Temptation Trails

By Claire Kingsley

Okay – the title probably should have given me pause, but I try not to judge a book by its cover.

The Ugly Truth:

Claire Kingsley’s Temptation Trails  was trying to do what Devney Perry’s Indigo Ridge did, combining romance with a mystery to create the perfect recipe of suspense of love, only it kind of fell flat on, well, everything.

For starters, I am not sure why everyone is saying they were thrown off. The author included a major red flag right from the start that was front of mind the entire time I was reading. Coupled with the fact that the detective was solving everything a little too perfectly, I just felt that the “suspense” part of this mystery novel was lacking.

In terms of romance, I liked Garrett Haven and I liked Harper Tilburn but no amount of smut on the page is going to convince me that the two of these people made sense together. Garrett was a great dad and a pretty damn good detective (as said above). Truth be told, there was no real reason for me not to like him, I just did not love his like insta-love connection with Harper. No grown man in his field is going to go star struck over a little baker.

Harper was adorable in an almost too sweet page. Multiple times I was over her scenes just because her sugary attitude about EVERYTHING made it annoyingly hard to relate to her. The only thing I found we had in common was the fact that she was superstitious, and even then, it was like okayyyy, but things still seem to be working out for you in a lot of ways?  

Again, the book was… fine. I just wish there was a bit more on all fronts.