Book Review: What She Doesn't Know by Beverly Barton

Read and Reviewed in February, 2013


A great suspense/mystery novel i have read in a long time.

Summary from goodreads.com -

It's been 20 years since Jolie Royale witnessed the brutal crime that left her mother, her aunt, and her aunt's lover dead, and Jolie critically wounded. Ruled a murder-suicide, the case was closed, although rumors of the murderer's true identity abounded. Now, Jolie is coming home with mixed feelings about her father's funeral. Those feelings turn to dread when the case is reopened--and it becomes clear the killer is still on the loose.

I think this was one of the best romantic suspense i have ever read. Ms. Barton has nicely balanced the romantic and suspense part of the story in her book. It captures your complete interest from the first single page.

This is the story of Jolie Royale, the only daughter of a wealthy southern couple, and Max Devereaux, the son of a former prostitute. When Jolie is 14 years old, her family is attacked by a unknown murderer and her mother and aunt are killed with her critically wounded. Once after the incident she leaves her home town and vows to never come back as her father marries Max's mother not long after her own mother's death. The story picks up twenty years later and Jolie still hates her father's new family but still harbors the 14 year old crush for Max. Max also resents Jolie as she is bend on hating his mother and her half-sister but same time fights with an unexpected attraction for Jolie. Ms. Barton has beautifully depicted the love/hate relationship between Max and Jolie. Their relationship is really intense and the romance is sweet. The suspense part of the story unravels when Jolie decides to search for the real murderer of her family with the help from Max.

Both of Max and Jolie characters has a lot of depth, but only one thing i found odd was sometimes Jolie's reasoning was not at all acceptable. From the first itself she was under lot of assumptions based on which she makes lot of decisions which she later realizes were wrong and accepts the life as it is. Max whereas is a good man who cares about his family more than anything and i loved both Jolie and Max. There were lot of secondary characters, each having their own important part in the story. By the end, i was so sad the book was getting over, even though i wanted to know the suspense badly, i wanted the happily-ever-after to extend for some more pages.

Wow! all in all, a good read!!