Nicole Young, Love Me If You Must

Love Me If You Must

Nicole Young

Revell, Apr 2007, $13.99

ISBN: 0800731573

Patricia "Tish" Amble fixes up dilapidated old houses to sell. Her latest "Bring it back to life" project is a rundown Victorian in Rawlings, Michigan, that she feels would make a perfect setting for Halloween. She figures this one will take a year or two, but once done should make a nice profit so she buys the house and moves in to begin renovating the fixer-upper.

However, this particular house seems different than those she has fixed and sold. Her neighbor David Ramsey jokingly warns her of ghosts residing in her new abode. Soon after David leaves, she meets police officer Brad Walters, another neighbor. However, instead of spirits Tish finds proof that a crime occurred there but soon begins hearing whispers with no one nearby. When a corpse shows up, Tish is the prime suspect mostly because of her dark past and opportunity so she investigates not understanding that someone has a reason to keep the truth hidden.

The first Tish Amble whodunit is a fun, suspenseful, amateur sleuth in which the heroine insists there is no such thing as a ghost even as evidence affirms the opposite theory. The storyline is fast-paced with the mystery and two men vying for Tish's attention. Although Nicole Young waits too long to explain what Tish's dark secret is as that is why she is in trouble, fans will enjoy this fine investigative thriller starring a fixer-upper extraordinaire needing to fix a murder mystery before she finds prison as her next home.

Harriet Klausner