NEVER TELL - Selena Montgomery
St. Martin's Press
June 2004
SYNOPSIS: One of the most distinctive voices in African-American romantic suspense delivers a taut, sensual novel about a woman who tries to escape her past only to stumble into a bizarre string of murders and a passionate love affair.
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE: (4+) Wayne Jordan
REVIEW: Criminal psychologist Dr. Erin Abbott knows that a serial killer is roaming the streets of New Orleans, and that this is connected with her past and the memory of a man who still haunts her. The police are convinced that she’s crazy, but she eventually gets the help of journalist, Gabriel Moss, who believes that the “ABC murders” will give him the kind of story that is needed to save the newspaper his father left him. Neither, however, expected that the tentative friendship would develop into anything more.
NEVER TELL is the perfect romantic suspense with a hero and heroine that readers will care for long before the final pages of the story are read. Erin is a strong woman who has buried most of who she is under frumpy clothing and a superior intellect. Gabe, on the other hand, sees beyond the disguise and knows there’s more to the woman that Erin pretends to be. Her determination to remains distant frustrates him, but this only makes him more convinced that she is more that she seems. Engaging protagonists, there are ably supported by a cast of secondary characters that are evidence of Ms. Montgomery’s ability to create memorable characters.
Along with wonderful characterization, Ms. Montgomery creates a vivid sense of place. I visited New Orleans for the first time two years ago, and while I read, NEVER TELL, I was reminded of the city’s beauty, and all the taken back to its sights and sounds.
The suspense story line is riveting, and I was keep wondering about the killer’s identity until the very end - an ending that seems a bit overdramatic, but did not lessen my enjoyment of the story. I was, however, a bit concerned by the lack of description of the main characters in relation to color. This does not negate the fact that the story is a well-written, and one of the best books I’ve read this year.
Though intense with the menacing danger in the shadows, the romance is never overwhelmed by the suspense, allowing for the sexual tension to burst into full blown passion. A taut, spin tingling story, NEVER TELL, will pleased Ms. Montgomery’s fans, and gain her many more.
waj@romanceincolor.com (6th June 2004)