A Cry in the Night by Colleen Coble

This week the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing A Cry in the Night (Thomas Nelson) by Colleen Coble.

About the Author

Author Colleen Coble's thirty novels and novellas have won or been finalists in awards ranging from the Romance Writers of America prestigious RITA award, the Holt Medallion, the ACFW Book of the Year, the Daphne du Maurier, the National Readers' Choice, and the Booksellers Best awards. She writes romantic mysteries because she loves to see justice prevail and love begin with a happy ending.

About the Book

The highly anticipated novel that delivers what romantic suspense fans have long awaited-the return to Rock Harbor. Bree Nichols gets the shock of her life when her husband-presumed dead-reappears.

Bree Nichols and her search and rescue dog Samson discover a crying infant in the densely forested woods outside of Rock Harbor, Michigan. Against objections from her husband, Kade, who knows she'll become attached, Bree takes the baby in. Quickly she begins a search for the mother-presumably the woman reported missing just days earlier.

While teams scour the forests, Bree ferrets out clues about the missing woman. But she soon discovers something more shocking: Bree's former husband-long presumed dead in a plane crash-resurfaces. Is he really who he says he is? And should she trust him again after all these years?

An engaging, romantic suspense novel from critically acclaimed author Colleen Coble.

If you would like to read the first chapter, click here.

My Review

This was a fun, basic read. I had read several in this series and was happy to see a new one coming out. This is a conventional mystery that thankfully was rather subdued in the romance area. There are several mysterious deaths, and someone is stealing babies. I love Coble's writing style, and she does a great job at weaving her plot and revealing secrets at just the right time. Her setting is also easy to picture. Since I live in Michigan's U.P., you can bet that I could see her setting well. Yes, we do get THAT much snow. I guess I live too far away from the Keewenaw Peninsula though because I've never seen any town in the U.P. like the one (filled with ethnic foods and culture) she describes.

I must confess that I'm somewhat bewildered by the marketing of this book. The fact that Bree's first husband comes back, in my opinion, should have been a carefully guarded secret. Yet I read several promos revealing this info long before I read the book, so I was in for a letdown because I already knew the punchline. I'm not sure why some promos revealed her husband coming back and others didn't. Even the promo text above gives too much away, I think. I'm puzzled as to why any promo text would give away something so important to the plot. Maybe it's just me.

All in all, this was a fun, easy read. There's nothing groundbreaking, though, and the premise seemed to be something I've read numerous times before. Those nitpicks aside, this is an enjoyable read for any mystery fan. Coble doesn't disappoint, and this installment in the Rock Harbor series is a treat.