Shades of Honor, by Wendy Lindstrom

I'm reading Wendy Lindstrom's Shades of Honor next. It's not the type of book I'd usually buy, but the AAR DIK review convinced me to try it.

Plot summary:

"Former Union soldier Radford Grayson returns to his small home town, looking for a stable and comforting place to raise his young, motherless daughter. Despite his troubled past, his hopes are to reconcile with his family and put his dark secrets behind him. But he doesn't count on falling in love with Evelyn-his brother's fiancée...

When Evelyn Tucker accepted her childhood friend Kyle Grayson's marriage proposal, she thought it was the best way to make her ailing father happy. But when Radford arrives home, the fiery and independent Evelyn soon realizes that the comfort and friendship Kyle has provided her with will never hold a candle to the instant, undeniable passion she feels for Radford. Now their forbidden desire threatens to shatter family ties and destroy newfound dreams-unless their love has the power to overcome all obstacles... "

Posted later...

I finished Shades of Honor yesterday, but I couldn't post until now because we had a big storm and my internet connection was wiped out for a while. My grade is a B+. This was a likeable book, but it lost a lot of strength in the final 70 pages, after Radford and Evelyn's relationship was outed. I really enjoyed the build-up towards it, how the characters behaved when confronted with the problem of loving someone they shouldn't be loving, but after the confrontation scene, pfft, the book just lost steam. A pity.

This will sound shallow, but I had a little problem with the (only!) love scene. After all that heavy internal lusting, the payoff was extremely lackluster.

Still, points given for the interesting setting of post-Civil War New York state (much more to my taste than Southern settings) and for making Kyle a likeable character. I'll probably buy his book, which is apparently the next Lindstrom will release.