Book ~ "Finding Harmony" (2014) Pamela Fagan Hutchins

From Goodreads ~ Katie’s already on edge when a dead guy shows up at Estate Annalise and shady locals claim there are slave remains in the foundation but when Nick doesn’t come home to her and the kids from work one day, she’s ready to lose it. 

A frantic Katie launches a Caribbean-wide manhunt, calling on Kurt, her stoic, steady father-in-law, and Collin, her badass big brother to help her search air, land, and sea for her husband, who may be in very big trouble indeed. 

Katie and Nick are married and have three young children (twin babies and they have adopted Nick's nephew ... his sister had recently died).  They live on the Caribbean island of St. Marcos in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Katie had moved there from Dallas three years ago after she fell in love with her house, Annalise, a jumbie (as in voodoo spirit) house.  Nick's parents, Kurt and Julie, also live with them.

After they discover a man dead in a car of an apparent suicide at the bottom of their driveway, Nick and Katie (who are investigators) are hired by the guy's large corporation employer to find out what happened.  A couple days into the investigation, Nick disappears.  With the help of Kurt, Collin (Katie's brother), Annalise and Katie's dreams of Nick giving her messages, they set off to find Nick.

Though this is the third in the Katie & Annalise series (I'd read the first one, Saving Grace, last year and liked it), it also works well as a stand alone.  The author captures the flavour of the island well with the dialect in the conversations, traditions (the book starts out with Nick having to catch a pig for the christening party of their twins), islanders versus non-islanders, etc.

There was lots going on with the suicide, Nick's disappearance, the discovery that Annalise might have been built over a slave graveyard, etc.  I found this book to be more serious than the first one which is to be expected, I guess, considering Katie is now married, is a mother of three and has acknowledged her dependence on alcohol.

Having a voodoo house that protects them and getting messages in her dreams from Nick about his whereabouts gives what could have been a standard mystery an extra interesting kick.

I received a copy of this ebook from the author at no charge in exchange for my honest review.

Book ~ "Saving Grace" (2012) Pamela Fagan Hutchins

From Goodreads ~ Katie Connell is a high-strung attorney whose sloppy drinking habits and stunted love life collide hilariously in a doomed celebrity case in Dallas. When she flees Texas for the Caribbean, Katie escapes professional humiliation, a broken heart, and a wicked Bloody Mary habit, but she trades one set of problems for another when she begins to investigate the suspicious deaths of her parents on the island of St. Marcos. 

She’s bewitched by the voodoo spirit of an abandoned house in the rainforest and discovers that she’s as much a danger to herself as the island’s bad guys are. As the worst of her worlds collide, Katie drags herself back to the courthouse to defend her new friend Ava, an island local accused of stabbing the senator she’s been sleeping with.

Katie is a partner in a law firm in Dallas.  She is in love with Nick, one of the firm's investigators but he's not reciprocating.  She tends to turn to a bottle to drown her sorrows (her heart breaking and the recent death of her parents).  She takes a vacation and heads to St. Marcos in the U.S. Virgin Islands where her parents had died last year in a mysterious accident.  She falls in love with the island and is entranced by an unfinished house called Annalise.

After a disastrous court case, she quits her job and and moves to St. Marcos.  When her new friend, Ava, is arrested for murdering her lover, she does all she can to prove Ava's innocence.

I found this book started off kind of slow ... but after a few chapters it picked up.  I liked the writing style and it was well-paced and funny at times ... it kept me wanting to read more.  Set on a Caribbean island, I liked how the author casually explained phonetically how the residents spoke and that's how I heard them speaking in my head ... I was imagining the lilt.

I liked the characters and thought they interacted well and had a connection.  I could feel Katie's torment in trying to get her life together and find peace.  Ava had all the guys chasing after her and I found it believable.  I wondered, though, why Katie was so hung up on Nick.  He never gave her any encouragement and there was stuff about him that I as the reader didn't know but the book hinted at ... it felt like there was a book before this one where Katie and Nick's relationship was introduced and explored.

I liked this book and would recommend it.