C Jane Read : The View from Rainshadow Bay by Colleen Coble

Series: Lavender Tides # 1
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Released: Jan. 23, 2018
352 pages

About the Book:

After her husband, Jack, dies in a climbing incident, Shauna has only her five-year-old son and her helicopter charter business to live for. Every day is a struggle to make ends meet and she lives in constant fear of losing even more than she already has.

When her business partner is murdered, his final words convince Shauna that she’s in danger too. But where can she turn? Zach Bannister was her husband’s best friend and is the person she blames for his death. She’s barely spoken to him since. But right now he seems her only hope for protecting her son.

Zach is only too happy to assuage his guilt over Jack’s death by helping Shauna any way he can. But there are secrets involved dating back to Shauna’s childhood that more than one person would prefer to stay hidden.

In The View from Rainshadow Bay, suspense, danger, and a longing to love again ignite amid the gorgeous lavender fields of Washington State.

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The story starts with a terrifying moment that makes you want to keep reading to figure out who is in danger and where the story will lead. Then we meet Shauna and Zach and get to know them as characters. I quickly felt for both Shauna and Zach, both lost someone important to them and this caused a major wedge in their friendship. I was sad for Shauna and how she felt she had lost her one chance at happiness and was now meant to be alone forever. It frustrated me the way Shauna and Jack’s mom treated Zach. He placed enough guilt on himself without having to deal with their treatment.

Shauna is trying to cope with her new reality as a single mom after losing her husband in a climbing accident. She blames Zach for the death of her husband so their once close friendship has crumbled and she hasn’t spoken with him for quite a while, but she will do anything for her son. He asks her to ask Zach to go on a father-son hike with him, forcing her to speak with Zach. This moment ends up being the start of a renewed interaction between them.

Shauna witnesses the murder of a friend right after he gave her something to pass on to someone else. Shortly after this incident Shauna’s life gets threatened and Zach’s home becomes the safest place for her and her son. The forced time together makes Shauna have to interact with Zach, making her remember the good friendship they once shared, but she still holds onto her hatred towards him. When another person dies and Shauna discovers that her husband’s death may not have happened the way she thinks it did, this leads her to trying to figure out what really happened and who is behind everything going on. I tried to figure it out along with Shauna and Zach, but was surprised by the reveal. The “product” the killer is selling felt a little unbelievable to me, and their actions didn’t seem to line up between the various crimes. I found the story to drag a bit in the middle, after starting off with a bang, deaths of a few characters and the threat to Shauna, nothing really happened again until almost near the end, where the action definitely picked up again.

Shauna and Zach both learn to make peace with the past. Through the help of the pastor Shauna learns that even though she experiences feelings for another man it does not take away what she once had with her husband. Zach learns he is not to blame for the death and he is not betraying his friend by caring for Shauna and her son. I really enjoyed the way this second chance story was presented and how the characters learned to let go of the past and embrace the future God has in store for them.