By Jeanne C. Stein.
Previous book here.
Anna's older brother died in an accident when he was 18 years old. Fourteen or so years later, his high school girlfriend Carolyn shows up at the Strong family's door saying that her 13-year-old daughter Trish is Steve's kid and she needs Anna's help to find her. Carolyn turns out to be ALL KINDS of a bad apple, and you rapidly figure out that Trish is involved in a crime due to her mother and is in dire need of finding and saving. Especially since Trish's friend Barbara has turned up dead. While the Strongs try to find out how to get a DNA test done and get the kid away from her mom's side relatives, Anna goes after Trish with the help of Daniel, a popular teacher at Trish's school that has dealt with this kind of crime before... and is another supernatural sort.
I definitely liked this book a lot better. The creep factor has gone way down from the previous book, and I really liked Trish, her friend Ryan, and Daniel as new characters to the world. The mystery is a good one and things tie together. The case feels very personal to Anna, for obvious reasons, and that personal stake works well.
I still don't know what to make of Williams, the police chief, who may or may not be evil or a good guy. I'm still not sure there. I guess he's supposed to be weird, though? Likewise, I continue to be kind of baffled at the romance-ing in this book-- it's all still clearly in fuckbuddy zone for me, so I don't really care. But whatever, she gets her rocks off and everyone's happy, okay, I guess.
Anyway, I'll give this one four stars because it's much more better done and lives up to its potential.
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