed this one. The story kept me at my Kindle until I finished it in one sitting. So I feel safe in recommending this one to anyone who enjoys a good suspense romance.
**Any review is just one person’s opinion. You might feel the same or totally different. The only way to know for certain is for you to read it. This was my opinion of this particular book.**
The Warning Sign is available for the Kindle
