He thought he witnessed a kidnapping. He thought he did the right thing. He thought he was a hero. He thought, he thought. Until his thoughts came back to haunt him. Steve Breiten is a college professor who has a long line of failed relationships behind him. All he wants is a long vacation in the mountains, free of drama and responsibilities, where he can relax, read, and maybe even start writing … start writing his book. He didn’t expect a mysterious woman to walk into his office – not that woman, the one who had been kidnapped all those years ago and rescued after a tip he’d left at the police station.Now, his plans for the summer have taken a dramatic shift. Tara Murphy is determined to show her gratitude for his actions that fateful day, and she won’t take no for an answer. As the heat builds between them, Steve finds himself at a moral crossroads. He doesn’t want to take advantage of this young, damaged woman. But he finds his resistance to her sexual advances fading fast. It’s only a matter of time before she leads him to the secret that lies behind the woods…
Don’t miss this thrilling, fast-paced tale of love, lust, and betrayal.
more
The main character in this story is keen runner and college professor, Steve Breiten, who sees something worrying whilst on a run one day. He was mindful of traffic coming up to an intersection, when a speeding truck came close to running him down, and he heard a young scream and saw her feet hanging out the window and an older man holding her into the truck, as it took the corner on two wheels! He wondered about what he saw and heard, thinking the girl had screamed due to excitement or being scared, but maybe she was there involuntarily? He couldn’t make up his mind, but presumed it was an innocent observation, until he saw the local paper the following week, with a photo of the girl in the truck, noted as a missing person! When he reported what he had seen the previous week and the girl was finally found a week later, he was hailed as a hero, but he always felt guilty that he hadn’t reported it straight away and saved the girl, called Tara, from weeks of misery and abuse.
Three years later, Steve is in a bit of a slump romantically, finding his normal dating and then cheating to break-up scenario not bringing him much enjoyment anymore. He previously slept with both Jane, the DA on Tara’s case, and even Tara’s mother Samantha, during the trial three years ago. Now he has an unexpected visitor at his door, the very young woman he was responsible for rescuing from her kidnapper years before, and she wants to thank him for what he did, and she wants to thank him by getting it on with him! He tries to reject her advances every time she tries to close in on him, but makes the mistake of allowing her to stay over, when she says she has nowhere to go. The next day is the weekend, so he has no excuse to get away and instead takes her into the city to keep his distance, but falls to his lust by the end of the day. They have an enjoyable night together, one of his best ever, but the next morning brings a bit of a surprise!
He ends up being led to the secrets that lie deep in the woods away from his home, to a place that bears his name, and many other similarities to his every dream, but also straight into another nightmare. This book certainly gives a few unexpected twists to what you might presume to know about all the different characters in the story and each of their earlier lives and how that has affected their current lives. A childhood of abuse and a missing father haunt Steve, but other characters have similar problems in their pasts. But there is an even bigger secret in the woods and whilst some may enjoy it, some are making a lot of money from it and a huge political position may be getting funded from it as well. Steve will end wanting revenge, so I presume there may be a sequel to this story. I look forward to reading it if there is! I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.
Steve is a college professor, out for his daily run. A van comes speeding by without regard of anyone or anything in the road. What Steve sees is a man driving, one hand holding down a young woman with a foot hanging out the window. And she’s screaming.
He turns it over in his mind and decides it was really nothing … until a week later when he reads in the newspaper about a missing woman …. the picture is of the woman he saw in the speeding van.
His report to the police leads to finding the woman and arresting the man … who ultimately spends 3 years behind bars.
Today … a woman walks into his office. It’s the same woman who was kidnapped. She’s profuse in her thanking him, although belatedly, for playing a role in her rescue. One thing leads to another and he’s getting a not-so-great feeling about her. She’s offering herself and he’s finding it hard to say no.
It’s only a matter of time before she leads him to the secret that lies behind the woods…
I found the plot a little on the thin side. Mostly the first part of the book was graphic descriptions of every intimate encounter Steve has with his multiple conquests. The second half of the book takes place deep in the woods .. where he learns a lot about his past. All the characters were abused one way or another when they were children. The kidnapper was abused while in prison. This was just an okay book for me.
Many thanks to the author / Prodigious Publishing / Netgalley for the digital copy of LIES BEHIND THE WOODS. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
If you are ok with a non-linear time line you will enjoy this 3rd person telling of a man named Steve. No as you get from the blurb of the book Steve is a bored professor who wants nothing more than to retreat to a little cabin in the woods to read and possibly start his own novel writing process. But in a flashback we learn about the incident he witness a few years back and the delayed call to 911 that still haunts him.
Steve has had loves in the past but never for long so maybe he should swear it off all together. There is some steam in this novel, a little more than PG-13 but a little less than R. Perfect for my taste as a reader of thrillers and romance.
Plus I love this cover!
I can’t say much more as with the way the time line hops back and forth spoilers can be apparent right away.